Desperate Times Call For Desperate Measures

 This past winter we got our first snowfall on Thanksgiving, and the snow cover was in place until spring.  This made it a little hard on the deer, especially since our deer seem to rely primarily on landscaping for food, especially in the winter, and a lot of people do successfully fence them out of shrubs.  You have to be serious about your fences or the deer will just go over them or under them.  Our next door neighbors put loops of fence around their Rhododendrons, but they did not anchor the fence with T-posts.  One day they looked out the window and there was a deer behind the fence.

The deer was behind the fence below and as you can see, there is no way they could jump into that.  They just squeezed between the fence post and the wall.  Is it not a little ironic that the leaves they ate were behind the fence, not above it....

The neighbors had thought previously of pulling these over grown shrubs, but having seen similar damage on other shrubs before I suggested that they just cut them to the ground and let them grow back fresh.  I knew of two other neighborhood houses who had, in the past, done this and I had watched the result.  So the last week of March they cut them down.

Not much left there!  I suggested they give them a good dose of granular fertilizer and just wait.

It wasn't long before they began to grow.  I made sure to take pictures through the spring and summer to track their progress.

End of May

Two of them came back thick.

The new growth is glossy and healthy.

Mid-August

The regrown shrubs are more proportionate to the other landscape.

One of them is lagging behind a bit.  I suggested that they go ahead and cut these bare trunks back further since no new growth is coming from them.  The new growth on this shrub is coming only from the roots.

And this winter make sure to anchor their fence with posts!

My Solitary Bees Have Been Put Out

 Today I put my Mason and Leaf Cutter Bee larvae.  I put the tubes in a box in the fall and keep them with my Dahlia tubers because their wintering requirements are similar.  I finally ordered new bamboo tubes which I placed in the bottom of the box.  Then I placed a piece of corrugated on top of them to divide the new ones from the old ones.   After a length of time when I feel that everything that will hatch has hatched out, I will remove and set aside the old tubes from the top and add more new nesting tubes.

I transplanted my indeterminate tomato seedlings.  They were sown ten days ago on April 1st and were just starting to show their first leaves.

When I checked the tray for water I noticed that one variety, my Amish friend Elsie's Tomatoes, which are very vigorous plants their whole lives, was sending roots through the drain holes.  They were ready to be out of their baby cell.  

They never look like much the first day, but give them three or four days and they will be off and running.  When they are sending out their first leaves they are in a growth spurt and now they have plenty of room to root.  Tomato plants respond very well to transplanting.  In my opinion, it is better to bump them up gradually from small cells to small pots, then maybe a larger pot before they go out to the garden.  I have heard it is true in house plants and am coming to believe it is also true for vegetable plants.  They do not like their container size to change drastically.  They would rather the stages were more gradual.  If I had planted these babies in, let's say 6" wide pots, they would shock and stall their growth.  Because Tomato plants send out little roots along the stem, they can be submerged quite deeply and they will send out more roots along the stem.

I have room in this tray for two more 6 packs.  I plan to use these for Marigolds or maybe Lettuce.  I have a difficult time discarding extra seedlings, so I left some in the seed tray under the light just in case one of the others doesn't thrive.  The Dwarf Eagle Smiley plant was transplanted too.  He has a buddy.  A second seed (on the left) germinated in a much quicker and less dramatic fashion.  

In other News...

I use this blog all of the time to figure out when something happened.  Today will be known as "the day Big Bird flew through the neighbor's upstairs window."  

I was in the house sort of napping when I heard what sounded like a van door slamming shut.  You know, that sliding track sound that comes with UPS and some Amazon trucks.... 1980s minivans... wwrrrroooooshhhCRASH.

I noted it as being very loud and unusual, but we live close to a busy intersection and if I went out and investigated every weird sound I'd neve get any rest.  About 20 minutes later our next door neighbor called in a fairly high state of agitation.  She wanted us to come over and "have a look at the upstairs window.  It's shattered all over the driveway."  We knew her husband was away for the day but the situation wasn't making much sense over the phone and to be fair, it wasn't making much sense to her either.  

The upstairs attic window was shattered.  Below is a photo of the house from back when my husband lived there.  We went over there and surenuf, there was glass on the driveway and the window pane was gone.  She said she had heard a whooshcrash and thought maybe we had cut down a tree nearby.  But it didn't sound right so she looked around the house inside and out. That was when she saw the glass.  We went up in the attic expecting to find a dead bird up there.  There was a lot more glass in the attic, a few drops of blood on the floor right below the window and a dozen or so big, black, breast feathers blowing around.

We cleaned up the mess.  We took pictures with her phone for her insurance agent.  My husband screwed a piece of plywood over the window.  It was a double pane insulated window and there was nothing left of it.  Glass was scattered across the attic in a twelve foot arc and I even picked one shard of it out of a rafter.  But no sign of a bird.  It had to be a BIG bird.  There are only a few Christmas decorations in the attic and we panned a flashlight into every corner.  There was no more blood or bird.

 The feathers were black and wide with a metallic band.  They looked sort of like turkey feathers.  Google Image agreed.  The first thing Google came up with was wild turkey too.  But what the heck would a turkey be doing way up there?  I could imagine that maybe a turkey vulture, which are common here, dove after a song bird that was scoping out the widow and flood light for a nesting spot.  But even that seemed a little far fetched.

Later on, I was outside working on my bee nesting house and the neighbor's husband called me over.  They had gone back over their security camera footage and they believed they had a picture of the culprit.  The camera view didn't go up as high as the attic window, but it did catch a reflection in one of the lower windows of something standing in the driveway along the fence.

That there is a big ole wild turkey.  With a beard.

What the hell was he thinking?

We walked around the driveway again looking for blood or feathers and didn't find a thing.  Apparently Big Bird made it out alive.   That's one lucky bird.  And I think we were lucky too.  No one needs a big, bloody turkey dying in their attic.  It was nice to have photo evidence as an explanation.  Quite frankly, I don't think the insurance agent would have believed the story without it.  I mean how often does some one tell you "A wild turkey flew through my attic window and then disappeared."

Power Pole Project #1

The next door neighbors have a back-in area in their driveway that needed a rework.  The crane truck that removed the property line trees this spring dealt out some wear and tear, and then when additional work was done in their backyard, one of the dump trucks caught the end of the RR ties and the thirty year old wall gave up completely.  It is a short retaining wall that levels the driveway and keeps people out of the landscaping on the other side.  In NY state, residents are no longer allowed to purchase or transport used RR ties.  I'm not sure what makes them environmentally acceptable when they are under a RR track but deems them a hazard when they are lining your driveway, but that's the way it is.  Someone we know mentioned that they knew where we could get fragments of broken power poles for free, so we pursued that avenue and came up with enough to do this project and one for me too.

Removing the old ties

Digging a proper trench with the backhoe

We pulled out the three layers of old RR ties and cleaned out the trench first with the backhoe, and then by hand.  The wall was about twenty feet long, but we decided to shorten it a bit, making it easier to get big trucks past it in the future.

When we were done digging, we had a straight, level surface to start with and we lined it with some gravel to fill in any unevenness.

One of the power poles was cedar and fairly uniform in width its entire length.  With a chainsaw we cut lengths of pole between 14" and 20" long.  The idea was to randomly mix the widths and heights.

As we mixed chunks from both ends of the pole, we started plumbing and straightening the wall.

Just another inch this way...

We put a tall chunk at the end which will have reflectors nailed to it.

When we were satisfied with the pattern and straightness, we filled both sides with crushed stone.

Tamp.. tamp.. tamp..  more tamping

Water will fill in any little voids and firm up the gravel

Now all that's left to do is put the driveway back

The change in grade is about one foot

The driveway side will be low enough not to catch any bumpers

Now the neighbors are going to freshen up their landscaping with a rock garden, mulching with gravel which is very low maintenance.  The grasses are divisions from my own grasses on the other side of their drive.  For three hours of work and almost no material cost, the driveway is fixed and the landscape bed has an attractive backdrop.

Even with all of the work going on, I still had time to watch some butterflies.

Do you see that their are two on the Milkweed?

Don't overlook this little Azure

It got ahead of me

The strawberry bed was doing really well.  I had thinned out the center so I wouldn't have a complete jungle.  I had disturbed the black oxalis weeds to the point I thought they would be manageable....

And then I covered the bed for the week the berries would first ripen to keep the chipmunks out.

And it got away from me.

I did get several pickings of nice berries.  As much as I wanted really.  But then the ants started farming aphids in there and it all went to heck.  All of a sudden it appeared that all of the strawberry plants were pretty much gone.  Frankly, it became an eyesore.  One that I had to walk past 10 times a day.  Something drastic had to be done.  I've reached the stage of gardening where I do not hesitate to pull something out and start over.  Or go to Plan B. 

Zinfandel Oxalis sold by Proven Winners

Now a "weed" is anything that is growing where you don't want it.  Some of the "weeds" that I deal with a lot are actually useful plants under some circumstances. Oxalis, Purslane, Bachelor's Buttons... some people even plant Golden Rod on purpose.  But the Oxalis is getting pretty tiring.  It's everywhere - both the light green, upright, yellow sorrel, and the sneaky, low growing creeping woodsorrel.  The yellow sorrel is pretty easy to deal with but the woodsorrel is nearly impossible to pull.

Maybe I should have weeded the strawberries more carefully.  

^That ^ is a tree.

Some pretty nice soil

My initial plan was to strip out the top 4 inches of soil and discard it.  Instead of planting the semi-permanent strawberries back in there I will use it first for fall lettuce, and next year for broccoli and cauliflower. But when I got to digging around in there I remembered that this was some of my best soil.  Just look at how well it grew weeds.  So the plan changed.  I will have to keep an eye on it and keep the oxalis cultivated out.  That will be easier with seasonal crops than with the strawberries.  The strawberries are going into "time out" in a strawberry tower where they can't get themselves into as much trouble.

Meanwhile. the neighbor's new raised beds are doing great.

The Tiger Lilies are in full bloom.  In fact, I think that bed may need to be thinned in the spring.  Tiger Lilies are quick to take over.

The neighbor's have also finished setting up their rain water collection.  This tank stores water from the barn rain gutters.  There is a submerged sump pump to pressurize the hose, and a wall light to tell you when the switch is on so it doesn't get left on.

Everything but the Gate

The pictures speak for themselves.  5 Weeks in the making.

You can get around the outside edge of the beds, especially to the right, but the wide open center allows more room for a wheelbarrow.  In fact, you can sit on the ledge to the right and weed which is pretty convenient.

Fresh empty soil is so inviting

The beds are three feet wide ion the inside measurement so you can reach across without much trouble

 The beds are 14 inches deep at the center.

Just waiting on the gate to be hung and gardening may commence.

New Project - 2018 Progress Report

Over in the neighbor's garden annex, construction is still underway.  The fence is complete using Hog Panels from Tractor Supply with 1" square welded wire clipped to the bottom two feet to keep bunnies and woodchucks out.  When standing on the ground level, the fence is over 5 feet high so I'm not worried about the deer hopping over on a whim.  If we don't finish the garden, we could probably house elephants. 

The fence was a challenge to build.  The first post hole broke the post hole digger and required a quick trip to the parts store.  The seventh post hole struck water.  This has happened to us several times.  Twice the tractor has sunk to the axels in the mud hole created in under ten minutes.  That's how much water we can hit.  They are gushers.  The seventh post, a 6"x 6"x 8' floated right out of the hole.  But it's in there now

Some people may say this garden is over built.  Just like the first one.  So why do we go to all of this expense and effort?  Because we don't like doing things twice.  Take for instance this little garden on my way in to the office.  I snapped this picture this morning.

This unfortunate little raised bed garden was constructed about 4 or 5 years ago.  They didn't fence it so they had to cover things with wire and netting.  They didn't make paths so they had to mow or trim in between.  By last fall the beds were bulging and beginning to come apart at the seams and when the snow finally melted, a couple of them popped apart spilling soil all over the lawn.  Now it's a complete do-over.  The only part still useful is the cold frame there on the corner bed.  There are a couple other little raised bed gardens on my daily drive in various stages of disrepair.

On the other hand, my garden is eight years old this month and still requires very little work to maintain.  When spring roles around all I have to do is walk out there and poke some seeds into the soil and I'm in business.  Twice we have brought in additional gravel to level low spots.  Two of the rails need to be replaced because the wood has twisted.  And one of the gate posts needed plumbing up a couple of years ago.  Other than that its just as sound now as the day it was finished and I expect it will still be another ten years from now.  The Garden Annex should last as long.  No do-overs.

Next job is to put in the 6"x 6"s that will define the beds.  They will be pinned down with re-rod and the gravel will be shoveled out down to soil level.  Then there is a big ugly pile of top soil and compost to sift through.