What did you do in the garden today?

Wow, love your tomatoes!! I plant basil, marigolds and rosemary to keep pests away from the tomatoes
TY! Your raised beds look very protected from chickens. We bird net our raised beds to keep out chickens, feral cats, moths, & wild birds. Unfortunately it doesn't keep out rodents that can chew thru anything or they can jump up on barriers so we pick veggies sometimes before completely ripe before rodents or wild birds pick at them!

Tomato fruit, vines, & leaves are toxic to most insects & animals so they are a good plant for the garden but there is the horned tomato worm moth that loves tomato bushes so we keep the netting up while plants are still immature so the moth can't get thru the netting to lay eggs/larvae.

Horned Worm & Moth are tomato destroyers!
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Tomato Hornworm (Five-spotted Hawkmoth): Identification, Life Cycle, Facts & Pictures

Tomato Hornworm (Five-spotted Hawkmoth)


After most of the harvest is done we remove the netting & let the hens play in the exhausted beds & let them eat the cherry tomatoes, turn over the soil, or dustbathe in the beds if they want.
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Herbs like Basil, Thyme, Oegano, Peppermint, etc, get potted in containers in the patio where they live well for several seasons in pots. DH plants his chili peppers in pots & they live well for a few seasons too.
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I repotted 21 out of my 24 tomato starts because they were turning yellow. I suspected that it was because of using poor quality soil. I put them in the same size pots using Miracle Gro potting mix. Hope it cures the problem.
So sorry ~ Hope they revive! Tomato plants are generally hardy.

Just to be safe we always use B-1 TRANSPLANT SHOCK liquid to water each transplanted seedling & plant in the cool of the evening. If the seedlings are very young & tender we additionally shade them from the sun for a day or two till they look revived & show new growth. We don't use chemical potting like Miracle Grow but mix organic fertilizer, Azomite, vermiculite, wood ash, & pulverized powdered egg shells from our chickens to mix into the soil before planting. Tomatoes love calcium so what better way to use egg shells?!
 
Yesterday, I planted two nursery pots of mint into a balcony container. We have hilariously bad luck with mint failing to thrive and just up and dying on us. Let's hope this time is different!

Today, I watered everything I have growing at my house and emailed (again) the administrator for my neighborhood community garden about which bed I've been assigned so I can get started prepping for sowing beans.
 
Plants are confused ~ 2 days of sweltering over 90F heat & today overcast under 70F !!! The largest plant stays in shade mostly while the smallest plant gets most of the brutal sun during hot days. It looks pekid. Hope it pulls thru ~ our warm days are brutal to vegetation here.

ZUCCHINI ~ 04-07-2025
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ZUCCHINI ~ 05-12-2025
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I picked 4+ pounds of rhubarb to make jam. I have it cut up, mixed with sugar, and macerating in the fridge. I'll make jam tomorrow. I'm going to try adding a touch of clove to a small batch, see if I like that.

I dug up some more weeds and gave the grubs to the chickens.

The humidity arrives tomorrow (boo!), but that means there are possibilities of pop up showers (yay!). I'll gladly take any rain that comes.
 
Rained again today before the ground could dry with 2 days w/o rain, yesterday I could softly walk in it to dump aged chicken manure.
Sooo I did nothing in the garden Again. It's supposed to rain tomorrow and the next day... back to the ark building.

I will say the worms are abundant, if only all of them would eat them! Now if I pick up the worms and break them in half, and feed it to them, well now, it's from mamma's hands, must be good. I cannot, no will not do this...well not everyday.
 

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