Dear Chipmunk(s), Fork You

 Like most gardeners, I get excited about things some people think are stupid.  If you're a gardener, you understand that these things aren't stupid.  If you're not, you look at people you know who are gardeners and say, "That's kind of stupid."

So, when the chipmunks dug up my corn and I decided to start the fourth batch at my house because chipmunks don't want to eat the stalks, just the dried kernel that is ever so tasty to them, I was excited.  On Sunday I planted them in a seeding medium and turned on the heat map designed for seeds.  On Monday I had corn sprouts.  By Tuesday, I could turn off the mat and take the dome off as they were pretty solid.  Wednesday they were out on the deck and Thursday afternoon, I put them in the garden.

To say this had me squeeing hard enough to make an anime fangirl look like a piker would be an understatement. There they were, standing tall in my three-sister box embracing the sun and soil with relief. If they could talk, I'm sure they would have sighed with delight and said, "We're home."

Yeah, I get it if you think it's stupid.  For me, it was truly exciting.

Friday morning, I stopped off at the garden to drop off some stuff for the composting bin and noticed one seedling had been attacked but the rest were fine.  OK, maybe the chipmunk tried one and was... yeah... no thanks.  There were people down there watering and weeding and tending to their plots, so I happily went off to do my food shopping and picked up a couple of boxes of compostable forks because my dahlias were under attack again.  Seems those furry rat bastards with the good PR firm really like to dig up Dahlia tubers and snack on them.  Someone suggested plastic forks make a good protective fence, so I picked some up at the store.

Because I headed downtown first, I was shocked to see almost all the corn dug up - but not eaten.  The roots were still there and strong.  New plan of attack.  I decided to replant the corn and then plant two boxes of plastic forks as their companion planting for the box.  I then walked over to the local dollar store and bought two more packs of forks, these ones are clear and plastic, to put around my dahlia and lily bulbs for protection.  I guess I'll know if that technique worked or not in the morning.

Today was a small work day for me.  I replaced the manky old trellis netting with fresh netting, pulled a few weeds, and planted biodegradable plant-based plastic substitute forks with my corn.

I found there is a three-foot-long garter snake in the garden.  I usually only see the one I call tiny snek because he's about a foot long and, aside from startling me every so often, is cute.  I'm hoping the big one decides the chipmunk would be a tasty meal and take care of the problem.  We'll see.  Someone suggested I use a white vinegar/salt solution to take care of my mint problem along the non-growing sides of things.  I'm seriously considering it.  So far I've learned that if I have it in a spray bottle that can do a targeted stream vs a misting spray, it could just get the ones along the fences and open spaces where I don't have beds.  I haven't decided yet or not, but if I pull one more freaking mint plant... well, let's just say, I'm seriously considering things.

It's beginning to look a lot like a garden

So... what happens when you plant corn?   

Not a trick question, because it happened for the third time this season.  The answer is the chipmunks eat it.

They don't like the plant so much as the corn seed it is growing from.  The rat bastards would dig up my corn when it would get to this size and eat it all up so that my three sisters box remains empty currently.  Trying to find some already sprouted at the local farm stands has been useless.

So I tried again in a little bit of seed starter in the house.  It's growing well and will probably be down in the box next week sometime.  In the meantime, I am researching ways to keep the rat bastards away from my plantings because... I hate chipmunks.

Quick recap on my hatred - several years ago, I had a 50lb bag of soil on my right shoulder and I entered the garden, stepped into a hole with my left foot and did a barrel roll through my deer fencing. I sat up with the bag of soil on my shoulder and a right ankle that was swearing at me.  The docs told me that if I did that again, I would need surgery to repair the ankle.  A couple of years later, I had a fight with a tree root and ended up in a non-weight bearing cast for 12 weeks after surgery.

I really hate those furry rat bastards.

But back to the present day. The downtown garden keeps rolling along.  I have been planting away.  The bean teepee is up, although it's because I planted a bunch of sugar snap peas.  I also put up some more bamboo poles to plant some blue lake green beans. 

Soon it will grow high enough to be a place for my niecey-niece and little nephew to hide in.  As much as I hate chipmunks, I love Catbug and if sugar peas are OK with Catbug, they're more than OK with me.  Even more important, my little nephew is now excited about sugar peas because of Catbug so, yeah SUGAR PEAS!

I also needed to start adding things like tomato cages and figured it was time to get my tools up off the ground and found a cheap little stand for them. Of course weeding never ends.

It never ends.  If you ever want to be a jerk, plant some mint in the ground and let it spread.  Those who come after you will first be, "Oh, that smells nice when I mow the lawn..." until the mint takes everything over and they're like, "Curse you for planting mint you son of a bitch."  As they say, it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt.

I did find another ant colony, so that meant a new batch of organic ant killer.

Let me be clear about ants.  Yes, some ants in a garden are good.  They eat some pretty nasty stuff not to mention provide tasty food for good insects, etc.  There are two problems.  The first is huge colonies of ants because they are carnivorous and they will eat anything/everything, including the good bugs.  The second is red ants because they are just pure spite sent here from hell.  So I mix up a solution of 1 cup boiling water, 1/4 cup sugar, and a tablespoon of 20 mule team Borax.  I then shove cotton balls in the jar to soak up all that dissolved sugary Borax goodness, which they take back to the nest.  A couple of days later, no more ant colonies.

If only I could get rid of the chipmunks so easily.

Uptown

So working the uptown garden off my deck was tough.  Lack of nitrogen in the soil and the large number of roots made for some backbreaking work.  Yeah, yeah, sexy dirt and all that.  

Hey, at least my abs, biceps, triceps, and pecs got a workout.  Who needs a gym when you garden?

The real thing is that having a garden off the deck makes me feel like a grown-up.  Well that and buying a new canopy for the porch swing that matches the umbrella and a tablecloth for the table.  Gone is that curb find college look, it's sort of like, "Oh here's a photo of my deck and I'm not embarrassed."

But I have a guardian angel for my garden.  Her name is Seraphina and she likes to face the East.  I decided she needed to be surrounded by lavender, salvia, phlox, snapdragons, and lilies.  In other words, she needs to be surrounded by pretty colors all the way around.  

Then came some new problems.

Apparently, I have something that likes to eat flowers.  I came out and found something had made a nice little snack of my red lilies and yellow roses.  Seriously?  What the hell eats roses?  

My guess was the squirrels, but everyone keeps looking at me and saying, "I don't think so."  I haven't seen any rogue deer wander through lately and after I got the red lily in, something ate the last of the flowers on it.

I did try planting some Asiatic lily bulbs in Seraphina's garden.  It's a bit late, but I figured I'd give it a try.  I also planted the Dahlia tubers someone gave me.  I don't know if they'll grow or not as this whole flower garden thing is new to me.  At least I can say I tried.

New year, new gardens

 Yes, gardens with a plural s.  This will be long because... well, lots of stuff and it's been a year.

What sexy dirt looks like

The uptown garden has expanded off the deck.  This year I decided to amend the soil. It was a lot of hard work for just some dirt that meant digging two trenches, adding blood meal to each, and then refilling the first trench with the soil from the second trench before topping it off with topsoil... and so on.  It was a lot of work for things to look like dirt.  As one farmer said to me, "But it's becoming sexy dirt."

In that space, I have some strawberries (what's left, at least, after the squirrels found them), two miniature rose bushes from Trader Joe's last Valentine's Day, some snapdragons, lavender, salvia, phlox, and the hosta.  The hostas have been there for ages but keep coming back.  I don't know what the bushes are that have been there for ages, but there they are and they work into things as well.  One of the teachers at school gave me four Dahlia tubers.  I don't know if they'll do anything, but I'll put them in this week as they seem to have a bit of a sprout.  

I also added a couple of covers to the drain pipes - a gargoyle and a dragon to keep him company. 

On the deck, I have the herbs.  On one of the hooks is a large everbearing strawberry plant.  She is a total diva, but I love her. The traditional bowl of herbs this year has dill, a couple of basil plants, flatleaf parsley, rosemary, and marjoram. The rail box has rosemary, oregano, curly parsley, and purple sage. I have a pot of basil on the deck and a bowl of lettuce on one of the tables. I'll add some Parisian carrots when I pick up some drainage rocks for the bottom of my square planter.

I know it will all look beautiful when all the work is done and things have started to fill out and grow.  It all comes down to patience... not a lot of something I have.

Let's Go Downtown...

The downtown garden is getting a lot of work done to it. 

I took this before I started and my husband said, "Wow! It looks good, what are you growing?"

I replied, "Weeds."

Yep, I started late clearing the place out this year.  New England weather has been... well, odd to say the least.  But it's New England so it's to be expected.  It took three or four days to clear it all out.  One of my original raised beds had a couple of boards rotting out, so I had some new wood cut for it.  

Just as a reminder: measure twice, cut once.  I'm ending up with two six by two instead of seven by three beds this year, which is OK.  I did mix up a new batch of Mel's mix (1:1:1 peat moss: mixed compost: vermiculite) for the center bed, which also had new wood and a reduced size bed.  The beauty of the slotted concrete corners is I can pull and insert new boards without having to rip nails out and such.   

Let me give a big shout out to my husband.  All the old wood and debris that had piled up in one corner is mostly gone now because he spent time hauling it to the dumpsters and wood piles for me so I could focus on rebuilding my tomato and pepper boxes. Of course, in the middle of all the weeding and prepping, I discovered a pretty good sized ant colony had taken up residence.  With a little research, I boiled up some water, dissolved some sugar and Borax, and saturated a bunch of cotton balls to place around my boxes.  It seems to work and there will be a full post on that later.

The far box is my peppers and eggplant, the middle box will be the tomatoes this year, and my onion box... well, the onion box is just fine thank you very much, and would like to be left alone to do its thing.  The Egyptian walking onions I thought were going to die last year came back with a vengeance.  It will be a nice crop this year with enough reseeding for next year.  The garlic onion things (I should find out what they're really called) given to me years ago have spread.  There is one clump in the box, the rest have scattered all around the plot.  

Perhaps someone will curse me as a ghost of gardens past as I curse the mint and mugwort planters. It's time to start chasing the rogue plants and dumping them back in the onion box with a firm warning to stay put.  (Oh yeah, that should work.) 

My old tomato box will be my three sister garden.  The corn is planted and I do need to pull and replace the boards around it as well as top off the soil, but it's wicked boring right now.  Photos will come as things grow. Basically, I have to wait until the corn is about 10-12" tall then plant the beans, wait until they are using the corn for support, and then plant the pumpkins. Hopefully, by mid-July it will all be looking good.

Squash and cukes get planted today after some final weeding in their box.  All in all, it's shaping up.  I'll get real photos and shorter posts up... but hey, it's been a year.