A couple of weeks ago, I was given an avocado plant at a local Meetup group. The woman who gave me the avocado plant had 10 avocado plants sitting on her windowsill, seeped in water with 4 toothpicks on each of the 4 sides of the avocado. She had grown each avocado plant from seed.

I'm curious to see whether my avocado plant will actually produce an avocado, since I don't live in sunny California or Florida. I've read that avocados need an enormous amount of sunlight. The first avocado plant she gave me looked like this:

Unfortunately, this particular plant was eaten by a squirrel 2 days after I got it!

I found the pot overturned, the avocado bulb gone, and the leaves shredded into pieces on the ground. My aloe vera plant escaped the fate of being eaten, although it had squirrel toothmarks on the side of it. Apparently, the squirrel didn't like the taste of aloe vera because - other than the tooth marks - he left the aloe vera plant intact.

My friend generously gave me another avocado plant—and I've put chicken wire around the new avocado plant to protect it from hungry squirrels. It's pretty sad that I have to put my plants inside cages (to keep them from being eaten/destroyed), but what else can I do? Any suggestions for preventing squirrels from eating plants?

Here is the poor little avocado plant inside its cage:

I've also put the aloe vera plant and another small plant inside the chicken wire (both had tooth marks from the squirrel, but were left intact).

Vegetable Gardening
I was inspired by the Dervaes family garden, and so I started a small vegetable garden. So far, I've planted green beans, sugar snap peas, cucumber, zucchini, and Chinese red noodle long bean. The Chinese red noodle long bean is similar to a green bean, except it's bright red, sweet tasting, and can grow up to 22 inches long. The Red Noodle Long Bean was an heirloom seed, given to me by a friend. I've never seen (or eaten) a red noodle long bean, so it should be interesting to see how it turns out. Eventually I want to grow tomatoes and sweet red peppers, but I'll save that for next year.

I'm hoping all my plants grow, and I'll keep everyone posted. Assuming I get a decent harvest, I'll take photos and post them to the blog.