Our Friendly Neighborhood Groundhog

My garden is not thriving.  In fact, we have harvested one cherry tomato so far.  Oh, I've been able to get armfuls of basil and banana peppers from my pots, but my in-the-ground garden?  It's not happening.  And WHY is it not happening?  This guy:

I know, not the best shots, but I didn't have a zoom lens on, and I wasn't about to get attacked by a ravenous groundhog.  I was so frustrated that I have taken to putting bricks in each of the holes he digs around the perimeter, gravel in his home (which is behind our shed), and mothballs around the edge of the garden.  While I want him GONE and eating some other delicious thing, I do not want him DEAD.  I know, crazy animal-nut that I am.  However, Saturday morning, I was DEVASTATED because I thought I had killed him.  There was, what appeared to be, a groundhog curled up in our driveway.  Oh, it was certainly an animal, and probably even one of the other neighborhood groundhogs, and it was most certainly dead...but it wasn't OUR groundhog.  I took these photos of him yesterday.  Proof is in the pudding ya'll. 

Currently, I have 3 leaves of lettuce that are almost to picking size, so Mr. Groundhog?  I know you love them, but aren't multiple heads of lettuce enough?  Could you just leave these last couple of leaves alone?  Please?

How My Garden Grows...I Hope

We do NOT have a large yard.  In fact, we have 0.16 acre.  So sacrificing an 8x10 patch is a little painful.  This is the wave of the future, though, right?  Urban gardening?  We can only hope.  Chris and I both have a bit of an environmental/hippie bent so we feel pretty passionately that people should look into reducing their impact as much as possible.  For us?  That means walking to the grocery store and farmer's market, trying to buy local whenever we can to reduce the fuel spent on transport, reusing and recycling whatever we can, and getting as little pre-processed food as possible.  (my adventures in bread baking will have to be a post for another day)  We've spent too much money on renovations this year, but we intend to get a rain barrell and a composter some time soon. 

This year, we've expanded our operations.  Previously, we've grown tomatoes, peppers, basil, and pumpkins.  We've bought the plants for all but the pumpkins, though.  This year, I started everything from seed.  And...the tomatoes aren't looking so hot after the transfer.  We'll see how it goes.  However, if all goes well, this year's crop is tomato, pepper, basil, cucumber, carrot, lettuce, and beans.  Yum!  Wish us luck!  We'll need it!

In building the garden, we discovered that there was previously a fence in our yard.  Which...is a little frustrating since we're looking at putting one in this summer.  One project at a time.  For now, we just had to dig out the concrete footers.  Actually wasn't terrible.  That was a little surprising.  They're pretty big!

I am VERY sunburnt after spending the day working in the yard.  I'll spare you the pictures, though.  Not much like me, right?  Usually you get every clutzy injury in full color.  Maybe I'm turning over a new leaf.  Maybe I just know I'll have a lot more sunburns later.  Ha!