Dry all last year and the beginning of this year (except for a 2ft snowstorm in Feb) until the last week of May when we got a month's worth of rain in 1 week. Alternating cold(30's) then hot (90) then cold (40's) temps in May and June, finally got tomatoes out the beginning of June and MORE rain! Poured for about 20 minutes at dinner last night, weather.com is showing 0 inches but I'm guessing 1/4". More gentle rain overnight, clear this morning and then this afternoon another T-storm. So I'm saying 7.5 -8" this month plus the 3.5" last week of May. Tomatoes are looking sad - I started replacing some yesterday and also planted 6 I'd been holding back. Haven't checked today to see how they've held up in the driving rain (had a couple broken last week). Peppers are still in 6-packs, I guess I can say they're hardened off though they may sunburn when I can get them out, 1 is blooming. Squash looks like it's loving this weather, cukes OK (seeded before squash and they're smaller), spinach is bolting and the kale and Asian greens are just OK. I guess I'll try to harvest mustard greens, tatsoi and bok choy for stirfry mix rather than salad greens since lettuce is so far behind. Carrots are disappearing, lettuce is barely coming in after seeding twice (every time I seed we have a downpour) but the arugula in the mix is getting tall (not bolting yet). Radish bulbs are finally starting to show above the ground 3 weeks after seeding and I don't know what's happened to my chard and beets that I've seeded twice. Beans are doing OK, but I lost 2/3 of my edamame. The only thing I'm harvesting right now that is doing really well is strawberries and they're coming to an end just as market season is beginning. Blueberries and brambles are coming along though.

From what I understand, birds and squirrels, your typical backyard wildlife, don't really care for vegetables, particularly tomatoes. Although I know squirrels LOVE corn. Anyways, as mentioned above, they are probably looking to get a drink, and they've found plenty of liquid in your tomatoes. As also mentioned, putting out a bird bath will provide them the water they are looking for. We feed the birds here, and have a birdbath as well, and have never had issues with birds damaging anything, except fruit. They love raspberries and such, but those things spread so fast, that a few missing berries is ok. Oh, and if/when you put out a birdbath, you'll start getting algae growth in it after a few days. To combat this, put some copper into the water. Pennies are not copper, so they won't work. I just tossed a 6" piece of bare copper wire into the bath, and I don't get algae at all. Birds can be a good thing to help eat bugs from your garden, so attracting them isn't all that bad. Good luck! Joe

So... I ordered a jug of the spinosad to try to get rid of the critters. But there were a handful of things that kept me from putting it on. The main issue is that it only works by direct contact, and from the undersides of the leaves, and the way our plants were (so poorly) set up, achieving this was virtually impossible. We opted to just be patient, because no matter when we actually inspected our plants, these critters were nowhere to be found... EXCEPT in the bottom of our swimming pool. There is still a goodly amount of leaf damage near the soil, but only about about 10% of the tomatoes are inedible because of damage. Another 10% have one tiny hole, and no other signs of ickyness. The rest are beautiful and perfect and we've been enjoying fresh tomatoes every day. For our first real growing season, I'm willing to call this a success. (Especially since, if I'm totally honest, I don't even like tomatoes except for cooking. They're for my daughter & grandmother. The biggest hit are the Sugary Cherry Toms.) In other failures: I think we left our corn (Silver Queen) too long, and by the time we decided to try it out (the ears were so tiny), it was past its prime. I'm guessing a lack of fertilizer stunted the size of the ears, and they ended up pretty gross. Great successes, though, too! Our squash & zucchini were absolutely prolific and beautiful without any maintenance besides frequent picking! (Sunburst, Contender, Enterprise.) Also, a beautiful honeydew-type melon, Snowmass, I think, were the most delicious I've ever had. We started three from seed, not knowing how much room they'd need, and ended up with about 6 melons altogether. :) We're still waiting for any pepper action. I think something might be wrong (but last year's peppers didn't start really getting good until September). Also, we have an enormous tomatillo that popped up in the box where I thought I'd planted peppers. Strange, since we planted tomatillo last summer that didn't produce any fruit, and this one is gigantic and covered with immature fruit. Prolly TMI, but I wanted a record for myself as well... to look back and say, "Geez, I really had no idea what I was doing back then."

Hello Hamiltongardener, Thank you for taking the time to look up info for me! The lake is pretty clean and is always being tested. It is pretty normal for the geese to eat other than it's aquatic foods. People with grass have avery hard time here because they love to eat grass. That is why they usually hang around golf courses. I do not have grass, so I never really had them coming up on my yard before except to maybe cross my yard to get to someone elses grass. BUt I have been here for 2 gardening seasons now and they never bothered the garden, but I only had my tomatoes,peppers,pumpkins,squash and herbs. Like I said, the seem to like all the leafy veggies, because when this happened this year, they left the pumpkins alone. So I was hoping that they would not like the tomato plants, also because they have a strong oder to them. I thought I heard once that tomato plant leaves were posionous to some animals? I can always give in and get a goose repellent to make a barrier, but I really would like to avoid that so not to pollute my lake. So confused! Christy