The ants come marching...

... through my garden. Ugh! There's a nest--hill, colony, whatever--right next to my little rosebush. I think that might be the cause of its distress; the ants could be undermining the root structure with their evil colony-building ways. I'm averse to chemicals in my garden, so I've turned to the old standby, cornstarch. I've heard that ants can't digest the stuff, but they eat it and it swells up in their stomachs or something. In any case, I sprinkled a couple of tablespoons over the rosebush and the anthill. We'll see if that cuts down on the ant population.

Also in the garden, I think I've hit upon a solution for keeping the cats out of the new tulip bed: bamboo. No, I haven't planted any; I took a bunch of kabob skewers--probably close to 100 of them--and stuck them in the bed, pointy end up. Cats don't like trying to do their business in a closely planted flowerbed, which in my garden is all of them except that one. I planted the skewers in a reasonably close formation and varied the angles of the points, so they're not all completely upright. Fingers crossed, it'll be a good deterrent. Honestly, I don't want to hurt the cats--I might not be a cat person, but I'm not cruel, either. I shall report back on the effectiveness of bamboo kabob skewers in keeping unwanted felines out of the garden.

Elsewhere, the forget-me-nots have begun to flower, which pleases me no end. I do love those little blue blooms. They're really the only true blue flowers in my garden. The lilies are looking to be an absolutely marvellous display in a week or so. And the astilbe are starting to bloom! I've got a pink one--I had no idea one of them was pink until it started to flower. Last year, only the red one flowered. The day-lilies are coming along slowly, but they promise to be better than last year.

And my tomatoes are flowering, and you know what that means... tomatoes in a few weeks! *drools at the thought*