The pileated woodpecker seems to be a regular at our feeders now. She has a distinctive, sharp call as she flies into the yard. Also, we do believe she is a “she”, because she does not appear to have the red cheek stripe that males have.

The honeybees are loving the lavender right now.

We have a gooseberry!

Rachel just harvested this huge pile of lettuce from one end of our raised beds and it didn’t even make a dent. It’s salad season!

Starlings…sheesh. Not only are they:

1. An invasive species whose introduction can be blamed on Shakespeare fanatics,
2. Bullies, and
3. Absolute devourers of seed,

their chicks are noisy and needy, despite being as big as the adults. We don’t harm them, but we don’t love them either.

A crow has showed up in our backyard a few times now to eat seed. We’re that much closer to our goal of making friends with a corvid…

Beautiful lavender. Also, the grapes are doing something new! Turns out they’re flowering. What I noticed before were not actually grapes but flower blooms. (Which I would have know had I thought about it a bit more carefully. What can I say? I was excited.)

OFA on how to garden vertically. Because of our limited space, we’re trying to do more of this. For example, this year we put up a PVC arch on which we’ll grow some cucumbers and melons. We already have a pergola for the grapes and honeysuckle. The malabar spinach will be growing up a fan shaped trellis. And we’re going to try a three sisters planting again this year, where pole beans climb corn stalks. (It didn’t do well last year, we theorize, because 1. we planted it too late and 2. corn doesn’t like raised beds.) As Adam Savage says, “there’s always room on the z-axis.”

A good weekend for cheap, reused stuff:

1. I came across a thrift/junk store (location: secret) with a large selection of old tools. I didn’t have time to look around much but I will go back next weekend.
2. My in-laws gave me a couple of old garage cabinets. Ain’t nothing fancy—but it freed up a lot of room.
3. An acquaintance gave us one of those roller composters. We’ve struggled with that kind of composting in the past but we’ll definitely try it again for free.
4. We found a bathroom cabinet for $10 in good condition. Rachel has had an eye out for one for a long time. Minor repairs, replaced a bit of hardware, painted it black.

Sugar snap peas, sweet alyssum, lettuces. We started planting sweet alyssum because it is a good companion plant for vegetables. We keep growing it because it’s such a lovely little thing.