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This year, I got serious about feeding the hummingbirds. We had a cheapie plastic feeder (no perches & hard to clean) so I upgraded to a nicer one. The new one came with an ant moat built in, but the ants have still been a problem - moat is on the shallow side & the water evaporates too quickly. After some looking around online for ideas/instructions, I made an ant moat yesterday - much deeper & I think it will work better.

On the garden front, I replanted 3 tomatoes & they are looking pretty happy. Upon going in the ground, they had several days of heavy clouds/rain & when the sun came out yesterday, I fixed up a sun shade for them. They still get plenty of light, but it's more indirect. I've got milky white semi-transparent plastic 3/4 of the way around my columnar tomato cages. I can turn the cages so the opening allows in more sun, or turn it away for less. The plants are getting plenty of indirect light & over the next week, they'll gradually get exposed to more. I cannot afford to sun scald these tomatoes - I'm still kicking myself that it happened to the first ones!

Peppers will go in tonight when it cools off a bit (humid, mid-80's, bright sun right now). Something has pulled the first two little leaves off of two of my cukes. I may have to replant them. Everything else is growing well.

I too have occasional problems with ants, yet often they don’t find the feeder, it’s strange. I’ve had the feeder hanging on the clothesline, and the ants found it, yet right now I have a feeder sitting 18” from the handrail on the front deck with no formicae at all, even though the sugar ants just outside my garage swarmed yesterday.

I think it may have something to do with there being a small drip, and the ants go looking for the source once they find a sugary spot.

VERY productive day yesterday.

We have many pairs of bluebirds on our place this year - at least two nests fledged last year and I think the young bluebirds are competing for nesting space with some older couples this year.

My dad made bluebird houses probably 20 years ago - unfortunately, they do not open up to clean them out or check on nests. I’ve replaced two of the (now ‘derelict’) old houses with new ones - cedar, open for cleaning & one has a screen sub-floor that I really like.

Surprise, surprise - one of the derelict houses, which is in a good spot, but hasn’t been used in many years, has a nest in it this year. I was shocked because the roof was half off - the screws on one side had totally come out of the house itself so there was a large gap, at least one inch, between that side of the roof & the house. I do not know how the babies stayed warm/dry. By the time I figured out there was a nest, I didn’t want to disturb anything & didn’t attempt repairs. So yesterday, since the nest had fledged (I saw a fledgling witting with Papa Bluebird on our old pump handle), I decided to check out the box - clean it out for sure & maybe fix the roof. Well, the mama bluebird already had a 2nd nest going, with two eggs laid. The box had more problems than just the roof, but when I finished, the roof was snugly back on & the whole box was more structurally sound, with screws tightened up & the mounting board more secure. I saw mama fly out of the box this morning, so my work yesterday didn’t scare her off.

I spent from 5:30 to about 8:45 (dark!) in the garden. All the beds are weeded (my back was beyond ‘complaining’ - it was cursing!). I have replanted one cucumber (seed - hope it germinates soon!) that had its leaves ripped off - bird? The rest are doing fine. I planted marigolds in the tomato beds - the sun shades are working beautifully. In the zinnia/Teddy Bear sunflower patch, I added more zinnia seed in some bare patches & added two more Teddy Bear seeds in gaps where the original seeds didn’t germinate. All the pepper plants (red bell & Jalapeno) went in the ground. It is foggy/damp & coolish this morning (63 right now) so the peppers should have some time to adjust without a hot sun beating down on them. All in all, a really good evening in the garden.