After a blooming start with the monsoon

And what looked like a lush garden full of vegetables to can, everything just died on us. We got a handfull of beans, a few tomatoes (I just plucked off my second green hornworm today) and a few beets. The only success story is the strawberry patch that has been multiplying like crazy since April. Our weather has been milder than normal and the strawberries are still growing, so this will increase next year's harvest.

This year's harvest, though, was a big loss. The grasshoppers came in late August, Kevin stopped watering the garden, and the locusts came and ate up everything.

This was all so strange. I think part of the problem was this year's compost. The transfer station probably mulched the dead oleander trees that died in peoples' yards after the February deep freeze. Oleander is highly toxic to both animals and other plants. Kevin used the mulch as base soil this year and it went into every patch EXCEPT the strawberry patch and that's the only patch that is thriving this year.

Lesson learned.