Keeping away the birds

The snake seems to do a good job keeping the birds away from my peas. However, if that rabbit finds this box- it will be doomed! I better to to LOWS and get some fencing today.

Potatoes

My red potatoes are up 5 inches so it is time to bury them again. I dug up the dirt in the mounds that I placed around the edges and put it over the plants. This should help the new, young potatoes grow better under the ground and not get any exposure to the sun, which would make their skins posionous.

The Biggest Garden Pest

Well Peter Cottontail found my garden and now I cannot get rid of him. I was looking forward to a wonderful bean harvest but he wanted to snack on them early. Here is the Before picture:

The After Picture is below it.

I replanted the last 3 rows of beans but I'll have to fence off the garden if I hope to grow them. In the front two rows I'm just going to pull up the sad stems and plant more summer squash. The bunny doesn't seem to like it very much so at least it stands a chance.

Update: I did some research on rabbit control and found out that sprinkling red pepper on the plants makes them nasty to rabbits and other animals. Also sprinkling dried blood, dog or cat hair or spraying predator animal urine around the area will keep the bunnies at bay.

So...I found some red pepper in my pantry and I sprinkled the remaining beans with it. Then I went to the nursery to find dried blood, but they were out. (Rabbits must be a common problem around here). They did have some fox urine however, so I bought some and sprayed the outside of the boxes with it. WOW does that stuff stink!! The product says it will stop stinking to humans when it dries. It is also guaranteed to be water proof and work for one month.


I only wonder....how do they harvest fox urine??

May 12 Updates

The gardens are doing very well this week. Here is Box 4 at 3 weeks. The potatoes are up and about 3 inches high and the corn is in the background.

Here is Box 2 at 5 weeks. That end tomato plant is doing a lot better since I put about 4 inches of soil around its base and then mulched it. The blight seems to be lessening as well. I think I'm going to be in trouble with the cucumbers though...

They are really growing well and I didn't realize they need ladders. We will most likely get over-crowded here pretty soon.

Here is my favorite box: Box 1 at week 6. The Spinach is ready for the first harvest if I want baby spinach- which I do. I know what I'm having for dinner!

Yum Yum. Spinach! The peas are in the background and happily growing up the supports.

Garden Box 3 and 4- Peppers, Beans and Corn

We planted Box 3 and Box 4 last week. This week they are starting to sprout. Box 3 has beans, peppers, zucchine and canalope. Yeah, it will get over-grown but I couldn't decide what to leave out...

Can you see the zucchine sprouts?

The bottom picture is Box 4. The back rows are corn and I planted potatoes in front. Right now it just looks like dirt.

Garden Box 2

In our second garden box we planted two more tomato plants (a different variety), cucumbers, a banana pepper plant, carrots and some squash. This box was planted one week after box #1 so it is 4 weeks old. Here is a picture of the banana pepper and a cucumber: Here is a tomato. Now this last tomato picture is of a plant that has given me a lot of grief. Look close and you will see the bottom leaves have copper spots on them. They get those spots and then the leaf dies and shrivels up. I think it might be blight and I probably bought it infected. I'm treating it with miracle grow that contains copper in it. I read that treating blight with copper fungicide usually does the trick, but I don't know if the Miracle Grow with the copper in it will work because the package didn't say 'fungicide'. Another problem is that the plant keeps falling over. I've built a mound around it of dirt and gave it a bamboo support yet even with this, the more it grows, the more it keeps trying to tip. Any suggestions on either problem?

The Peach Tree

We planted a Peach Tree about 4 weeks ago in the backyard. It was given to us by a wonderful neighbor who lives down the road. He brought it to us in his wheel-barrow and helped us plant it and gave us great information on how to protect it from bugs and diesease.

We were thrilled when the tree produced many blossoms and then lots of fruit!

Curtis thinned off almost all the fruit. We didn't want our new transplanted tree to stress producing fruit when it should be putting its energy into its new root system. But we didn't have the heart to take off all the fruit. Hopefully we will get a few peaches this year.

Look at all the fruit we thinned!

Garden Box #1 Close Ups

Sweet Peas, Spinich and Tomatoes!! They're coming...

Garden Box # 1

So we have 4 vegetable gardens. This was the first box to be completed and was planted 4 weeks ago. It has sweet peas, sweet 100 tomatoes, early girl 50 tomatoes, and spinich.

My sweet peas were doing really well, and then the birds found them. They pecked away the leaves on the side rows leaving only bare stems. When I saw the damage, I wanted to cry, but I didn't. Instead I just replanted. Now I have some good garden guards. NO peas have been eaten since the raccoon went on duty, and the frog takes over on rainy days and over-nights.

Our new Garden Boxes

Curtis worked really hard putting together the boxes. It took a few Saturdays but we've finally got them done.

In the Beginning...

Our home had no landscaping around it when we moved in. Last year we put in our front flower bed and we were proud of ourselves. This year we tackled the back yard and put in 4 vegtable gardens, a decorative corner flowerbed, and even planted a peach tree! We are trying many different veggies so we'll just have to see what happens. But before I show you our back-yard efforts, enjoy the front yard success:

Here is our house before the front flower bed. I alway kid Curtis that I would not have bought the house because of the lack of flowers. The front garden was our first big project together.

Here is the house two years (and a flower-bed) later.