I was out of commission for a couple of weeks, first due to Hayfever and allergies weakening defenses and letting a virus in, then an injury kept me inside for about 4 days.
The gardener’s absence is noticed. I realized yesterday afternoon that a groundHOG had eaten my two remaining red cabbages and kale, and trampled/chewed up the container sugar snaps in the Patio SIP. Later on, it came back and I scared it off by banging on the window. But the situation is pretty hopeless. I was really disappointed because I was feeling like I would be well enough to go out and play in the garden again the next day ....today.
I took a picture out of the window and then again today when I went outside.
There was a lot to harvest after so many days. Some things should have been harvested days ago and were spoiled. There were evidence of something (probably chipmunks) raiding the apples. Several sock puppet apples were on the ground. Two had been taken out of the socks and chewed up. One was almost all eaten up. One of the two Seckel pears was missing, and one overripe persimmon was on the ground.
One ripe persimmon was way up high on the branch, so I fashioned a “picker” out of bamboo, wire, haystring, and a cup. When I returned with it to pick the persimmon, I realized there was a monarch butterfly caught in a spiderweb, about 3 feet from the persimmon and equally high up. I used the bamboo end of the “picker” to free the butterfly, and it was able to fly up and away — YAY
After that little “good deed”, the persimmon fell right into the cup of my picker when I poked at it.
...maybe it’s the 3+ inches of rain we had in the last week — the Figs had ripened and started to explode. I had to throw out about 5 of them between the potted Petit Nigra and the in-ground Chicago Hardy. More than half of each cluster of raspberries were moldy or were spoiled from grey mold.
...many of the sweet peppers had over-ripened or had been invaded by pepper maggots or maybe hornworms or cutworms and had holes.
...I let our two indoor kitties out with me today for their supervised outing which they hadn’t been getting while I couldn’t go outside. One of them caught a chipmunk on the patio and the two of them finished it off together — maybe it’s the same one that had been raiding the fruit trees.