Some Firsts

Neither of this weekends firsts are positive I'm afraid. First, there was Sunday's discovery of Japanese beetles on the lavender, on the bean plants, on the hydrangea and mating on my camera bag. I have never been one to kill insects. There's even a spider that lives in a basket on my kitchen counter, but Japanese beetles bring out the worst in me. I crushed as many of them as I could, but some escaped.

The 2nd first is deer related; the first time we've had any deer damage in our yard. We had a doe May 30th, we had footprints in one of my herb beds June 12th, but it wasn't until June 14th that they began to dine. Not in the kitchen garden thank goodness! The victims: the green hosta, and the flowers on all of them. It's interesting because there was A Gardener's Diary where a woman said the deer ate her hosta in the following order: the green, the variegated, then the blue. Our deer had all three to choose from in various places of the yard and only devoured the green ones. It will be interesting to see which color goes next.

The last first was the most delicious for us, not the deer! Blackberries!