Maine

[superchemicalgirl]

Still gotta do a border, and my gardens are STILL NOT PLANTED... darn the rain. I also have empty boxes on the hives for when I hived them on Saturday... supposed to remove them in 24 hours, but I haven't found someone willing to hold an umbrella over the hive while I get in there (with angry bees that don't like rain).

 

[buckabucka]

Oh, the quilt is gorgeous! So colorful and I love all kinds of birds. You are very talented, SCG.

And I'm glad I wasn't the only one last year with the comical missing carrots. The beets were like that too, -greens were there, even the outside shell of the beet, so from the top it just looked like a regular row of beets. But every single one was totally hollowed out!

 

[lazy gardener]

Yep, I've had the same problem on way too many occasions. And, SCG. That quilt is incredible. what ever you do, don't wash it and hang it out to dry!

 

[IZZYBELLA]

Wow, SCG that is beautiful! I really want to get back into my hives, too! There was a funky brood pattern last time, so I'm anxious to see what is going on...

That is so cool that your gender selection method seemed to work, LG!

 

[lazy gardener]

Can't wait to try it again. also can't wait until I get the final gender count from my friends who took 10 chicks from that hatch. I'll post the final results in the original thread.

 

[buckabucka]

I am so frustrated with the garden! This morning when I stuck my head in the hoop house, 2 very large eggplant seedlings were missing, and three large pepper plants. At first I thought it looked like cut worm, but then I realized the whole large plants were just gone. I thought of a ground hog, but the brassicas outside were not eaten. In fact, two brassicas were uprooted, but otherwise untouched. A dog? I left for work wondering....

DH investigated later and found another pepper plant gone, but he discovered the missing plants underneath the black plastic that lines the hoop house. Clearly something was tunneling under, chewing off the stem, and pulling the plant below. Rabbit? RATS?????

He put some PVC pipes along the ground on the outside as a blockade and put Q tips soaked in fox urine inside. I put out rat poison and I'm headed out with the game cam....

 

[IZZYBELLA]

That's bizarre, bucka! Hope you find the culprit...

My silly broody has failed again. She was doing so well, but yesterday decided to switch boxes. I caught her shortly after, but now this morning she was in yet another box and the eggs were stone cold. I'm going to start disturbing her to attempt to break her. If she's not going to productively hatch, then she needs to start laying again - ha!

 

[lazy gardener]

Bucka, I'm guessing rat. Hope you solve the mystery, and catch the perp.

 

[buckabucka]

I think rat too. Nothing disappeared last night, and the poison was still there at 9:30 am when DH checked. A little later in the day we had lost two tomatoes, two more eggplant, and another pepper, plus the poison was gone. The game cam did not catch it.

Tonight I put little hardware cloth collars on all the plants. They could easily dig under them, but it was the best I could do. The strange thing is, they don't eat any leaves, just chew through the stem like a cut worm. What a waste. Maybe they are teething. One of the newspaper cutworm collars was chewed up, -very rodent-like.

We put out some poison water, under a milk crate with large-ish holes to keep out stray animals. The poison chunks are basically gone, but I dumped what was left in the bucket on the ground where the other poison had been. We've never had rodents take peppers or tomatoes before. I don't think the beets and carrots have a prayer.

 

[Cknldy]

Moles maybe? But they don't usually come above ground. It would be hilarious to see a mole with a big pepper plant! Do yall have groundhogs up there?