Archive for the ‘pests’ Tag
More aches and pains as the garden begins to take shape. I’m trying to do as much work on it as I possibly can as early as I can. Last years efforts were almost ruined because I waited until the last minute to do much of the small things that are necessary. Learning from my mistakes is absolutely essential if I’m to have the garden I want.
Yesterday was another chilly morning but I was up and at it earlier than usual. I picked up my supplies the day before from Home Depot, the only store in the area that carried the type of fencing I needed. Here is the before photo on the newly completed frame without the fencing.
The fencing is made for controlling small animals such as rabbits and skunks which are my main problem. We have larger game in the area but they’ve never ben a problem for me. Fortunately I have a nearby neighbor with fruit trees and the deer love their fruit. The insist on visiting him on a regular basis and leaving me alone.
After an hour or so of cursing and swearing my job was completed. That should keep the little buggers out of the garden this year. I really dislike killing any animals so the cost of the fence is worth it to keep me guilt free. Here’s the photo of the completed fence.
If the weather warms up a little in the coming days I can drag out my rototiller to loosen up the soil. Then I can lay down the fabric into the frames which eliminates weeding completely because I hate weeding.
How about a little garden humor to start your day . . .
A woman’s garden is growing beautifully but the darn tomatoes won’t ripen. There’s a limit to the number of uses for green tomatoes and she’s getting tired of it. So she goes to her neighbor and says, "Your tomatoes are ripe, mine are green. What can I do about it?” Her neighbor replies, "Well, it may sound absurd but here’s what to do. Tonight there’s no moon. After dark go out into your garden and take all your clothes off. Tomatoes can see in the dark and they’ll be embarrassed and blush. In the morning they’ll all be red, you’ll see.” Well, what the heck? She does it. The next day her neighbor asks how it worked. "So-so,” she answers, "The tomatoes are still green but the cucumbers are all four inches longer.”
Here’s a salute to everyone’s favorite redneck gardener, Jeff Foxworthy . . .
You Might be a Redneck Gardener If:
You mow your lawn and find a wheelbarrow.
You think a chain saw is a musical instrument.
You move your refrigerator and the grass underneath it is yellow.
You don’t water your front yard rather than mow it.
You know how many bags of fertilizer your car can hold.
You’ve even cleaned your house with a leaf blower.
You empty the trash when you have enough to fill up the pickup.
You can amuse yourself for more that an hour with a hose.
You’ve been cited for reckless driving on a riding lawn mower.
You move your weed-eater to take a bath.
And finally here is a cute limerick which any Maine gardener will appreciate . . .
I ordered some new bulbs by mail
and tried to grow orchids large scale
exotics won’t grow
under three feet of snow
or battered with blizzards and hail!
C’MON WARM WEATHER
Gardening. It sounds so easy but in reality it’s not. I’d probably be more obsessed with it if I were a full fledged farmer who was supporting his family with what he could successfully produce. Being a part-time gardener gives me a great deal of satisfaction and almost as much aggravation.
Each spring my better-half and I spend a lot of time deciding what to grow, soil preparation, and how to process the things we’ll be consuming next winter. One of our goals has always been to grow what we want without the use of insecticides and other chemicals. To do that successfully for a couple of amateurs is difficult and at times impossible.
This year the weather’s been fairly well balanced with enough rain to keep watering to a minimum. Along with sufficient amounts of water comes sufficient amounts of slugs, bugs, grubs, and other visiting wildlife. It then becomes a full time job to maintain a decent level of control over the garden. Unforeseen problems make themselves known without warning and must be dealt with as quickly as possible.
For instance, I use a black fabric to cover the garden to prevent weeds from taking over. The fabric is expensive but in the long run will save hours of unnecessary efforts throughout the summer. Not this year. I bought what I thought was a product that will hinder weeds and allow water and nutrients to seep through. Buyer Beware. We are now more than half way through the growing season and my fabric purchase was a total scam. The weeds have grown under the fabric and now have penetrated into the sunlight. The fabric has virtually dissolved into nothingness in spots. This will make my end-of-season cleanup extremely difficult and time consuming. My only thought right now is that Home Depot blows. How can such a large company supply a product of such low caliber without some sort of pretesting before it hits the shelves. I guess I’ll be just like the prodigal returning to Lowe’s with my tail between my legs.
Let me tell you a little something about slugs. Not only are they disgusting, there are millions of them and they’re always hungry. They can strip a garden in short order if not controlled by insecticides. This year we were forced to give in and use a commercial product to kill as many of those little bastards as possible. I won’t even begin to explain my thoughts on the effing tomato worms. They’re green, voracious, fat, and make a satisfying "pop" when you step on them.
The cucumber patch is loaded already with dozens of future pickles and hundreds of blooms indicating a lot of canning in my future. Tomorrow will be my first official canning day of 2013. With any luck I’ll be canning approximates 15 pints of hot Bread & Butter pickles and four experimental pints of Kool Aid pickles. The Kool Aid pickles are something new I’m trying where you mix your dill brine with a double package of Cherry Kool Aid. It gives you a kosher dill pickle with a sweet cherry taste in a bright red pickle. It sounds crazy I know but a mixture of sweet and sour is one of my favorite taste combinations. I just hope it works and isn’t a little too bizarre making people afraid to even try it. We shall see.
I guess I can stop complaining now. I’ll get a good nights sleep and be ready to hit the ground running in the morning. A day of hot boiling water, pots of brine, and a huge pile of sliced cucumbers and jalapeño peppers. A fun day to be sure. The Fall harvest is finally beginning.
It appears that Spring Is really here this time. The night time temperatures are rising and yesterday they made it into the mid-eighties for the first time. Maybe just maybe we can put the worries about frost and cold air behind us. We suffered a light frost two nights ago which was more than a little unusual for late May even here In Maine.
The garden’s been completed with all the plants in the ground and on their way to producing the things we require for next winter. The herb garden had some recent issues with space requirements due to an out of control apple mint plant that was determined to take over the entire area. It grew up and over an oregano plant that I’ve had for years and killed it. I was forced to attack that plant with a shovel and cut away close to sixty-five percent of it. I then surrounded it with a box that extends deep into the soil to stop it from spreading it’s runners in every direction. I replanted three new oregano plants nearby and hopefully they’ll grow healthy and keep us supplied through next winter. I need to be extra careful that I don’t harvest too much or I’ll be the idiot responsible for killing them.
Last year at the beginning of the season I planted two rhubarb plants. I knew it would be at least a year before I could harvest any of them for jams or jellies. The plants need to be firmly established before you can start chopping away at them. I think I’ve been successful because both plants are growing out of control already. Normally my neighbors, who also grow rhubarb plants, see theirs grow not much more than two feet high. Both of my plants are going strong and are already three and a half feet high and I can just about taste that strawberry-rhubarb jam we’ll be making later this Fall.
I can now sit on the deck and watch the garden grow for the next three months. I’ll be forced to kill some insects, slugs, and other assorted pests but that’s just normal gardening activities. My biggest fears are the deer that love to show up once the plants are a few inches tall and chew them off a ground level. This is the same battle my father fought for years and never was able to completely win.
Everyone I know has their own methods for dealing with deer but honestly they don’t have much more success than he did. I’ve been told to spread powdered blood around, hang human hair in panty hose from the trees, build a six foot high fence, and the best and most disgusting solution was for me to urinate around the garden whenever possible. As much as I like peeing outside, I think I’ll skip that one. It could very quickly make my neighbors a little uncomfortable.
My better-half has suggested we build a human size scarecrow in the hopes it will scare the deer away in those early hours of the morning when they usually visit. I think I’ll try and create one that looks as much like my ex-wife as possible. It should certainly scare the hell out of them just like it will scare the hell out of me. I guess I can deal with that kind of trauma if it keeps the freaking deer out of my garden. Man just thinking about that sends a cold chill up my back.
Thank God there aren’t many moose in this general vicinity. Even a scarecrow of my ex-wife wouldn’t scare those big bastards away. Life in Maine is always interesting.
everyuselessthing.com 