If you are reading this and not tiring of my toad stories - I am grateful...
For the last two nights, we have picked up our watering cans and watered the garden beds, fruiting trees, containers, vines and bushes as well as the volunteers that showed up this year. Each night, I have watered the pumpkins (previously in the corn and squash bed as volunteers and moved to different locations) and a pretty large toad has been cooling himself under one of the pumpkin plants.
I can't help it - I squeal like a little kid with delight whenever I see the toads in the yard. What we are doing is making a difference! The toad doesn't actually like being watered, so he hops along under the Juniper bush in front of the house until I am done. What I think is actually happening, is that the toad is feeding on bugs in the bed we just recently planted with corn, beans and squash (and apparently about 6 other volunteer sweet pumpkins that I can't move now) There are also several places in the garden that I put water dishes and fill them when we water each night, and that fill with each rain.
It's very important to me to attract amphibians to the garden, to eat slugs and other pests that may hurt the plants we are growing. We haven't seen a snake yet - but there are lots of toads - or at least I think there are based on the number of holes around the herb spiral and other plants.
Everything is an experiment. With each day that passes, I learn more and more about how to set things up to attract certain predators or pollinators, and watch and wait to see if it works...and so far - it is!
The potatoes are at least a foot above the raised bed and we keep adding soil, to grow more potatoes. Of course, we were watering the new grape vines along the fence and noticed that there are potatoes growing there...which means the potatoes we left (because they were too small) last year have seeded a new bed? So potatoes are perennial?
What I do know is that we really need to forget anything we have read or watched and observe how plants act in our particular garden. With the ridiculous winter we have had - I would not have thought that potatoes, tomatoes, and amaranth would have seeded themselves and grown this spring.
It's all quite amazing and magical! And this little guy is apparently very happy !
For the last two nights, we have picked up our watering cans and watered the garden beds, fruiting trees, containers, vines and bushes as well as the volunteers that showed up this year. Each night, I have watered the pumpkins (previously in the corn and squash bed as volunteers and moved to different locations) and a pretty large toad has been cooling himself under one of the pumpkin plants.
I can't help it - I squeal like a little kid with delight whenever I see the toads in the yard. What we are doing is making a difference! The toad doesn't actually like being watered, so he hops along under the Juniper bush in front of the house until I am done. What I think is actually happening, is that the toad is feeding on bugs in the bed we just recently planted with corn, beans and squash (and apparently about 6 other volunteer sweet pumpkins that I can't move now) There are also several places in the garden that I put water dishes and fill them when we water each night, and that fill with each rain.
It's very important to me to attract amphibians to the garden, to eat slugs and other pests that may hurt the plants we are growing. We haven't seen a snake yet - but there are lots of toads - or at least I think there are based on the number of holes around the herb spiral and other plants.
Everything is an experiment. With each day that passes, I learn more and more about how to set things up to attract certain predators or pollinators, and watch and wait to see if it works...and so far - it is!
The potatoes are at least a foot above the raised bed and we keep adding soil, to grow more potatoes. Of course, we were watering the new grape vines along the fence and noticed that there are potatoes growing there...which means the potatoes we left (because they were too small) last year have seeded a new bed? So potatoes are perennial?
What I do know is that we really need to forget anything we have read or watched and observe how plants act in our particular garden. With the ridiculous winter we have had - I would not have thought that potatoes, tomatoes, and amaranth would have seeded themselves and grown this spring.
It's all quite amazing and magical! And this little guy is apparently very happy !
If the Potatoes that were left in the garden got "eyes" then it would begin new plants :) Looks like you are off to a good year :)
ReplyDeleteWe left all of the little ones that were too small to harvest. Many of them are coming up - so I'm not sure what will happen yet !
DeleteGlad to hear that your garden is doing so well; have you given a name to the toad or toads that you see in your garden? ;)
ReplyDeleteNot named yet - there are several that we see every day. We're planning a little pond for this summer to keep them here :)
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