Miscellany, and... murder?

A few updates from the past weekend when I was finally able to catch up on things in the garden.  I'll be honest - the reason there are not a lot of wide-angle pictures here is because the weeds are pretty out of control.  I've kept up with the ones growing near my plants but much like a vacant lot in a neighborhood lowers the value of the surrounding homes... well, the vacant space in my garden is an eyesore.  And during my free time this weekend it was either uncomfortably hot and humid, or rainy.  Both circumstances are great for the plants, but not so great for my weeding efforts.  But I digress...

The cucumbers, once the focus of much anxiety, seem to be thriving in the hot, humid weather we've had lately.  Which is perfectly in keeping with my characterization of them as angsty teenage plants.  It would figure that they'd love the weather that I hate the most!

I put some mulch at the base of the cucumber plants to keep them from getting crabby.

I harvested and cooked the Toscano kale.  One great thing about it is that it is much easier to wash than its curlier counterpart!  No dirt in our dinner!  It cooked up nicely in a stir fry and there is still plenty more growing.

I sadly don't grow them myself, but I've come into a large amount of amazing locally grown strawberries lately.  More on that to come, but in the meantime, here are some pictures that just looked too much like a crime scene to resist.  My apologies to sensitive viewers.

And last but absolutely not least, I finally decided to do something about the fact that my third cat (and constant, fuzzy shadow) has not made an appearance on the blog.  Sadly, she was a little resistant to our photo shoot. Must've been a bad hair day.