These warm days have done wonders for the Freak of Nature garden. Everything I sowed - except the yellow cucumbers - germinated. Oddly, the first plants I sowed indoors, the tomatoes, are the most lackluster. They just don't seem to be doing anything. Thankfully, I have starts from the farmers market.

From the bottom up in this photo I have (still too small to be seen) shiso, edamame, striped beets, radishes, purple carrots, veronica broccoli, arrugula, bok choi, lettuce and green onions. In my side garden I have white pumpkins, tomatoes, an eggplant and ornamental corn.

Everything is doing great...except for those tomatoes and cucumbers.

So I'm looking out my back window last night and see the cherry tree behind my house swaying a bit. A closer look: it's a raccoon, and he's chomping all my cherries about 15 feet off the ground.

I grabbed the garden hose and started spraying. Nothing. He didn't even budge.

Next, I banged some pots and pans. Again, nothing.

I tried yelling, then soaked him with a high-powered super-soaker hose attachment. Nothing worked. The raccoon just kept munching my beautiful (and unripe) cherries. If I got too close, he just hid behind a branch.

Help me save my cherry pies! How do you get rid of an aggressive raccoon up in a tree?

In this morning's New York Times, I read two things that I thought you'd be interested in.

The first is an article about kudzu vine taking over the South. It was introduced in the early part of the 1900s and farmers were even paid to grow the fast-growing vine at one point. Now, it's taken over, often choking out native plants. In Chatanooga, they've resorted to using goats to mow it all down. Aside from a few laughs, it's working. It made me think of all the noxious weeds I see lining the highways here ... Read more here (registration may be required).

The next is a science piece about Rachel Carson's 1962 book, "Silent Spring," the best-seller that explored the environmental and health effects of pesticides. The article's author says the book's flaw is that it doesn't talk about the benefits of pesticides -- like killing malaria-spreading insects. After reading and mulling it over, I'm unsure of what to think, especially since I haven't read "Silent Spring" yet. If you read it (available here), please share your thoughts.