Infiltration by the ENEMY

So there I am, minding my own damn beeswax after getting a particularly bad nights sleep downstairs in the post-surgical suite set up for Tasha in the den. I was eating my typical breakfast of Cheerios with milk (in a tall glass, not a bowl) and I happened to look out the window at one of my tomato pots. GASP. There was potting soil all over the ground and the trellis was tipped over. NO. THIS IS NOT HAPPENING.

Panic. Have they destroyed everything? What kind of animal is this? I immediately think it is one of the plethora of cats my mom has collected (It is up to 8 now, people) and call her up crying. I convince her and myself that some childhood trauma that she suffered is still evident through years of therapy, and now she is passing her misery onto me vicariously by having her collection of cats destroy my vegetable garden.

I quickly realize that no cat possesses the physical strength to almost completely empty a two feet deep by two foot wide pot. I survey the yard for damage. I find no less than 10 spots that this animal, assumedly a raccoon, dug up for no apparent reason. None of the fruits/vegetables are in bloom, and it dug most of the holes in random spots in the mulch. Even though 2 tomatoes, 2 beans, 3 carrot, and 2 corn plants were dug up, none of them were eaten. I know we're supposed to "be one with nature" but this thing is a saboteur and needs to be eradicated. But seriously, it's come back every night and every pot that isn't covered completely is totally emptied out, with nothing to show for it. We had a bout of raccoons with distemper a couple of years ago and the police had to come and shoot them. That was awful. I will sacrifice my garden before I have to hear another raccoon get shot.

I believe the last time I updated this, the only seeds that were planted were tomato, cantaloupe, and cucumber. Matt and I started the green beans and corn about 3 weeks ago. I thought I drowned the corn because I watered them, and put the peat pots out in the sun and covered them with the plastic caps, so they were soggy messes the next night. Apparently it was ok though because 3 weeks later they are all about a foot tall. The green beans literally grew 8 inches in the first 24 hours they were in the ground. I started carrots too but only about 7 of them seem to be doing well. Potatoes took almost 2 weeks to sprout, but grew almost 36 inches over the course of the 2 weeks.

The cucumber plants are HUGE, the leaves are the size of the palm of my hand and they are growing tendrils that reach out and wrap themselves around whatever they can find; If I put my hand up to them for a few minutes they start to curl around my finger. One of them is also starting to bud a yellow flower. I had to transplant about 5 of them from the box on the deck to the one near the corn because they aren't getting enough sun and are starting to turn yellow. I had to do the same with ALL of the cantaloupes, although I don't know if they are salvageable.

The tomato plants have doubled in size and quadrupled in width. The burnt leaves from when they were seedlings have fallen off and been replaced with many huge nice green leaves.

Here's a breakdown of what I have, and what the expected yield is:

Cucumbers - Around 8 plants. Each plant yields approximately 25 cucumbers.

Tomatoes - 5 plants. Approximately 25 pounds per plant.

Potatoes - 4 plants. About 15-20 potatoes per plant.

Corn. About 18 stalks. 1 -2 ears per stalk.

Carrots - Only 7, for now. One carrot per plant.

Green beans - 6? plants. About 25 beans per plant.

Cantaloupes - 8 plants. About 5 melons per plant.

I can't figure out how to add multiples of pictures so I'm just adding them to my facebook album.

I'm making different links to the different weeks because it's getting too confusing to keep putting them in the same album.

Vegetables week of May 25 - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2165640&id=24208755

Vegetables week of June 4 - excuse the terrible focus and lighting in this album. The sun was going down and I just wanted to go to sleep. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2165642&id=24208755

The potatoes are barely breaking through in the last album. I'm going to post pictures tomorrow of pictures that I'm taking tomorrow, instead of taking pictures and posting them two weeks late like a lazy piece.