Bugs and Blooms, Late March and Early April

It's been two or three weeks since my last update, and the garden is growing!
Unfortunately, so are the caterpillars.
Observe:

Mint leaf. I'm pretty sure the black dot is at least partially responsible.

I'm hoping that the foliage can handle the damage, because I don't like to use pesticides if I can avoid it.

It's not all bad news though. Plenty of flowers have started blooming.

Iris. Soon after I took this, Chloe broke off the better part of the bloom.

She looks so innocent. Don't be deceived.

My neighbor gave me this plant last year, but it just started blooming!

Wild onions remind me of my childhood where they grew in the back yard

There were 3 buds on this in the previous picture, now just one.

Since the planting is done, I've turned my attention to weeding the yard and reestablishing the paths that nature is desperately trying to reclaim. The lack of pictures and updates are due to the fact that this is very time-consuming work and I've got a lot of other things going on.

More often than not, when roaming about the yard, Chloe sticks to the path.

The grass was not this tall when I planted...

It's quite a field of grass and weeds

Wildflowers in the foreground, vegetables and herbs in the back

Trees. The grapevine started growing. I need to repot it soon.

The weeds growing around the cacti grew to an appalling level.

I took care of it. Unfortunately, I ran out of bricks about halfway around...

I've been hauling weeds away by the wheelbarrow full.

I did some spring cleaning in the shed. It's actually functional now!

While overturning rocks, huge spiders, ants, and all manner of bugs came out.

I love having a firepit!

Chloe keeps watch over things when I'm lazing about.

Kelly got this azalea bush and moved the brass duck outside

Kelly wants as much purple back here as I'll allow, which isn't much.

The aloe, after getting terribly burned, turned back to a healthy green after about 2 weeks.

I've been training the wandering Jew up the ropes. It's a cool effect, I think.

I love it when the back yard is freshly raked. So does the Clo.

Fire!

I really love this firepit.

The toilet garden plants from last year came back in force.
My elephant ear is in the middle, just starting.

The houseplants

More houseplants. The purple clover is coming in nicely!

Pineapple and Swedish Ivy

Stonecrop is being eaten...

As is this stonecrop.

So far these plants are pretty short, but hopefully they'll get taller.

I picked up this Huntsville over spring break. It's a fern of some sort.

Toilet garden!

If you look closely, you'll see the huge spider...

Wild onions.

Notice the butterfly.

It's definitely springtime.

Next time, I'd like to do a single cross-section of the entire yard at one point in time rather than spreading it out and only featuring some parts as I did this time.
Until next time, be safe out there.