In the Garden Again...

We spent some time in the garden this weekend... but the weather has taken a turn towards summer.
This means that the burmuda grass is going beserk, that insects want to bite me and that my plants have a decided preference for wilting and dying!
Still... I am hopeful for some tomatoes (they are blooming)... the racoon left us ONE bunch of pawpaws, and I have a lot of blooms.
In the last week alone, my coreopsis, tomatoes, rose campion, yarrow and jasmine have all bloomed.
The sunflower seeds DS planted a week ago have sprouted and begun to grow.
We have some beans growing (both green and lima) AND a peanut. Yes... 'A' peanut. Dh bought some raw peanuts to plant and ONE of them has sprouted :D
I am thinking of picking some of my blooms and making a bouquet for the table... one good aspect of the heat is to severely reduce the pollen count... which had made Dh and myself feel rather poorly last week!
I now have some weird yearnings for a pool in the back yard... and a desperate hope that the biting flies are GONE this year! Please....
On a nice note regarding insects though... we HAVE seen the dragonflies in the yard... including a heretofore unseen yellow one, a number of butterflies... including blues, sulphurs and the tiger swallowtail... and this fellow, whom I believe to be either the questionmark butterfly:

Here he is on my pawpaw tree (that is a net trying to keep the coons out of the fruit you can see) but he had a decided preference for my hop vine.
He fluttered about the garden quite happily.

I also believe that this is the culprit, who for tha past two or three years has devoured my pleurisy root (also called butterfly weed) plant as a caterpillar...

Well... it certainly looks like the kind of caterpillars that enjoy lunching there anyway... take a look :)


The caterpillars are quite ferocious looking arent they?
If you click on the link above or the picture, you can have a closer look at them ;)

To end on a nice note though... I found a great site while trying to identify the dragonfly I mentioned earlier (who visited when my camera was not here :( )... check it out for some fantastic nature photography!

Trek Nature