Green Thumb Update

Earlier this summer, I blogged about this year's gardening effort at Chez Bilbo. Here's where we are a few months later:

- We are up to our armpits in basil, tarragon, thyme, chives, and rosemary. In fact, the basil is doing so well that I'm a little afraid of it...

- The parsley, dill, cilantro, and marjoram have died out. I have since learned that parsley is a biennial plant, which explains why it grew like mad last year, roared back early this year, then almost overnight went to seed and died out.

- The deer and rabbits have eaten all my tomato plants. Agnes and I have different views of this: she says the animals have to eat, too; I say they should go next door and eat at my neighbor's outdoor salad bar instead.

- The two yellow squash plants yielded exactly one big, beautiful squash. It's so nice I'm thinking of having it bronzed and displaying it on the mantlepiece. The zucchini plants yielded lots of pretty flowers, but no zucchinis.

- We have about five baseball-sized green and red bell peppers dangling from miserable-looking plants that have been munched down to stalks by the deer and rabbits.

Three words for next year: chicken wire fence.

The upside of all this is that the garden side of our house smells wonderful as the herbs bask in the summer sun. The downside is that the compost pile side of the house...well...doesn't. I'm also taking a bit less neighborly approach to the local wildlife...

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow when we celebrate this week's Cartoon Saturday.

Bilbo