My raspberry patch is not terribly huge. It is about 4'x6. Though as you can see, the canes droop down and enlarge their area. The one that arcs into my car attacks me everytime I need to get in the door. I have to be careful when I move it to get in so that I don't accidentally grab a bumble bee or wasp.
This morning the raspberry patch was a happening place. I saw two frogs instead of one this morning. One was an inch long (in the photo) and the other was just 3/4". Such a cute tiny little guy. In the photo it looks like a big fat frog, but the leaf he is standing on is a raspberry leaf, so you can get an idea of how small he really is. Since I got a photo and had time to look at them, I'm guessing they are spring peppers. But they aren't peeping and it's not spring. Not that I'm complaining, but what are they doing here? I've never had a frog in my garden before.
I'm wondering if it is the road construction across the street. That side of the street has a wetlands way back behind. I've seen tadpoles in the vernal ponds there. The birds back there are really something too - or were. Maybe the clearing of all the brush and trees for the road forced them to find a new home. The thought makes me worried for them. I know they aren't building within a hundred feet of the wetlands, because they didn't want to get a permit for that, but peepers need their trees too.
In the vegetable garden I saw a peeper last night while slug snipping. I wonder if they eat slugs. He was perched on the top of the compost bin. Under him on the ground was a swarm of slugs. Hmm a herd of slugs? A tribe of slugs? I suppose it really ought to be a slime of slugs, but I digress. One of the slugs was huge - over two inches long. And he was orange brown. Then I found two more of the monsters. Ack. I haven't been out slug hunting in too many days. I saw a toad one night and decided he ought to be eating my slugs, so I stopped. But the amphibians just aren't up to the challenge.
This morning in the veggie garden I had the sorry chore of harvesting the last zucchini and pulling out the plant. The experimental late planted squash got pulled too. It was a failed experiment. They were covered in mildew so I figured they weren't going to last. I think fall is just not squash season here. The mildew likes the cooler weather. All that is left is the yellow squash. I snipped off all the infected leaves. Maybe I'll get one more harvest from it before its demise. Just maybe.
While I was there I looked at the dehostaed bed. It grates on me to leave the job half finished. So I worked on it a little more. It used to have rocks that raised the bed up, but I wanted the bed raised even higher and didn't like how much width the rocks took up. So I removed the rocks in the back of the beds and replaced them with brick pavers. I snitched the pavers from another section of the garden. Two from a small path, that I immediately repaved with some of the rocks. Paths looks so pretty with rock pavers. The brick ones aren't nearly as nice. The others I snitched from another path (part of which you can see in the photo). I'll just mulch that area. Most of my paths are just mulched unless they travel through a bed.
I also ripped out the oregano (sorry wasps) and the chives that I'm not keeping and trimmed back the dianthus. Now I really want to double dig this bed and put in lots of compost. The silly pumpkin vine just won't let me. I keep looking at the pretty pumpkin. It seems like it is full size to me, but it won't start turning. I may just decide to dig around the vine and put in the compost next to it. If you hadn't noticed I tend to have some obsessive tendancies. I start something and I'm consumed by it. I don't want to quit until it is done. It really bugs me that I can't finish it NOW. I tell myself it is because I want the compost to decay more (which is true, root crops don't do well with too fresh compost), but the reality is I just want to finish.
Well I was wrong. Yesterday I saw the frog in my garden again. The funny thing is that last year's frog post was written on September 4th. I'm thinking my frogs are just September frogs. I get to see them in September then they disappear for another year.
