by Noel | Jun 10, 2009 | Gardening
I first noticed the damage last week. I thought it was deer, but there were no deer tracks. The sweet peas were nipped off and some eaten to the ground. Then I saw some asparagus eaten, and some strawberry plants. Yesterday I found my two tomatillos almost gone and one of my tomatoes eaten to nothing. Curiously, the most severe damage was to the sunchokes, which I really don’t care that much about. They are just there. We occasionally harvest a few, but they...
by Noel | Jun 8, 2009 | Gardening
I picked our first pint plus of strawberries this morning. Even though most are ripe, I usually have to pick them before they are totally deep red or else the birds get there first. The berries with a little white on them will ripen just fine in the house. I could cover the berry beds with agricultural fabric, but that is too much work. I’ve already got my sweet potatoes, peas, and peppers covered to keep the deer from eating them and I’ll have to...
by Noel | May 25, 2009 | Gardening
Other than the perennial asparagus bed and a bed that was fallow last year but cleaned out for Anneliese’s gardening effort two years ago, I haven’t gardened any of the north beds since 2003. Besides the asparagus, I have a stand of perennial sunchokes and my compost pile, but the north garden is mostly in disrepair and has become infested with burdock, tansy, sumac and grass. I needed more space this year so I cleaned out the double bed that Anneliese...
by Noel | May 19, 2009 | Gardening
I found this little red-bellied snake while raking leaves off the beds. They nest in the leaves every year. This one is still a small juvenile. They are not big snakes even when fully grown. I like having snakes in the garden. They are harmless and they eat lots of insects. Snakes and other creatures also give the garden a little bit of a wild side. I think preserving whatever wildness we can in our yards is important. The sterility of the suburbs is well...
by Noel | May 13, 2009 | CobraHead, Gardening
I’m really beginning to see positive results of covering the beds with leaves in the fall. I’ve been pretty diligent about doing this for the last five years. This picture shows a bed I just cleaned off. It is almost totally weed free, and the few weeds that have sprouted are easily removed. I even got some leaves into several of the north beds, which is way more of a wild area than the south beds. You can see the results of leaf cover on the bed on...
