 |
| last year this tree had nine apples on it, this year we've counted about sixty! |
 |
| we regularly find old marbles and bits of broken glassware when we dig up a new area of the yard |
I uploaded the photos above about a week and a half ago, before we had all the tomatoes and peppers in and when the irises were just getting going. now all of those plants are in the ground and the irises have just one or two representatives remaining, having passed the torch onto the peonies and coreopsis and lavender.
it's a good thing I started so many tomatoes and peppers this year. though we didn't initially plant all 47 tomato plants and 32 peppers (honestly how could we? our whole lot is just about .33 acres and well over half of that is the house and garage and driveway, side and front yard...) we have found ourselves plugging in replacements here and there over the past week as several plants (entire plants!) have been taken by little burrowing creatures. we're thinking it is either moles, voles, or chipmunks. or maybe a combination of the three. it turns out not having a feline around to keep those critters in check makes a world of difference (oh Ziggy, you are so missed, in so many ways). and so, 2 brandywines, 2 amish pastes, 3 red marconi sweet peppers, some cabbage, chard, and a parsley plant later...... we got a havahart trap, a sonar mole/vole deterrent, and some castor oil granules that are supposed to keep them away. two days in and it seems that maybe it is making a little bit of a difference. for the first time in a week or so, today there were no plant victims out there.
of course, the furry little rodents aren't destroying
everything. there are lots of greens, the berries are looking good, peas are flowering, garlic scapes have already been cut, pumpkins and squashes and cucumbers are up, beans are up (though need to be reseeded in one area where I believe peter rabbit and his brethren have been happily snipping at the tops of the sprouts...), the flower beds are filling in nicely and the tomatoes are ready to be strung. it is such a promising and happy time to be gardening, mid-May.
fingers crossed that those defensive strategies of ours keep the furry ones from claiming many more of our plant babies for themselves.
 |
| kale, chard, broccoli rabe, and collards |
 |
| elderberries in back, blackberries in front~ both spreading nicely |
 |
| tomatillos! or, as I like to call them here in the blight-heavy southeast: 'salsa insurance' |
 |
| Claire's 'big Max' pumpkins |
 |
| this year we added four of these 4' cylinders, two for butternut squash, two for cucumbers |
 |
| flowers! (larkspur, amaranth, tithonia, zinnias) |
happy gardening!
Your garden looks wonderful! I am so putting up fencing around my butternut squash. Great idea. Black berries are something that does grow here. I plan to put some in at some point.
ReplyDeletethanks :)
DeleteI love blackberries. we have a TON of raspberries and are just getting blackberries going in a small area. hoping for some mixed-berry jam this summer!
Your garden is looking wonderful, some lovely healthy looking plants. Fingers crossed it stays that way....Have a great weekend.
ReplyDeletethank you!
DeleteYou have a great looking garden! I love this time of year, it is full of hope and promise and there is nothing like watching food appear right before your eyes. Hope the critter repellents work!
ReplyDeletethanks, Anke!
Deleteand yes it is indeed so satisfying out there this time of year (little critter damage aside). I love being able to pick greens from the garden and soon so much more!
Gorgeous! You've done amazing things with your fraction of .33 acres!
ReplyDeletethank you. I should really measure it out and determine what the approximate square footage is that we use..... hmmmm.....
DeleteWow - your garden is looking great! I usually plant our garden this weekend but temps were in the 30's last night (Oh, Wisconsin, you can be so cruel) so I will probably wait one more weekend. We currently do not have any barn cats and have been seeing rabbits in our yard as a result. Our border collie delights in chasing them but that doesn't solve the problem when he spends most of the day indoors.
ReplyDeletethank you, Kelly!
Deleteno doubt gardening in Wisconsin is worlds different from gardening in Western NC. time to put your pup to work ;)
salsa insurance.... love it :) your garden looks so lovely! how nicely everything is coming along... best of luck with those critters though... hopefully you have them on the run. my goodness elderberries and blackberries are like horrid weeds here.... they run wild and we are always battling them to keep them from taking over (and we didn't plant a single one).
ReplyDeleteit's really true, too! inevitably the tomatoes around here take a hit from late blight quite a bit before the frost would take them, sadly all going pretty quickly once they succumb to it. and so...... the disease-resistant tomatillo is always my backup go-to for salsa :)
Deletethanks jenny! and oh those critters..... we determined it is mostly voles, and they continue to take full grown plants on an almost daily basis. Mike started peeing on the garden tonight and we actually just today decided to get a bit more brutal and set some mouse traps. I hated to do it, but at the same time they were just decimating our garden and honestly, since the difference is now we have no cat, I figure this is a faster and more humane death than when Ziggy would bring them in and mess with them for a while before killing them. not feeling great about it, but at the point where I'm willing to make harder decisions to save the garden.
do you make tons of elderberry syrup?
Beautiful garden! Good luck with the critters!
ReplyDeletethank you!
DeleteBeautiful, well done.
ReplyDeletethanks, Rachel!
DeleteThe ordered rows make my heart sing! Everything looks great. Well done with your seed starting. And did I just hear you say you are getting a kitten!?
ReplyDeletethank you :)
Deleteha! not exactly, but perhaps it is in our near future.....
Oh. My. Gosh. Best garden on the internet, lady! Some day I hope to have the time to make lots of beautiful, fertile sensible beds like that out of our hard clay ground.
ReplyDeleteXO
C
thanks so much, Cory! and now stop it you're gonna make me blush ;)
Deletexo
I always love your garden posts! I cannot resist a tidy garden. I love neat rows of green things!! I like the natural partitions (sticks and boards) you have for the carrots, lettuce (?), and spinach (?). You gave me an idea to perhaps focus on blackberries and (can we grow them?) elderberries here on my fence line. I always need help with my fence line....
ReplyDeleteaw, thanks Nichole~
DeleteI kinda just grab around for whatever is closest when I need to partition off the beds- often using sticks and pinecones and whatever is strewn around the garden! (and yep it's carrots and spinach, with some beets, watermelon radishes, and claytonia thrown in)
the blackberries and elderberries definitely spread nicely. I don't see why you couldn't grow elderberries. they may need a little extra watering from time to time but we pretty much ignore them and they thrive.
Looks great Amanda! Quick question...have you grown the squash and cucumbers up before? We are trying it this year too, with squash, cucumber and zucchini, over an archway. Hoping it works, fingers crossed.
ReplyDeleteSorry about the little critters. We had voles in our tunnels in the fall, and they pretty much ate every bit of goodness in about a week. We were having a little race with them to see who could eat more, I think they won. I might have to try some of those things you tried this fall when we put the tunnels back up for the winter.
we've always grown cucumbers on some sort of trellis with much success, but this is the first year I am trying it with the butternut squash. the zucchini I grow is a bush variety so I've not tried that either, but I don't see why any of those things shouldn't do well over an archway. good luck!
Deleteoh these little critters! we determined it was voles, for sure. and they continue to take whole grown plants on a daily basis. tomato plants, pepper plants, chard and cabbage..... and right next to the sonar repellant! argh! if we didn't have limited space, and if the garden wasn't the thing I was most passionate about second to my child (and if it didn't drastically impact our food budget and provide nearly all of our produce for several months out of the year), then I'd have more patience with it. but today, after much deliberation, we actually decided to put out some mouse traps. I hated to do it- I like to recognize the balance and the sharing of space with the creatures that are in our yard, garden, etc...... most creatures I welcome with open arms, even the generally less accepted ones like snakes and possums, but I just have to draw the line. the other option was to get a cat again and I figure that would just be deflecting the killing responsibility (and thus the guilt, though obviously the cat would have none) onto the cat. plus, it'd likely be a more drawn out death seeing as how ziggy used to catch them and chase them around and mess with them before he actually killed them. at least this is a quick death. I don't feel 100% great about it, but I am hopeful that once we get the infestation down we can manage them with just the sonar device and Mike peeing on the garden at night ;)