More about our garden

We made up some aphid-killer with oil, soap, and water and sprayed it on our pepper plants and our basil plants. I wouldn't have expected the aphids to like hot peppers most, but they do. We'll check and repeat the process each day and hopefully it'll work... and the plants won't be burned or unable to photosynthesize.

The neighbourhood birds love our waterfall! It's like a bird bath only so, so, so, much better. The birds are drinking from and having baths in the little ponds that form along the length of the waterfall. One male cardinal was having a lovely time splashing himself until his wife (who had been eating under the bird feeder) told him it was time to go. We've even had a mating pair of bluejays come by for a dip.

We'd thought about getting a birdbath but the waterfall is less work and the larger birds like it. A birdbath might still be a good idea if we can put it under some trees in the shade. The waterfall doesn't have much in the way of protection from predators and the finches might prefer more shelter. It's a lot of work to clean it each week, however, so we'll see.

We'd also noticed a bird that we didn't recognize and we think that it's a female red-winged blackbird. We didn't realize that the females were so different than the males. While the males are black with the red and yellow wings, the females are brown with white streaks and white streaks on their heads. We have pictures of them but we haven't yet processed them.