These are the things that I have found on my latest yard inspection:

1. Too many weeds! (My fault)

2. Quite a bit of leaf damage that I blame on ants.

3. Minimal varmint damage such as chewed leaves and vandalism.

4. Birds are getting most of my berries this year so the chirp must have gotten around that I have both red and black raspberries.

5. My beans, both pole variety and bush, are not germinating very well or something is getting the seeds before this happens.  Most of the green bean leaves have a lot of holes and insect damage.  I was not vigilant early enough, but am now regularly spraying with my detergent, Fels Naptha bar soap and water and garlic powder.  Doesn’t smell or taste too good to most of the bugs.  Make sure to re-spray after watering or a rainfall, if you are lucky enough to get one this year.

6. All my plants maturity is behind schedule.  It is warm enough so I blame the fact that I did not compost my soil this year or add extra nutrients.  I have watered minimally and I live in quite a polluted area and saw the difference between gardening in this city compared to the areas that I used to live in that were considered the suburbs, but were almost country like in setting instead of factories all over.

7. There is a continuous group of all kinds of animals.  My birdbath and fountain attracts all kinds of birds.  I also keep a shallow pan of water for little animals to go to for drinking or bathing.  Sometimes the birds are hogging all the water at the same time.  They are cleanest birds because I see more of them taking baths than drinking!

8. The plants doing the best are the ones I placed in the flowerboxes this year instead of the usual annuals.  You’ll see Spearmint, Dill, Yellow Banana Peppers and tomatoes along with a few Geranium.

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