The Bauer Confidential

Decided to do some work with the plants on our back porch so I picked up our grill cover which had been sadly not performing its job all winter but was instead lying on the deck. Upon reinstating the grill cover to its rightful position, I spied this little beauty. I’m pretty sure he (or she) is an Arboreal Salamander (Aneides lugubris), though I’m no vertebrate taxonomist.  Here you can see him with a couple of slugs who were also making their home in the dark, cool crevasses of the tarp.

I did a little more research and decided I don’t think he’s so cute anymore, and here’s why:

Crap, now I might have nightmares about salamanders invading the house from the porch.

This is how it started.

Now we have this.

Before.

After.

Remember this “cherry” tomato?

It’s done a little growing.

Turns out that was the one momotaro tomato plant we got from our landlord, it’s getting pretty big.

The sweet 1000 tomato plants are doing great, putting on lots of fruit.

Even a couple ripe ones!

Some of the chard is making a come back after all looked lost!

We’ve had one harvest of lettuce, and are getting ready for another.

We’ve got some peppers, though still tiny.

A couple cukes (there were more, but I think the neighborhood squirrels are fond of cucumbers).

I think this is an eggplant, not absolutely sure though, lost track of some of the plants we were given.

And here’s my not-quite purple basil, pretty though!