Garden & Yard stuff

I picked our first big purple pepper (we had one earlier this summer - I think it was kind of a freak thing...) We've also harvested our garlic (which was volunteer! We didn't even know what it was until earlier this summer. Good thing we didn't hit it with the weed whacker! I'm even inspired to grow more garlic for next year! Yumm. We can't get enough garlic bread. No vampires in this house!I bet Aaren won't be able to recognize this tree! Yes, little bro - this is one that you propogated in college last spring. We brought it over to the big house last summer and it was in a pot (it even lasted over the winter in there) until about June or so and we transplanted it. It apparently is very happy where it is. It doesn't hurt that we water it every so often. We have it staked so it doesn't flop around.We've also seen some unusual bugs. Check out this spider...He's about 2 inches long and was in some weeds I wanted to pull by our garage. Yeah, I just left the weeds there and left him alone. I went back a week after I took this picture and he had a big puffy marshmallow-like thing he was about to dine on for supper...
Also, here is the biggest praying mantis I have ever seen (though I haven't seen too many, and most of them have been babies less than a centimeter long). He was happy in my petunia containers I have by the front door. I hope I didn't blind him with that bright flash and his big buggy eyes. But isn't he cute?? :-)
We also edged all of our sidewalks - a very big task since they hadn't ever been edged and we have a corner lot. We also have one sidewalk running from the house to the garage - I think it doubled in width overnight! It had been covered by so much grass!