Weedy and Seedy

That was my herb garden this afternoon after a summer of near total neglect. Since it was merely in the mid-90s today instead of 100F, I decided to spend some time outside tending to my plants. Other than some quick harvesting here and there to make dinner, I haven't done a thing to the herb garden (or any of my other gardens) since June. When I went out to inspect the bed, I found overgrown untidy plants, with weeds running rampant, herbs all shaggy and gone to seed, brown or dead foliage, leggy and flopped over stems, and lots of spider webs and yard debris. What a mess!

It's fixed now, and looking a lot better. I should have taken before and after photos, but I'd almost be too embarrassed to post the "before" shot. As a reward for the hot, hard work, I harvested three big bunches of mint, thyme and oregano that are in perfect shape for drying.

I had some company while I labored: Moxy, on one of her first forays into the outside world (Zima was out there, too). Now that she is a year old and has had all of her "outside" vaccinations, we are letting Moxy join Zima as a part-time outdoor cat. We'll let her out while we are home to keep an eye on her. So far she is cautious and is not used to the heat, but seems to love getting to explore and experience new things.

Friday CatBlogging - Catnip Bliss

This is Zima, just after her catnip romp. That is one happy kitty.

Stoner Cat

I've been tagged by Beth, but until I get to that, here is a photo collage of Zima getting stoned on catnip. Enjoy!

I have created a monster.

I've noticed a sharp upturn in the amount of hunting that Zima is doing lately. After not bringing home any catches all winter, she's leaving an awful lot of small critters at the doorstep for us. A week ago it was a small rabbit, yesterday it was a chipmunk, and today she left a half-chewed chipmunk with a leg missing. But something about today's offering gave me a hint as to what may be responsible for her recent killing spree. Remember that catnip I planted for her amusement? Well, right next to the dead chipmunk was a sprig of that catnip plant. It appears that the cat is getting all hopped up on the 'nip and then chasing down some wildlife. I'm not sure if I should feel guilty about this or not. Maybe she is just killing more right now because this is the time when there are more young animals that aren't as savvy about predators as their parents. Or maybe it is an unintended consequence of the 'feline opium den' I planted. Looking at the bright side... she's an old cat, and at least she is getting some exercise (and supplementing her diet).

Here's a picture of the evidence (with dead chipmunk removed).

Digging in the dirt

"Digging in the dirt" is the title of one of my favorite Peter Gabriel songs, and also what I spent most of my weekend doing. I spent several hours on Saturday weeding - mostly wayward monkey grass. Anything with "monkey" in its name is bound to give you trouble... it doesn't stay where it belongs, and is nearly impossible to completely remove once it escapes. I also found out the hard way that using my left index finger as a brace for prying out deep-rooted weeds with a garden tool was a bad idea. Very effective, but by the end of the day my finger was swollen and a little numb.

Today was more fun. With the tedious chores over with, it was time to plant. A quick trip to the nursery was a success for the herb garden. Last week they didn't have anything I wanted, but this week the selection was much better. A little too good, in fact. I made a few impulse buys of some unusual varieties of mint and planted them all together in a large pot (mint is highly invasive, so confining it to a container is a good idea). The rest of the herbs were going to have to fit into the herb garden somehow.


Since I got a few more herbs than I originally planned, I had to enlarge our herb garden before I could get started. I can see how this will play out: every year I will get too much to fit the existing boundaries and will have to make the herb bed larger. In a few years, there won't be any grass to cut on that side of the house! (Hmmm, that's not such a bad plan.) I still need to get mulch for the expansion, but the herb garden is done. Since herbs are food, it means this area is exempt from Georgia's watering restrictions (currently three days a week from midnight until 10am only). Hooray! In the photo above, the latest expansion is the part without any mulch. And the large plants in the back of the bed are some amaryllis (NOT an herb) that were there when we bought the house. Now I have to figure out what to do with the three pepper plants I got. They'll require yet another expansion of the herb garden, or I can keep them in pots.

I also bought some catnip to plant for Zima and Moxy. It hadn't been out of the car for ten minutes when Zima found it, knocked it over, rubbed all over it, ate a few leaves, and got extremely stoned. I'm sure she will have hours of blissful fun, provided she doesn't literally enjoy the poor plant to death. The photos below show her first encounter with it after I planted it in the flower bed. I went back out there later and she still had her face stuck in it. I just hope all the other neighborhood cats don't discover it. I'd hate for my front yard to be the local opium den for felines.





But now I've gotta go - PDM just pulled some barbecue ribs out of the oven that have been slow-cooking all afternoon and I'm in danger of drooling all over the keyboard.