Welcome and Unwelcomed Garden Guests

Hi, Hidinginmygarden!! Good to see you.

Seemingly the only good thing about July in Georgia is that the garden centers and craft stores start to freak out about their summer garden inventory and start marking everything down. We went to a craft store today to buy a dream catcher kit for the boy (he wanted one, but please remind me how spatially inept I am if I try to make another), and he spotted these frogs on 70% clearance. Who could resist!?

I couldn't, that's for sure. This dude takes up an entire SQFT, but he's worth it next to the sprawling cantaloupe.
This guy had a totally different feel, so I put him in the other corner yard with the sweet potatoes and butternut squash. Now that I look at him, I'll need to either put a drainage hole in the bottom or just dump him out when it rains.

Now I need to find one more to put in the side yard beds. They had additional ones, but the girl got tired of the "put your hands in your pockets" game and started touching things, so we left.

I found this little guy below on a zucchini leaf which I thought was rather odd. He was just sitting there, obviously not feeling well. Sure enough, a breeze came by, threw him off balance, and he fell down buzzing all the way, but not gaining flight. I haven't sprayed the garden with anything in the last month and a half or more, but I suppose even these guys have a life span. He did his fair share of pollinating. Thank you, Mr. Bee.

This next MammaJamma was cordially invited to leave at her earliest convenience. I've only seen one of these before in my life, but it was at the old house. She was in the corner of the gate door by the new corner yard. I found her when I was going to fetch the hose to water. I know EG posted tons of pictures of the black widow spiders he found last year, but it really makes me pause when I go digging around in those bush beans or zucchini bushes and the like.

She was a problem, yes, and I don't know what the tan thing is next to her, but that gargantuan, creme egg sac in the background was my real concern. Nope. No can do. The man came home and promptly introduced her and the egg sac to his hammer. It was beautiful carnage.

Now, I know spiders have their place in nature and I've never killed one in my garden for that reason, but there are spiders and there are spiders. My children play back there and I won't chance them picking up one of these lovely ladies while trying to coerce her into their bug box. Other spiders can stay. She will go.

Otherwise in the garden, we took the hanging beans and cucumbers which didn't do anything at all worth while out of the baskets and hung some wave petunias instead. Very pretty. The boy wants to plant lavender so badly because he thinks it smells like Mommy's lipstick, so we might go to find some later tonight, but I think we're out of season.

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.