First blood

Only three weeks in and already I'm getting pests. The beans were first. I guess that's appropriate since they were the first to emerge. I don't know the names of pests and I should have taken a picture before I squashed them into their ancestors. But these little worms bite out two small cuts from the edge of the leaf and perpendicular to it. Then they fold the leaf over on themselves for protection. Very clever. Here's a picture after I removed the bugs.

I'm also seeing some leafminers on some of the bean and cabbage leaves. Not sure what to do about that as the pests aren't available to squash like worms.

Here's a very healthy new leaf triplet from one of the bean plants. I picked some eggs off this one, presumably the same pest species that were eating the older leaves.

Last weekend I replanted some of the plants that did not germinate: a couple lettuces, spinach, sorrel, chard, turnip, and one black bean. Still waiting to see the germination rate this time around. I think that maybe I should have started the seeds indoors in June. Then they would have had a bit of a headstart. A week ago Thursday we got a frog-strangler rain that nearly wiped out the tender new seedlings. We got about 2 inches of rain in 45 minutes. The beets were battered; the carrots, creamed; the spinach, splattered...

But most plants seem to have recovered. All in all, the garden looks pretty good.