I checked the weather, and we got around 1.25 inches of rain overnight in addition to the 1.5 inches from Saturday night. My garden should be loving it! Depending on how much rain we get tonight, outside work will be halted until Wednesday or Thursday. Severe thunderstorms are predicted for this afternoon and evening.

Depending on how much rain we get tonight, outside work will be halted until Wednesday or Thursday. Severe thunderstorms are predicted for this afternoon and evening.

I made a Heirloom tomato, cucumber, and red onion salad. I made dressing with vinegar and oil, Emiril’s Italian seasoning, and some new hot smoked Spanish Paprika. New paprika made all the difference in the world.

Then I started on the zucchini pasta; Natalie had already grated the cheese. I went out and picked another zucchini, basil, and mint. I had dinner ready at about 7:15. We ate on the porch as everything on the deck was wet, even though the rain stopped and the sun was out.

After dinner, we went outside from the porch. We sat for a while and then went out to pick vegetables. We got a load of tomatoes, some zucchini, and a couple of cucumbers.

I went out around 11:00 and started trimming the blackberries and cleaning the old canes. I pulled way more out than I thought I would. I picked a few ripe berries. I think they and everything else will be early this year. I’ll be picking some Cherokee Carbon Heirloom tomatoes today. They are exceedingly early. I also weeded the rest of the mint garden.

I planted the cucumber plants and then another hill of Cocozelle Zucchini. Then I ripped out the old pea plants and weeded that bed. Then, I succession-planted Lazy Housewife pole beans along the trellis. This is about two weeks earlier than I planted them last year. Last year’s crop got eaten once they started climbing.

We had about half-an-inch of rain a couple of days ago, but it did little to dampen the parched soil. My plan was to water the whole garden today, but we received over 2 inches of rain during the night, so I don’t need to go out and water. It’s a little too wet to weed, so I’ll do that tomorrow or Tuesday.

The rabbits ate a clump of Black-eyed Susans down to the ground, and are now starting to attack the okra. I will be re-planting the peppers and I guess I’ll need to do more fencing.

The past two days I was cleaned up the gardens along the back of the house. It took several hours to pull all of the dead flowers out of the chives, but that will make harvesting much easier. Toby helped.

These pots were planted on May 22. I’ll plant the next two pots in a few days. It looks like a month separation between plantings might be close to optimum. I am hoping I can just alternate between the two sets of pots.

I planted Genovese Basil and Slow-bolting Cilantro from Terroir Seeds in Arizona.

I picked the first Early Girl II Tomato from the Container garden today, which is always a cause for celebration. It was about 5 days earlier than last year. Of course, I had tomato toast for breakfast.

I picked my first zucchini yesterday, and we should have the first cucumbers in a couple of days.

The rabbits are extremely destructive this year. They destroyed all of my Romaine lettuce and they have topped almost all of the pepper plants including the ones that are fenced in.

It’s time to bring in the enforcer! Toby is going to be staying with us for a couple of weeks, we’ll see if that makes a difference. He finally figured out that there are rabbits to chase, but it’s unlikely that he will catch any.

I went out first thing and picked currants for the Crostini that I was making to take to Jared’s for Father’s Day. A squirrel had climbed up in the plant a couple of days previous, but he didn’t do much damage.. They were likely a little too tart for his liking.

Annabelle and I went out later and picked a colander full. I overplanted because the seeds were a couple of years old and then thinned them out, so we had a good yield. I made a vegetable dip to serve the peas with.

I saw the first fireflies of the season in the backyard as we were relaxing on the deck after dinner. There were quite a lot of them. But as usual, early in the season, they were almost all gone by the time it got completely dark. This is the earliest that they have appeared in the six years that I have been keeping track.

I took part of the morning to get caught up on garden photography since it was clear and sunny. I decided to use the drone for all of the shots because I think the higher perspective shows the planting better.