Greetings! Welcome to #WeekendCoffeeShare, thank you for meeting me on this Saturday morning. Come, have a seat on the bench in the garden, it’s supposed to be a wonderful day today.

If we were having coffee, I would first tell you the sad news that happened this week.

My once filled with leafy green raised bed is no more after mom made me get rid of all the vegetables following an invasion of slugs and caterpillars. The slugs left a substance that resembled snot on a lot of the leaves while the green caterpillars hid on the undersides of the leaves, almost completely camouflaged from a pair of untrained eyes. Thankfully, my eyes weren’t untrained.

After scattering insect dust all over the raised bed, I proceeded to inspect the undersides of all my leafy greens, picking the vicious little guys, and dispatch them in a humane way so they’d give back to the garden.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you another piece of sad news. My crop of red potatoes is diseased. Sometimes, my walks around the garden pays off and this was definitely one of those times. I was taking my usual walk around the garden yesterday when I noticed my red potato leaves were full of brown spots. Immediately, I thought of blight as it’s a disease many varieties of potatoes are susceptible.

However, my gut told me it’s not blight as blight would usually accompany by a yellow ring around the brown spot and there was none of that on the leaves. After doing some quick research, I was relieved to learn it’s not blight, which means the potatoes should be okay. Though the web said this fungus should just be confined to the leaves, I went and removed the diseased leaves and tossed them in the garbage. Then I applied a coat of copper fungicide, which hopefully will prevent whatever this is from spreading to other plants.

Believe me when I say that I was a mess after seeing the brown spots on the potato leaves. It was like a parent seeing his/her child sick.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you I’m loving the garden at the moment as the spring flowers – nasturtiums – start to fade and summer flowers – lilies – begin to bloom.

I’m particularly excited about the scarlet emperor beans (click image for description). It’s been said hummingbirds are attracted to the color red. This is my first year growing these beans and I’ve been hoping I would get to see a hummingbird again after seeing one last year. I think they are one of the most amazing creature.

Finally, if we were having coffee, I would tell you I gave my first-ever garden tour a few nights ago. A neighbor walked by and complimented on my front-yard garden, particularly about my GreenStalk planter. We got to talking and next thing I knew, I was giving her a tour of the backyard garden as well.

The thing she found surprising was just how much edibles I was able to plant in tower. She even pointed to a pocket and asked what it was. I said it was lettuce – the expensive kind in a plastic box that’s usually sold as a salad kit. Most of the vegetables I grow this year are either expensive varieties or the kind you rarely find at a grocery store. It’s the whole point of having a garden, I think – not only grow what we like to eat but grow the kind of varieties that’s different from the grocery stores.

Unfortunately, the tour was cut short when mom returned home from visiting her friend. The moment she saw I had someone over, her face turned into a scowl like I’ve done something wrong. I told her afterwards that my neighbor was admiring the garden. She didn’t say “that’s nice” or “that’s great”, instead, she said, “don’t go letting people in.”

Instantaneously, I felt a thunder clap followed by rain on my happiness parade.

#weekendcoffeeshare is hosted by Natalie of Natalie the Explorer. I appreciate you stopping by. Until next we chat. 🙂