Spuds

We grew potatoes in a pot this year. The dirtballs on the right are our crop. Not much, I'll admit, but they were great in the soup I made. Yes, they're all already gone.

The three small lumps to the left are peanuts.  A squirrel keeps burying them in our yard. Toaster likes to dig them up, and the squirrel runs across the top of our fence barking at him while he does so. I've nicknamed the squirrel Grumpus.

In the time it took me to go inside and load this picture up on my computer, the peanuts disappeared. Grumpus strikes again.

Frankensquash

We get a lot of cross pollination in our backyard and then the seeds survive the compost pile and surprise us.

This year, we got something that appears to be a cross between a pumpkin and a zucchini.

Last year, we got something that seemed to be a cross between a pumpkin and a butternut squash. I used for all the applications I would normally use a butternut squash for and it worked quite well.

Not sure how the pumpchini will cook up, but we shall see!

Planted!

This is what the pond looked like yesterday afternoon.

Sadly, as I was working in the kitchen last night, I heard a splash. Rob went to investigate and the eighty pound rock that makes up the waterfall had slid into pond.

The good news is that Tubby wasn't in it. We've been keeping her in the ghetto pond during the day and bringing her into the bathroom at night.

The bad news is that we're 90% sure it crushed the filter, it takes up the entire deep end and we have NO idea how we're going to get it out.

Ground Work

Rob really got into it when it came time to lay down the liner.

We're 98% certain the turtle's a girl. Her name is Tubby.

She seems pretty content with the pool Rob made in the blue storage bin, but she's vulnerable to raccoons, so Rob's been bringing her in each night to a similar bin in the shower. Not a great long term solution.

We decided to build her a pond along one corner of the house. Last weekend we dug the basic pond and laid the foundation for a cage that will go around it -- kind of like a chicken coop -- to keep raccoons and other critters from getting to Tubby. We used some of the old bricks from the fireplace that we still had on hand.

Rob's been watching Gardeners' World to learn how to make a pond. After we had the basic shape, Rob put in a special pond liner, which will keep the water from leaking out.

The pond needs a filter and Rob rigged the outtake hose so that it splashes over a rock. Hurray! Our own private waterfall. It sounds really pretty.

Tomorrow, the plants go in and then we get to work building the cage. Hope to have this done before the weekend is out.