In the Garden

What is going on in my garden?

Well, it's not the magical abundant flourishing I imagined come late July. In fact, it's a lot of weeds and dirt. I came back from Holden Village to find my snap peas dying, but with peas on the vines. My lily and dahlia bulbs never sprouted. The lupine never came up. The marigolds never came up. The indoor seedlings never moved past the pot-of-dirt stage.

However, I have nasturtiums! Little ones over in the shady area. They didn't come up in the sunnier area with the lupine.

I also have one sunflower! It grew over a foot while I was gone, and now looks like it's getting ready to bloom.

Why do you have only one sunflower? you ask.

Cats.

They use my sunflower patch as a litter box, and dug up all but one sunflower while the sunflowers were just seedlings. I've got tips on how to fend off slugs, ants, aphids, and all manner of creepy-crawlies. But cats?!

The strawberries are doing fine, the spinach has bolted (but that's to be expected come mid-summer), and I've got three flourishing tomato plants, one with a bunch of little green fruits. I've got one pepper plant that is very temperamental. When I came back from Holden it was so wilted and shriveled I thought it was a goner, but careful watering has made it look almost healthy.

Sometimes I curse Idaho and its fickle weather, frost one moment and in the nineties the next. Sometimes I think I have a black thumb. And then I tell myself this is all just practice, for when I move back to the Pacific Northwest and have my own land and own garden.