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About a month ago we had a baby rabbit move into the garden. It was tiny and cute and it wasn’t bothering anything so we weren’t worried about it. Now we have an adolescent rabbit, still smallish, still cute, but not so very welcome. It hasn’t bothered many things in the garden but it does have a fondness for green beans. Every day I go out and one more plant has been turned into a stick. There are so many places in the garden for the rabbit to hide, there is no way I can get rid of it.
So I let the Dashwoods into the main garden hoping that their roaming about will convince it to go elsewhere. The only trouble is, the Dashwoods do their own kind of damage. Like dig up the potatoes. The potatoes were ready to be dug, we just hadn’t had the time to get to them yet. The Dashwoods decided they could help us with that. Both Elinor and Margaret got themselves lovely big blue potatoes and me running out and shooing them away while frantically trying to cover the potato bed with lengths of old cardboard. The remaining potatoes were saved, and dug up by us. But the Dashwoods had a great time following after and rooting up all the tiny little potato nubs we missed.
The pepita pumpkin growing in the chicken garden continues to vine out all over the place. The pumpkin growing on it is now as big as a beach ball and starting to turn orange. While trying to harvest elderberries, I discovered a number of other smaller pumpkins that were hidden under pumpkin leaves and elderberry branches.
The variety is called “Lady Godiva” and I have decided the name was given because the leaves are big enough for the famous Lady to need only one, maybe two, showed she choose to go out for a modest ride. I am really hoping there are a lot of seeds in these pumpkins! Not sure how the flesh will taste, I have heard it might be rather blah. If that’s the case and we are unable to find anything to spice it up, the chickens will get to enjoy it.The pie pumpkins were doing well. I had six lovely nice sized ones just turning orange a few days ago. Now I have two. The blasted squirrels ate the others! I covered the two remaining ones in row cover fabric in hopes the squirrels will leave them alone. They can easily tear the fabric if they want to so we’ll see if it works. In the process I found a third, still green pumpkin so I covered that too. Last year the squirrels ate every single one of my pie pumpkins. I had been used to them biting them a little but never going any further than that. The little devils have also taken to eating my tomatoes this year too! They like the red ones best, but they are not above eating green ones. So frustrating!
There are a couple of volunteer sunflowers in the garden. One of them is about 9 feet tall and has several small flowers on it. We’ve been laughing as we watched the plant grow—such an enormous stalk for such small flowers. The sunflower we planted intentionally is just as tall. The variety is “Mammoth.” It is supposed to be tall and have an enormous flower full of tasty seeds. The flower is certainly larger that the tall volunteer, but it doesn’t begin to approach mammoth proportions, which is rather disappointing. It’s still pretty though and the bees are happily enjoying its pollen, so I can’t really complain. The squirrels are, of course, enjoying the sunflowers too. They climb up the stalks and eat the seeds, or chew through the flower head and run off with it.
All my grapes are ripe and picked. There are quite a lot of them. They are seedless table grapes and James and I enjoyed some on a picnic at our neighborhood lake the other day. There are too many to be able to eat them all before they go bad so I have washed and frozen the rest. I am looking forward James making them into jam.And now, as I mentioned earlier, I am picking elderberries. Washing and freezing them. Once they are all picked they will be cooked into jam.
When the elderberries are done the only things left growing in the garden are blackeyed peas, pumpkins, zucchini, and carrots. Oh, and there are green apples on our front yard tree to pick. It was not a big apple kind of year, but there are still enough to make a few batches of apple sauce. And we are going to try our hand at making our own apple cider vinegar from the scraps.
At least you don’t have deer (so far???). They can eat sunflowers and tomatoes down to the root.
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Thank goodness no deer Jeanne. We’ve had a turkey, raccoons, a possum, squirrels, rabbits, and hawks. There has been both fox and coyote sightings in our area but they have not made it to my garden. I would be really shocked to see a deer, but then there are a couple living in a cemetery in the middle of town so I guess anything is possible.
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One reason that we did not grow vegetables this year was that the critters mostly wiped us out in previous years. In our case if was mostly the groundhogs. We would need to put up a wire fence/barrier to continue.
Happy fall!
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It’s so hard to cope with critters Brian Joseph! Would fenced raised beds deter groundhogs? Lots of work to set it all up but after the initial work, probably not so hard to maintain.
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We’ve been looking for plants and shrubs for our lawn and elderberry is high on my list. We want to cut down on lawn and increase wildlife-friendly plants.
It’s always fun, if exhausting! to read your posts. I don’t know where you get the energy to garden on this scale and work and do bike races! See, I now need a nap!
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Oh Joan, I love my elderberry! It has grown really fast and kind of taken over the area where I planted it. But there are enough berries on it to satisfy the chickens, the song birds, and me 🙂 LOL I don’t know where I get the energy either, except to say that there are so many weeds in the garden right now that they are helping to serve as ground cover!
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Am I reading wrong or are you effectively training your chickens to work as guard dogs against the rabbit?? LOL
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Hahaha Smithereens, you read that right! The chickens are working as guard dogs against the rabbit and doing a pretty good job at it! Now if I can only get them to chase the squirrels out of the garden!
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Sounds like your garden has been very productive! I didn’t know chickens would eat potatoes, ha. We have rabbits too but they stay away from my garden- either because of my cat or because of the rue. I’ve read that you can cover individual fruit (apples, pears) with a brown paper back and if the squirrels can’t see it, they won’t try to eat it. Maybe you could hide your pumpkin likewise?
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Oh Jeane, chickens love potatoes especially when they are scratching and dig up the little treasures. Thanks for the suggestion about covering the pumpkins! We tried it and it worked for a day before a squirrel ripped through the bag. We are now going to try a hot sauce spray. My pie pumpkins have all been eaten but they are starting in on the pepita pumpkins. So fingers crossed!
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Haha, I’m laughing at Smithereens comment because that was my thought too! Your garden sounds amazing Stefanie. I wish our temperatures were more like yours. We are still reaching 100s. Now I can’t wait to find out what kind of delicious meals you guys make with all of this!
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LOL Iliana, the chickens are earning their keep! The rabbit stays on the fringe of the garden and away from the green beans. Of course there was only one plant saved from devastation and I get one bean every few days. 😀 I hope it cools off for you soon!
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