I spent some time clearing out the edge lawn-edge of my garden plot. When I was digging out the weeds and clumps of grass, I dug up Japanese beetles and some kind of larvae I've only seen on websites and pesticide packages.

I've tried to be "brave" about squishing up the posts that will ruin my plants, but doing it with my hands is so hard. I have to be wearing gloves, and it helps if I can pick up the creature with soil so I don't have to look at the guts or feel the crunch.

The wind has been blowing around the green mesh fencing I have on the outside edge of my plot. It's an east-west fence and it billows in the northern and southern wind. The posts are holding up well, but the bottom edge isn't secure. When I cleaned it up, I pinned down the edges with garden staples. I probably bought twice as many as I needed, but I'm covered to be sure and I have extra just in case.

I cloched a few of the greens I bought at the farmer's market on Saturday. It really worked well with the spinach and lettuce. In just a couple of days they look really great.

Some of the baby tomato plants I started and transferred to the garden have completely disappeared. Not even a wilted, flattened stem. I hope that they might just be sleeping from the shock and they'll perk up in a few days. It's happened before with other plants, but I've never started tomatoes before. I still have some that haven't been moved, so I will let them grow more before I put them in the ground. I'm very happy to say that not all of the tomatoes I've already planted have died. I'm very excited to see what happens.

I didn't get to the garden today, but I plan on going out tomorrow when it's not very, very hot. I churned up the dirt a bit. With the rain and watering, the silt washed away leaving a shiny shellac of silica on top. The water just runs off to the low spots. So far I'm not able to churn up all of the garden because in areas I've seeded, the plants aren't big enough to see clearly. When the water washes over the top the baby plants are deep enough that their stems are locked into the silica and they aren't washed away.

I'll take more pictures tomorrow. I've also got to install the strings for the beans and other climbers (they're doing great).

This bit of weather coming up is really warm for Minnesota in May. We've had a really warm spring (and winter, and fall), but there is always a chance that something strange can happen with the weather. I think we'll skip the tornadoes this week since it's already been warmish.

Pictures! Tomorrow! Yay!