(06-06-2010 02:27 PM)PrairieGirl Wrote: [ -> ]Cats -- I've found that some animals can learn!! Our last Golden Retriever, Riki, figured out that the stuff on the vines/plants (grapes, tomatoes, and berries, in particular) and trees (plums and apple) were the same things DH would sometimes give her, so it got to the point where we could not trust her when the fruits were ripe. One day, we let her outside, and she stripped the tomato plants in a few minutes.
I missed this post earlier. Be careful giving dogs grapes or raisins...something in them can damage dogs' kidneys.
Fascinating about the squirrels. I hope the ones around here never start in on our garden!
PG - I love it! Dogs can be so clever!
Jo - your fence will depend on what you have to keep out. I hope you don't have deer... they can be pretty tough to keep away from a garden. Rabbits, otoh, you only need about 28" in height and they have special rabbit fence that has small openings at the bottom.
We are VERY lucky - just one single block way they have deer - all the folks there have 6' deer fencing around the garden. Not us! We've only seen deer tracks one time so we have rabbit fence and a vole/mole barrier.
Mark -- we definitely know that now! -- didn't know it back then, which was nearly 8 or 10 years ago. Fortunately, Riki lived to be 16 years old.
Here are more pictures for a laugh:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=42...535277ab11
Hope that link works, it's to a photo album on my facebook. Go to page four to see the last five or six... it's my neighbour goofing around in the garden making a CLAY BOWL out of the blasted clay. It's fine pottery-grade clay. HAHAHA I told her we need a kiln!!
(06-14-2010 01:09 PM)Jo Wrote: [ -> ]Here are more pictures for a laugh: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=42...535277ab11
Hope that link works, it's to a photo album on my facebook. Go to page four to see the last five or six... it's my neighbour goofing around in the garden making a CLAY BOWL out of the blasted clay. It's fine pottery-grade clay. HAHAHA I told her we need a kiln!!
What a great idea! you can get one of those outdoor pizza oven things and it can double as a kiln! The best pizzas I've ever had in my life came out of one of those ovens
The picture of the bowl is hilarious! Love the composters - fabulous deal, too!
It has been a busy couple of weeks.
My vegetable gardens are in three locations and for various reasons- I was late putting them in this year.
Thank goodness, those main three vegetable gardens are 95% planted and all structures ( ie fencing, poles, netting, cages) are installed and just need a few hours of refinement.
This week, it has been hours of slow-paced touch up work.
Whew!!!
Throughout most of today, I worked on my three front ornamental gardens to get them more balanced looking and to move some plants, so they are more evenly distributed.
Excellent news, Cassia! I wish I had your get-up-and-go!!
My garden is... GROWING! I can't say it's pretty or it looks good, but the plants *are* growing, and as the neighbour farmer told me, that's what it's all about!!! I have 21 tomato plants in the ground at the moment (clay was too rock hard to continue, as it hasn't rained recently) and so far so good. I pruned the ones that had gotten big enough (cut off the bottom branches) and I'm delighted. Also, the seedlings I'd started from seed indoors were a very PALE green when I put them in the ground, but they are a dark, lush green right now, and I'm happy about that. It was touch and go there for awhile.
The peas are crawling slowly but surely up the trellis, and the squash is coming along nicely. I got some lettuce and cabbage seedlings from the gardening centre, and they are coming along nicely too. Planted carrots and onions DIRECTLY in the ground, and they have not poked through yet, though I'm optimistic!
OH OH OH! And one lone spinach plant made it! I'm so happy about that!!!!
The front garden looks QUITE messy (horrid clay and splotches of triple mix and top soil), but I planted a ton of rooted perennials that my friend gave me out of her garden, and... I'm so happy... THE TIGER LILIES ARE BLOOMING!! Tiger lilies are my hands down FAVOURITE!! I had no idea that's what they were when she gave them to me. The rosebushes have no roses as of yet, but tons of new growth. YIPPEE!!
My neighbours got inspired to cut out a front garden for flowers in front of their half of the house... and get this! THEY HAVE REAL SOIL! I'm so jealous! LOL
OH!! The other big news is that I bought two composters and one is already almost full (well it's shrunk down) but we have TONS of yard waste around here, never mind the kitchen scraps from two households. I'm a composting FREAK now. I need more composters. LOL Two is not nearly enough!!!
And as we pay for cistern water out here, I've almost used up all the water in my neighbour's rain barrel, and I'm picking up two more for the other two downspouts today after work. I'm going to use exclusively rainwater if I can (might have to use the hose if we have a dry spell) but it's wicked exercise, with a watering can, back and forth like that. I find it all very ZEN!
Like I said, it looks like hell, but I suspect I will have vegetables this summer despite it. I'm so happy.
Yay for starting your compost! It will be a long-term process, but it will eventually improve the clay soil(we have that too, it's a struggle).
The tomato plants were not doing well, we had a cold spring and 2 of the plants did not make it. Finally, the heat returned and they are thriving. One of the cherry tomato plants has one tomato almost red.
The snowpea plant is really thriving, it's big with lots of pods. Yum.
Not doing as well are peppers,blue lake beans and zucchini. I hear about zucchini being so easy to grow. Maybe it's the clay soil?
I also planted an artichoke plant, though I don't expect flowering yet.
(06-22-2010 10:54 AM)Jo Wrote: [ -> ]I pruned the ones that had gotten big enough (cut off the bottom branches) and I'm delighted.
I've never done that. What do you gain by doing that?
(06-22-2010 11:51 AM)mark1030 Wrote: [ -> ] (06-22-2010 10:54 AM)Jo Wrote: [ -> ]I pruned the ones that had gotten big enough (cut off the bottom branches) and I'm delighted.
I've never done that. What do you gain by doing that?
I have read that you have to cut off all the lower branches of a tomato plant because they are sucking up precious water and nutrients that should be going to the fruit. The fruit never grows off the low branches anyway. The plant should look more like a tree than a bush, with a 'trunk' if you will.
Okay, after some quick internet searches, most sites say to cut off the 'suckers' which just generate more foliage, but not more fruit. I only ever had one tomato garden before and whatever I read got me thinking I needed to cut off the lower branches, so I did, and I had a bumper crop of tomatoes. So there you go. I don't know why I do it, I just do. LOL
Yes - you cut off the suckers. Not necessarily the lower branches - but the ones that grow up in between/off of the fruit bearing branches. You don't want the plant putting its energy into growing leaves.
I have just finally caught up on my gardens.
Part of my enthusiasm is for gardening itself, but it is also a necessity as the amount that one gets on disability pension is about $12,000 per year.
A couple of days ago, I had the itch for a few more seedlings on a tight budget.
Trips to two local garden centres resulted in no "deals" so I went to a regular store with a seasonal garden centre and hit the bargain jackpot!
It worked out to 6 cents per plant for 4in (or larger) annual seedlings that were potbound and a bit sad.
I adopted quite a few and had to do several trike trips (three) to get all of the approximately 300 plants home.
It was a crazy couple of days getting them into my local community garden and my home vegetable and decorative sections.
For 6B (local garden zone) this is pretty much the lat week to get stuff in and still getting a productive growing season.
Some of what was obtained:
- sweet peppers
- 3 types of cabbage
- brussel sprouts
- broccoli
- cauliflower
- 6 types of tomatoes
- 7 types of Begonia
- Dusty Miller
- 5 types of Marigold
- 5 types of Salvia
- 3 types of Cosmos
Unfortunately, I also had to spend hours repairing my community garden fence.
There was visually undetectable metal rot in the chicken-wire where it is buried in the ground, but animals were able to push through.
Getting into my garden, they chewed off about 50 plants.
Getting into my garden, they chewed off about 50 plants.
OH NO!! What a nightmare!! I have luckily and so far dodged the critter-munching bullet. I still have no fence. The local unfixed tomcat (his name is Tommy and the neighbours actually say he's theirs... why they don't fix him, I have no idea...) anyhow he comes in the garden and SPRAYS which makes me crazy.
I have had several lettuce plants growing for a couple of weeks now, and nothing, no bunnies, no deer, nothing. So far so good.
Cassia, I love that you got so many plants for CHEAP! That's amazing. My gardening friend Claudia assures me end of season annual/perennial sales are crazy fun to go to, because they really are basically giving them away at that point. Sounds like that's what you found. I would never consider the first day of summer to be the end of season, but there you go... shows how much I know.
Ah ha but the cheapest way is to start your own seeds. And SO rewarding. Seed catalogs in February - there's nothing like putting that order in. And then watching as the little tiny seedlings come up one by one.
Bummer about the critters, cassia. Rabbits can be SO destructive. We watch our local rabbit in the mornings - he literally circles our garden fence every day, trying to find a way in. He's MASSIVE - about 2x the normal size of a "wild" bunny. But he's not getting fat on our food! In other critter news - I saw a deer about a stones throw from our house yesterday! Panic! Our fence isn't deer-proof...
Our garden is growing like crazy with all the warm weather we've had. We have a pepper that can be picked soon! Incredible for upstate NY. We also have TONS of tomato blossoms (blight please stay away!) and broccoli coming soon. Squash is just starting to form blossoms. And the tomatillos have taken off this week. Cilantro is coming up, as are carrots and beets and basil is ready to harvest - TOO EARLY! We replanted a second batch last week.
(06-22-2010 07:39 PM)Jo Wrote: [ -> ]Pictures, pictures!!!
How do I load pictures here?
Just returned from the community garden plot.
Very upset and discouraged!
The rabbits ripped another opening and got at least another 200 plants in addition to the 150 they took two days ago.
I don't know the actual number because I had to stop looking because it was upsetting me.
When they take plants that are the first true leaves- that plant is gone for good.
I spent tonight at the garden sobbing and crying because I really need the food from this garden and at least 350 plants is a big loss.
Tonight, I had to hurry and fix the fence again because if I don't there will be nothing left.
It was a very very painful and discouraging experience as I was hurrying to twist and weave new wire that was gouging my hands ( too delicate work for gloves ) as the old rusted wire scrapped and bit me, as I had to dig into the soil line and about 3 mosquitoes were biting me at any given moment.
I got about 70 mosquito bites minimum, lots of cuts and gouges, tetanus, west nile and a shitty attitude.
Why do they sell wire cutters to underage rabbits?
Cassia, I am so sorry about all of your poor little plants.
I'm sorry you were so upset, too
It is just after 5am.
This morning I go out to use spare fence to totally redo ( ie reinforce) at least 20 feet of fence at that ground level.
I may need to do more (ie about 60 feet)
cassia - I'm sorry that happened to you. What a nightmare! I would ditch the chicken wire. It's not durable enough to serve as garden fence - I've never seen it used as a garden fence except in very small beds like for lettuce or something similar. They sell rabbit fence - it's about 28" high and it has small openings at the bottom and larger at the top. It's not that expensive and a worthwhile investment... it's hard to work with but no worse than chicken wire, which is pretty much useless.
Our entire garden is fenced in with rabbit fencing, although with the deer sightings we may have to move to deer fence at some point. I shudder to think about the cost and hassle - deer fencing has to be at last 6' HIGH and you even have to use additional crap at the top ABOVE the fencing to keep them out since they can jump 8' from a run and at least 6' from a standstill.
Amazingly the rabbits appear uninterested in our unfenced pumpkins. The pumpkins grew out of the garden last year and the rabbits never ate them so this year we are experimenting with pumpkins in an unfenced bed. Fingers crossed!