Unenchanted meeting

My little tomato seedlings are doing poorly.  As a matter of fact, I think they are kicking the bucket from damp off and now UV damage on my part (too impatient to get them out of the house and optimistically thinking that the UV rays would kill fungus/rid the seedlings of excess potential moisture...? I know, I know... hardening off, I did it a little too quickly and now I'm paying for it with dying seedlings, the surviving ones now splashed bleach white from the rays.

Luckily I had some leftover seed of 7 of the 13 varieties (lucky old 13, eh?) that I had planned to grow that I now get to re-grow.  Woo.

Well, if things go poorly again in about a week or so, then I'm just going to have to buy some plants. And that would just make me want to express myself in words that I can't/shouldn't post on this blog.

Anywhos, I left the remaining potentially survivable (we'll see) seedlings on a tray  on the ground away from my platform of newly sown  seeds just in case damping off fungus spores want to travel and infect others like vampires.  I returned a few hours later  to have a look-see at my pathetic seedlings when I noticed that there was a disturbance in one pot-verse:

Can you see it?

A little bit closer...

Yep.  That's a TOAD.  That buried itself.  Between 2 seedlings.  In a pot just large enough to hold its warty little self.

*SIGH*

I watered the plants a bit taking care to give the toad a bit of a cold shower and wandered at why the heck it didn't choose some of shadier regions of the garden that are relatively plentiful (and easier to get into).

I figured this was a lesson learned so I raised the crummier seedling tray up a bit on some bricks, took out the toad inhabited pot and left it on the ground so when Mr. Toad (where was Mr. Frog?) decided to hop on out he didn't have to go mini-skydiving in the process.

Naturally, when I took out Mr. Toad's pot the scamp then decided to vacate.

*SIGH* (again)

I'm sure we'll meet again Toad (most likely in one of my other pots or plots.

Birds and the bees...

This post is sort of a self congratulatory pat on my back, not entirely out of ego, but because I am thrilled to have attracted so much cool stuff to my garden: birds, squirrels/chipmunks (not always good to have around, but fun to watch and entertain the dog with), various bees, hummingbirds, assassin bugs, praying mantises, tree frogs, toads and even snakes are all cool!

Most of the work done to attract all of this wildlife was through happenstance and some actual hard work on my end (do you have any idea how many toads I carried back to my garden?)


Quite a few of the birds that have flocked to my garden (which reminds me, I need to built birdhouses for) came due to prodigious amounts of seed I left out which also attracted squirrels/chipmunks (unfortunately who were then attracted to my attic... another story for another time). The birds have further stayed and produced bird babies all around who feed their way on an accidental wild woodland strawberry groundcover I acquired from a plant trading section. I didn't even know I picked up some of the plant, but it covers nearly all of a helpful location i was tired of mulching.

Forgotten overturned pots and large flat rocks provided safe spots and nooks and crannies for toads who have in turn attracted snake(s) who hopefully will rid me of some chipmunks :)
The chipmunks too have been helpful though by planting all these sunflower seeds that had been for the birds and I always have a sunflower somewhere, which makes MORE sunflowers to attract the seed eaters.

Even my accidental spots of standing water, terrible mosquito breeding grounds I know, but the dragonflies near the lake have popped on by to make themselves at home here too.

It's all pretty remarkable and makes you want to sing the "Circle of Life," huh?

Actually that might be a little too saccharin even for me and that was my college graduation song. Made me feel like I was preparing to get eaten by a lion. Thanks for preparing me for life Purdue!

All in all, this is just a post about me blathering on about how happy I am that I'm not the only one enjoying my garden. Now if only I could make the squash vine borers not enjoy it.