wordless wednesday: busy little bee.

garden goodness.

as much as we want to plant a fall garden, our current garden space is not ready to make the transition from a spring/summer garden to a fall/winter garden.  there isn't any room.  our basil & pineapple sage are out of control.  our okra plants are in mass production mode.  we have too many hot peppers - jalapenos & serranos - to know what to do with.  we also have a few green peppers & a few straggler tomatoes {although they are NOT as good as the tomatoes we had earlier in the season}.

remember when i first blogged about wanting a fall garden?  i mentioned that we had sprouted watermelon & carrot seeds but neither thrived.  well, the carrots didn't, but when we pulled back all of our yellow squash & zucchini plants adam found out that the watermelon seedlings were doing well.  just a few weeks ago we had this lovely little guy in the garden:

sadly, it got some kind of rot on one end and wasn't fit to eat.  actually, it just wasn't growing any more.  i'm not sure if we have any more in the garden.  my parents ended up with one of our watermelon seedlings & this weekend they picked three small watermelons.  my father said they were delicious.

last week, we took some of our jalapenos and turned them into deliciously warm poppers courtesy of the pioneer woman.  we used the bbq jalapeno poppers recipe from her cookbook.  our only deviation?  we grilled our poppers instead of baking them.  holy hotness!  if you don't have her cookbook & would like the recipe, just e-mail me.

adam's next "jalapeno inspired" act is to make a hot pepper bug spray...for the garden.  we'll see how that will turn out.  i'm just ready for the big ole cup of seeds to leave my kitchen counter.  it makes my eyes water just looking at it!

in addition to all of the yumminess our garden is producing, our garden & flower beds have been a haven for all kinds of neat critters. 

moths are everywhere.  we've had our fair share of beautiful butterflies on our butterfly bush {shown above}, but it seems that lately there are more & more moths flying around.  our knockout roses {partially shown above} have had many visits by the butterflies as well.

i am going to assume that this guy is related to a moth?  i don't know.  he {or she} was hanging out on one of the pepper plants last week.  i saw it when i was picking okra so i grabbed my camera to snap a picture.

i cannot wait for our pineapple sage to bloom so i can show off it's glorious red flowers.  so pretty.

are any of you still gardening?  is anything still flourishing in your yard?  how do you prep your garden & flower beds for the fall and winter?

A funny thing happened in the flower bed last night...

We have three cats.

They are indoor/outdoor cats.

We have one litter box.

It hasn't been cleaned out in months because none of the cats use it. Apparently, our flower beds (and the horseshoe pits...ha ha ha) are much more desirable areas for cat elimination of any kind. Unless, of course, it's a hairball that needs hacking up and then it's either the comforter on my bed or the hallway that becomes the targeted spot...gross.

Yesterday evening Adam was in the backyard redoing a few of the pavers and our female cat, Betsy, was with him. She was trotting through the freshly mulched flower bed and I was watching her. She stopped, dug around for a bit and squatted. No, no...that spot wasn't right. She moved to a different spot in the flower bed and dug another small hole. No, no...still not right. This time, she goes to the FAR end of the flower bed...farthest away from us...and digs yet another hole. I guess it wasn't very nice of us to be watching her, let alone laughing at her, and she felt she needed some privacy.

WRONG.

I guess third time isn't a charm after all because next thing we know she trots back over to where we are, digs up a FOURTH spot in the flower bed and proceeds to tighten up her back legs and get a look on her kitty face that meant business.

That fourth hole was the only one she covered. Thanks for the, uh, fertilizer, Betsy.


Afterword:
Don't ask me why I'm talking about my cat's poop. After you have kids, anything goes...even discussions about poop...no matter who's doing the pooping.