What did you do in the garden today?

[muddy75]

 

[Sally PB]

How are they doing now that they’ve been in the ground a few weeks?

They're looking good! Just small. I would have expected them to be 2-3 times the size by now; they're 8-12" tall/long. I'm hoping the heat we have in the next few days entices them to grow. Fast.

 

[Charlie Wooster]

Home grown bacon.. especially made for Buddy our 16 year old chihuahua.. he’s on his last days and he gets special treatment.. he eats scrambled or boiled quail eggs and rabbit bacon.. looks like regular bacon, just much much smaller.. lol I don’t waste anything here on the homestead..
Happy 4th To Y’all !!

 

[Charlie Wooster]

Rabbit belly bacon and boiled or scrambled quail eggs.. Buddy the chihuahua is spoiled.. ha

 

[Acre4Me]

They're looking good! Just small. I would have expected them to be 2-3 times the size by now; they're 8-12" tall/long. I'm hoping the heat we have in the next few days entices them to grow. Fast.

Good! Mine are about the same. A few starting to vine, just barely. But they have been putting out new leaves since they’ve been planted.

Are yours under black plastic? That helped tremendously last year-a very clear difference between same variety planted under black plastic vs in a very/all day sunny spot.

Must be magically warmer all around- all melons are beginning to fill out and vine!

 

[Acre4Me]

Baby praying mantis! On leaf/ middle of pic.

Close up

Someone asked if pole beans just send up the one vine. No, often there are a few per vine. This variety is prolific:

This year I planted 3 cucumber varieties. On the bean trellis, next to beans and onions. So far no cucumber beetles..

Only bees so far.

 

[Sally PB]

Are yours under black plastic? That helped tremendously last year-a very clear difference between same variety planted under black plastic vs in a very/all day sunny spot.

No... I hadn't thought of that. What about black weed block cloth? I have a fair amount of that, but no plastic, other than garbage bags.

How do you keep the plastic from blowing away? I'd have to hold down the entire edge to keep it down.

I used the weed block fabric to try to pre-warm the soil. I took it up when I got the email I'd get my plants delivered on Thursday (can't recall the date). Except I got them the following Monday, thanks to UPS.

 

[WthrLady]

It's Happy Hatchday here for my Merriweather! She's 9 today and still as crazy and spry as always.

 

[Smokerbill]

Yeah, I kinda figured that electric fence in your pictures would not keep out the deer we have. I know a guy who was growing grapes, and the deer would come and eat everything. Long story short, he ended up installing an 8-foot-high fence and added that angled wire top before he finally beat the deer. HIs little vineyard looks like a prison yard, but at least he now grows grapes and is able to harvest them.

His fencing looks something like this Google picture...

View attachment 3564990



For sure. Good luck.

Our orchards and vineyards have fences like that or 10 foot deer fencing around them around here. It's the only way.

before I moved to my new place wild hog and deer spent winters here. with my 2 german shepherds who dig under the fence and escape they are history.

I was at the point last night that I just decided to give up on preventing deer damage to my garden. But after sleeping on it I came up with a new plan, because building an 8 foot fence around my entire garden area would be impossible for me to do.

I'm going to try building 4 foot tall welded wire fence panels that will sit on the top edge of each raised bed. Two panels on each side, removable for access to the plants, fixed panels on each of the narrow bed ends.

And looking out on the garden from my bedroom window this morning, it looks like the deer left it alone last night. Haven't looked close yet. Maybe all the fireworks going off last night spooked the deer into hiding.

 

[gtaus]

I'm going to try building 4 foot tall welded wire fence panels that will sit on the top edge of each raised bed. Two panels on each side, removable for access to the plants, fixed panels on each of the narrow bed ends.

I have had success along those lines with something like this Google pic....

I just used some 2X2's for the frame and tacked on some chicken wire. It keeps the rabbits and deer out of the raised bed. Most of my raised beds are 4X4 feet, so no big deal to lift it off if/when I need to. However, most of the time, the cage sits on top of the raised bed for weeks, if not months, after I set it up.

If you have longer, bigger, raised beds, you could attach the cage frame to the raised bed with some hinges and prop it up with a board when you need to get inside.

What I like about the lift off cage approach is that the same cage will fit on any of my other 4X4 raised beds. I often move my plants from year to year into different beds, so the cage just get puts on the bed where I need to protect those plants.

I could see that if you have a larger raised bed, maybe some heavier, more permanent 2X4 framing with removable panels would work better. In any case, it looks like it might be an excellent use of pallet wood 2X4's or other reclaimed lumber.

The deer have never pushed off one of my cages to get to the plants, but if they did, I'd just add some hinges and/or hooks to lock the cage down on to the raised bed.

I know in my case, it was much easier and more cost effective to protect my raised beds with a chicken wire cage where needed instead of trying to put up fencing to protect the entire garden.