April Garden Update

When I posted my March Garden Update last month,

I mentioned that I was starting something new,  

where I post a Garden Update the last day of every month!

So since today is the last day of the month,

I have the April Garden Update for you!!!

Let me start off by saying how much I dislike caterpillars.

Yes -I know they turn into moths and beautiful butterflies,

but they also make gardening much more frustrating!

Need past proof?

Check here, here, here, here AND here.

To say I'm not a fan would be an understatement.

So you can bet I was super upset when I saw one eating my Thyme!

See that lil sucker towards the top left of the picture?

GRRRRRRR!

And shortly after I noticed another one eating my Oregano!

No, no, no.

Just no!!!

My poor, sad Oregano was done for.

Hope those leaves were tasty - 

since that was your last meal Mister Caterpillar!

Luckily they haven't found the jalapeno plant yet,

because it's still thriving and growing!

And look new pepper buds!

I thought there were only two at first...

But from another angle I noticed there were FIVE!!!

And then just a few days later,

a few of the buds had become flowers!

In last month's garden update, 

I thought for sure I'd have picked my first lemon.

Well sadly I was wrong!

They're so close - but still a little too green!

I was still hoping I'd get to pick the first one real soon!

Except to my surprise, there wasn't much picking!

Nope - just a few days after snapping the two previous photos,

I was outside watering and hardly touched the lemon when it fell off!

Not a giant lemon by any means,

but it's still my first homegrown lemon 

and one could say that I'm proud!!!

I was shocked again this past weekend.

 I found a second one that had fallen off as well.

C'mon lemonssssssssss!

Not only have I been able to pick some lemons, 

but the mums I bought in the Fall are blooming again too!

They've had buds for awhile, but only recently bloomed again!

While the mums are doing great, that's not the case for all my flowers.

I ripped out the dying flowers and their coconut liners

and hope to redo that area of my garden soon!!!

And last, but certainly not least - my gardenia bloomed!!!!

I've had this plant for over a year and it never flowered.

Not once. It'd get buds, but never any flowers!

I was in shock and couldn't get over how amazing it smells!

There are currently four other buds on the plant

and I hope they all become flowers too.

As a reminder -

I will be blogging about garden updates 

every last day of each month.

It may not be a complete update each month,

but it will be about something in the garden.

So keep coming back to see what I have growing!

Robyn vs. Caterpillars - Chapter 3!

If you've read my blog since the beginning, you'll know that I've had my fair share of problems with caterpillars. Not just on one thing, but I've had caterpillars on NUMEROUS of my oh so loved crops! See here, here and here!

I hadn't really had many problems this year, but when I found these guys the beginning of last week, I was really upset!

TWO!!!

Oh look close - there are really THREE! 

And I was my usual self - making drastic decisions without much thought. Luckily, the only thing really affected were flowers that were sadly already getting eaten up by what I'm guessing were caterpillars!

Bye Bye Flowers! 

A few days after, I found these little guys and was really happy I'd mad my drastic decision earlier in the week. 

Grrrrr!!!

To add to my annoyance - I found ANOTHER little sucker on my Sage!

Why can't they just LEAVE MY STUFF ALONE!?!?!?! 

Go away caterpillars!!!

To make myself feel better, I decided I couldn't let the window boxes sit empty - so I bought new flowers this weekend! 

I'm on the lookout for more caterpillars and if I see any, they're DONE!!!