A brief conversation with my next door neighbor last evening yielded some insight into the recent decapitation of several of my sunflowers. It turns out they have had the same problem...only their sunflowers are inside their fenced-in garden, not out in the open like mine. Melissa said Rob suspected deer because of some damage he noticed on his corn as well as the sunflowers. I mentioned this to Chris as we spent yet another evening weeding the vegetable garden. I am happy to report that most of the major weeding is complete and what remains is merely maintenance weeding - pulling up the rogue crabgrass here and there. Whew!
Actually, let me back up just a bit. Before Chris and I talked about the deer and the sunflowers or even started weeding last night...as we were walking to the vegetable garden, I saw a rabbit in the garden. This was an average-sized rabbit and somehow that little bugger managed to weasel his way through the 2" x 4" opening in the garden fence and continue to eat our broccoli and cauliflower plants. The nerve! Our neighbors have the same type of fence that we do and this year, Rob ran a second, smaller fence around the bottom of the garden - one with smaller openings to ward off the rabbits. This might be what we need to do next year. We really thought the 2" x 4" openings would be too small for rabbits and didn't expect much trouble from chipmunks. I guess we underestimated the wiliness of our resident rabbits!
OK, back to the sunflowers and the deer. So I mentioned to Chris that Rob had put in the additional fencing to keep the rabbits out and now his concern this year was deer. We knew that a 4' fence would not keep an aggressive or determined deer out of our garden, but we hoped it would fend off a lazy or unambitious deer. So far for us (knock on wood!) that has been the case in the vegetable garden. But that isn't where my sunflowers are located. Mine are out in the open in the garden with the black-eyed Susans, and I've lost three so far.
Last evening as we wrapped up our weeding and started to make our way to the shed to put our supplies away, we stopped to check on the sunnies and Suzies. And that is when we saw it...the teeniest, tiniest little fawn hoof print I have ever seen. I cannot imagine how little this baby Bambi must be because the hoof print was 1", maybe 1.5" in length in the dirt which makes prints look bigger anyway. Ugh. I am not sure how I feel about this. I hunt deer. Granted, I've yet to wax one, but I am a hunter. Come December, deer = venison = stocked freezer. Even now, in July, I am considering them a pest and trying to keep them out of my vegetable garden. But the thought of this little fawn...argh...it just tugs on my heart. Can I be angry if I lose sunflowers to Bambi? I need to think about this some more...and see what other damage Bambi inflicts in the next few days. Let me just say this...if Bambi takes down my giant sunny...there will be trouble! Bambi...you've been warned!
Until next time, keep your eyes open for wild wonders...
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Lessons from a Wild Weekend and Garden Updates
Chris and I spent the FOJ weekend camping with his parents at a local state park. Saturday morning, we ventured down to the beach house for an "early bird coffee walk" and it turned out that we were the only two lame-Os in the park to want to go on such a walk. So we headed out with the park naturalist and a park volunteer to listen for and spot a few birds. The walk lasted about an hour. We didn't see anything out of the ordinary, but we did hear a Black-throated Green Warbler (Dendroica virens). That was a new bird for me. I wish we could have seen one, but I'll settle for the pictures on the Cornell site (www.birds.cornell.edu).
During our walk, we stopped at the park's butterfly garden. What an amazing garden! It is filled with aster, purple coneflowers, and milkweed. My lesson from this wild weekend - I need milkweed in my butterfly/hummingbird garden! There were no butterflies in the garden Saturday morning when we stopped by during the bird walk; however, when we visited Sunday afternoon when it was very warm and sunny, the garden was full of dozens of butterflies. How exciting! I can only HOPE that my garden will be that successful one of these days. I stopped at a garden shop on the way home from camping on Sunday and bought a new purple coneflower. I previously planted on in the hummingbird/butterfly garden, but something kept eating it and it wasn't growing very well. This new one has two blooms and numerous buds, so Chris dug up the old one (which is coming back quite nicely, although it is still quite small), and we planted the new one in its place. We replanted the old one in a different location in the hummingbird/butterfly garden. I think both of them will do well in their new locations.
Sunday night when we got home from camping, we walked out to the vegetable garden. I was astounded at the growth in the three days we were gone. To think about what that garden looked like one month ago...heck...one WEEK ago...and to see it now...it is so exciting!!! A few stalks of corn are already four feet tall and the rest are at least three feet tall...definitely "knee high by the Fourth of July!" The tomatoes are going like gang busters...when they all come in, we are going to be inundated with 'maters. Everything else is growing well, too. We have quite a few jalapeno peppers that could probably stand to be picked in the next few days.
Out in the Suzie/sunflower garden, the Black-eyed Susans all have buds and a few look ready to burst into bloom any day now. The sunflowers continue to grow, although I lost three to "something" while we were gone. A deer? Our resident groundhog? I am uncertain. I also lost two sunflowers that had popped up near the hummingbird/butterfly garden...total decapitation. How depressing! I hope now that Oscar is back on the prowl around the yard, the culprits will stay away. We'll see...
Until next time, keep your eyes open for wild wonders...
During our walk, we stopped at the park's butterfly garden. What an amazing garden! It is filled with aster, purple coneflowers, and milkweed. My lesson from this wild weekend - I need milkweed in my butterfly/hummingbird garden! There were no butterflies in the garden Saturday morning when we stopped by during the bird walk; however, when we visited Sunday afternoon when it was very warm and sunny, the garden was full of dozens of butterflies. How exciting! I can only HOPE that my garden will be that successful one of these days. I stopped at a garden shop on the way home from camping on Sunday and bought a new purple coneflower. I previously planted on in the hummingbird/butterfly garden, but something kept eating it and it wasn't growing very well. This new one has two blooms and numerous buds, so Chris dug up the old one (which is coming back quite nicely, although it is still quite small), and we planted the new one in its place. We replanted the old one in a different location in the hummingbird/butterfly garden. I think both of them will do well in their new locations.
Sunday night when we got home from camping, we walked out to the vegetable garden. I was astounded at the growth in the three days we were gone. To think about what that garden looked like one month ago...heck...one WEEK ago...and to see it now...it is so exciting!!! A few stalks of corn are already four feet tall and the rest are at least three feet tall...definitely "knee high by the Fourth of July!" The tomatoes are going like gang busters...when they all come in, we are going to be inundated with 'maters. Everything else is growing well, too. We have quite a few jalapeno peppers that could probably stand to be picked in the next few days.
Out in the Suzie/sunflower garden, the Black-eyed Susans all have buds and a few look ready to burst into bloom any day now. The sunflowers continue to grow, although I lost three to "something" while we were gone. A deer? Our resident groundhog? I am uncertain. I also lost two sunflowers that had popped up near the hummingbird/butterfly garden...total decapitation. How depressing! I hope now that Oscar is back on the prowl around the yard, the culprits will stay away. We'll see...
Until next time, keep your eyes open for wild wonders...
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
What a Pain in My Crabgrass!
Between Saturday morning and last evening, I have spent a total of six hours weeding the vegetable garden and more often than not the culprit is Digitaria sanguinalis - crabgrass! Thankfully we have had rain just about every day for the past week, so the garden soil - though seemingly dry on the surface - is still very moist underneath and has made pulling all of the weeds much easier. Chris logged some time in the garden on Saturday morning as well and we made some really great headway on the tomato and pepper plants areas. Between my weeding by hand and Chris' hoe and rake method, we were very pleased with our accomplishments Saturday morning. We were also stiff and sore as hell come Monday (my adductor and hamstring muscles, especially)!
Last night, I weeded while Chris mowed the lawn. I worked on the squash plants, the peas, and the green beans. I have to say I think I did a great job and overall, I am quite pleased with our weeding progress. We knew that weeds would be an issue in the garden this year. We took a previously lawn-ish piece of our property and turned it into a garden! How could weeds not infiltrate this first year? Especially the crabgrass...from what I have read, when it seeds, it puts out tons and tons of seeds!
I guess we'll just keep plucking this year and try to stay on top of it now that we've pretty much gotten most of the weeds out. Our hours spent weeding should mean that soon we will only have to go out for 15-20 minutes each evening to check the plants and puck a few random weeds here and there.
We put a lot of money into the vegetable garden this year - we rented a tiller for the weekend to turn the soil, we got three truckloads of compost and one truck load of sand, we put up a fence, and we bought the sprinkler and the 250' of hose it took to run from the house out to the garden. Next year, when (hopefully) the only cash outlay will be plants and seeds, I think we will invest in a weed control garden liner to help cut down on our manual efforts.
All complaints about weeds aside, everything in the garden looks amazing! Well, wait...there is one exception...the broccoli. I spotted a small Eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floradinus) in the garden last evening, which ran off as I approached. When I got into the garden, I noticed he or she had been munching on the broccoli. Perhaps it might be time for a faux owl on one of the fence posts! But other than the broccoli, everything else is just growing, growing, growing...and pretty soon we're going to have vegetables come out of our ears!!!
I'm really gonna need that pressure canner and that chest freezer...SOON!
Until next time, keep your eyes open for wild wonders!
Last night, I weeded while Chris mowed the lawn. I worked on the squash plants, the peas, and the green beans. I have to say I think I did a great job and overall, I am quite pleased with our weeding progress. We knew that weeds would be an issue in the garden this year. We took a previously lawn-ish piece of our property and turned it into a garden! How could weeds not infiltrate this first year? Especially the crabgrass...from what I have read, when it seeds, it puts out tons and tons of seeds!
I guess we'll just keep plucking this year and try to stay on top of it now that we've pretty much gotten most of the weeds out. Our hours spent weeding should mean that soon we will only have to go out for 15-20 minutes each evening to check the plants and puck a few random weeds here and there.
We put a lot of money into the vegetable garden this year - we rented a tiller for the weekend to turn the soil, we got three truckloads of compost and one truck load of sand, we put up a fence, and we bought the sprinkler and the 250' of hose it took to run from the house out to the garden. Next year, when (hopefully) the only cash outlay will be plants and seeds, I think we will invest in a weed control garden liner to help cut down on our manual efforts.
All complaints about weeds aside, everything in the garden looks amazing! Well, wait...there is one exception...the broccoli. I spotted a small Eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floradinus) in the garden last evening, which ran off as I approached. When I got into the garden, I noticed he or she had been munching on the broccoli. Perhaps it might be time for a faux owl on one of the fence posts! But other than the broccoli, everything else is just growing, growing, growing...and pretty soon we're going to have vegetables come out of our ears!!!
I'm really gonna need that pressure canner and that chest freezer...SOON!
Until next time, keep your eyes open for wild wonders!
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