It's like the wild animal kingdom around here lately. We discovered dozens of these newly hatched garden spiders (Argiope aurantia) crawling all over the sides of the compost bin at the community garden the other day. 
I woke up this morning to the news that the mantids had begun hatching from the egg case (aka ootheca) and were filling up that little bag.
I honestly didn't think it was going 
As previously mentioned, I bought a praying mantis egg case at the Parkdale Horticultural Society Plant Sale the other day.
It's not exactly the most effective form of pest prevention in the garden for a few reasons: 
Look who showed up looking for lunch while I was out on the roof taking photos yesterday afternoon. He had absolutely no fear whatsoever. I could have reached out and touched him. I yelled and stomped 
... a 'Black Brandywine' tomato taken before its time was up by an unknown mammalian critter. This kind of thing is like a right-of-passage for food gardeners. Unless you're gardening in a sterile bubble, you have probably 
This post (I kind of hate that word to describe writing here) is going to be piecemeal, a quality that is indicative of my life right now as I float or rather scramble from one task to 
The garlic mustard population is really getting out-of-hand at the community garden this year. I've discovered loads of it in unused areas of disturbed, lousy soil and it is expanding rapidly into the edges around plot beds. 
They say that lightly brushing your hands against tomato leaves stimulates a growth hormone in the plant encouraging radial (aka stockier) growth. I'm still searching for a study that supports this but I chose to believe
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| « Jun | ||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | ||
Make a donation to You Grow Girl. Any amount will be much appreciated.