After 3 years, my perennial beds have become well-enough established that I'm going to have to do some dividing and moving come fall, which means that for now, I'm blessed with a crowded bounty of flowers.
These photos are about a week behind, as we've all been laid low with some kind of summer virus, but the days have begun warming up and plants and the people are responding in kind. The tomatoes and peppers are dropping their blooms and starting to make their fruit. We've harvested our first lettuce and made the first batch of basil pesto.
LMC helped me harvest the basil leaves for the pesto, with a few tomato leaves thrown in for good measure. Picking tomato leaves is a new favorite pastime, which means that the fence is sometimes as much for the kid as the critters.
Despite my first fencing efforts, my broccoli was once again ravaged by a woodchuck, which I now know definitively as the culprit because I caught it in the act. From my brief internet research, it looks like my next step is to bury a portion of the fence.
It's also warmed up enough to bring the kiddie pool in action, which LMC loves to play in, provided I join her and she doesn't have to sit in the water. I think there are fewer things that bring greater joy to a toddler than moving water from one thing to another thing. As a bonus feature, when the pool isn't full of water it makes a great dance floor!