It's beginning to look a lot like a garden

So... what happens when you plant corn?   

Not a trick question, because it happened for the third time this season.  The answer is the chipmunks eat it.

They don't like the plant so much as the corn seed it is growing from.  The rat bastards would dig up my corn when it would get to this size and eat it all up so that my three sisters box remains empty currently.  Trying to find some already sprouted at the local farm stands has been useless.

So I tried again in a little bit of seed starter in the house.  It's growing well and will probably be down in the box next week sometime.  In the meantime, I am researching ways to keep the rat bastards away from my plantings because... I hate chipmunks.

Quick recap on my hatred - several years ago, I had a 50lb bag of soil on my right shoulder and I entered the garden, stepped into a hole with my left foot and did a barrel roll through my deer fencing. I sat up with the bag of soil on my shoulder and a right ankle that was swearing at me.  The docs told me that if I did that again, I would need surgery to repair the ankle.  A couple of years later, I had a fight with a tree root and ended up in a non-weight bearing cast for 12 weeks after surgery.

I really hate those furry rat bastards.

But back to the present day. The downtown garden keeps rolling along.  I have been planting away.  The bean teepee is up, although it's because I planted a bunch of sugar snap peas.  I also put up some more bamboo poles to plant some blue lake green beans. 

Soon it will grow high enough to be a place for my niecey-niece and little nephew to hide in.  As much as I hate chipmunks, I love Catbug and if sugar peas are OK with Catbug, they're more than OK with me.  Even more important, my little nephew is now excited about sugar peas because of Catbug so, yeah SUGAR PEAS!

I also needed to start adding things like tomato cages and figured it was time to get my tools up off the ground and found a cheap little stand for them. Of course weeding never ends.

It never ends.  If you ever want to be a jerk, plant some mint in the ground and let it spread.  Those who come after you will first be, "Oh, that smells nice when I mow the lawn..." until the mint takes everything over and they're like, "Curse you for planting mint you son of a bitch."  As they say, it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt.

I did find another ant colony, so that meant a new batch of organic ant killer.

Let me be clear about ants.  Yes, some ants in a garden are good.  They eat some pretty nasty stuff not to mention provide tasty food for good insects, etc.  There are two problems.  The first is huge colonies of ants because they are carnivorous and they will eat anything/everything, including the good bugs.  The second is red ants because they are just pure spite sent here from hell.  So I mix up a solution of 1 cup boiling water, 1/4 cup sugar, and a tablespoon of 20 mule team Borax.  I then shove cotton balls in the jar to soak up all that dissolved sugary Borax goodness, which they take back to the nest.  A couple of days later, no more ant colonies.

If only I could get rid of the chipmunks so easily.