Saturday, June 25, 2011

The Shot That Will Be Heard 'Round the World


It's only June and I'm already on the war path.  You'll have to read to the end to see why.

I've been so pleased with garden #2.  Things are really going crazy.  For example:
 Here we have a 4 inch long zucchini.  In JUNE!!  I can't believe it!

 
 Tomatoes that are already outdoing themselves with their healthiness.  I even have flowers on them already.  In JUNE!!

Then there's this beauty.  This is a zinnia that was singing to the heavens when I planted her and then those evil slugs ate her down to nothing.  And now, she's come back in full force.  What was once a single stalk is growing stalks in every direction!

Here, we have the 3 sisters method of growing corn, beans and squash.  I've never been really clear about how this works, exactly, so I made it up.  I planted the corn.  Then I planted some winter squash that has been struggling.  It has recently been growing more, as you can see toward the left.  Then I went and stuck a bean seed in next to every corn stalk about a week ago.  Here is one fine example.  The others are looking a little weird.  The theory is that the roots of these plants are all very helpful to each other and give off good karma or something like that.  There is also the plan that the squash and beans will climb up the corn.  I'm not so sure that will be a success because the squash gets heavy, but the beans will be fine.  You must have pole beans if you want them to climb!
Another example of the 3 sisters getting along so nicely.  You can barely see the bean under the wisp of a corn leaf (frond?) on the left.



 Then, we head over to garden #1 where we have a volunteer tomato. I know we aren't supposed to let volunteers grow because they are basically weeds.  And, I am taking a risk here, because I don't know what kind of tomato this is and it could end up cross breeding with the variety I do have already planted here and we could end up with a mess.  Last year, I had a cross breed that I created by mistake and though the tomatoes were good to eat, every single one of them, off of like 20 plants all had tomatoes that split their skins before they continued to ripen.  This happened to people I gave them to too, so it wasn't just a matter of me over or underwatering.  I managed to keep the weird gene that said "split your skin!".  To avoid that this year, I planted one variety in one garden and one in the other.  But now we have this rogue plant.  I just can't pull it out, so I will let it sit here and do its thing.

This is one of my fabulous non pole beans.  See the little baby beans already?  These things have been exploding with flowers.  I like green beans, so I am really pleased.
This is on of the many marigolds I grew from the 25 cent packet of marigold seeds  that I got at the Dollar Tree.  Just for reference, the watering can is there and this marigold tree is just going ape!  They are all doing well, but these marigolds in this garden are doing the best.
 And now begins the portion of the show where my ire comes into full bloom.

So there I was, strolling through garden #2 and marveling at all of the lush growth and how everyone is behaving so well.  I was thinking about what 2 days of rain can do for a garden and other pleasant thoughts.

Then I look at this mess and almost threw right up.  It was like someone had grabbed me by the throat and dragged me off to their trunk to dump my body. 


Do you see this carnage???  What animal did this?  If you look, it is almost cut off, not just broken or nibbled.  If I didn't see all of the gnawing in the last picture, I would say someone came in with clippers to be a jerk.  But, no, it's an animal.  And it has to be of the flying variety because I have a 5 foot fence around it and the door was not open.  And nothing else was touched or even crushed or knocked over.  It reminded me of this mess back in the fall.  I was pretty sure that was due to squirrels and I almost wonder if this was, but it's just too cleanly cut.  And there isn't any corn to enjoy yet, so I don't think it's raccoons.  I am pretty mad about this.  I better not get back from my sister's to find that more have been destroyed like this!


This is younger corn in garden #1.  You can see that a hole has been dug beside it.  There were tons of these.  I believe it's either squirrels looking for nuts or crows looking for grubs.  Either way, they make me very mad.  I thought I was sly and immediately covered these with lots of mulch when I planted them and they dug around and moved the much and made holes anyway.



God help us all if I catch these animals in the act.

If it's squirrels, they will be looking for more than their nuts when I get through with them.

I don't even like guns.

But I like these evil critters even less.

5 comments:

  1. Your gardens are beautiful!! I'm so sorry they're being looted by critters.... I wish I had some gardening advice for you but I have no idea what I'm doing in that department! Good luck!!!!

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  2. Oh no! I don't have anything for any animals to see. Everything is just a sprout still and I am getting so frustrated. But not as frustrated as I would be if I had growing stuff and an animal came and took it.

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  3. Garden envy right here. We had so much rain this spring I just planted mine a few weeks ago so my garden is still quite pitiful. In a few weeks it better have some produce.

    Squirrels huh? Rabbits are our biggest garden pests!

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  4. Ooh, it's just like Mr McGregor's garden! How exciting. Please keep us posted. Sarah xxx

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  5. Oh yes, it's the rabbits for us. They take just a few nibbles out of each young tender vege and move on. I'm thinking about those crazy old school bear traps. They seem to especially like the watermelons. Last night they got to the corn! Here's what we have going: http://mamabeefromthehive.blogspot.com/2011/06/garden-and-whatnot.html

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