Tag: deer

Posted on by Josh

Alden managed to harvest some potatoes that were growing over by the shed he was taking down. 🙂

It looks like a deer busted through the garden netting a couple nights ago. Thankfully, the only plant damage was a small amount of beans and kale. Heather and I stitched the netting back together and reattached it to the T-posts.

The impact of the gopher on our garden has been horrible this year. A tomato plant was taken out this week, and the dry beans have been about 50% devoured. It looks like the gopher is also feeding on the roots of the plum and pear trees.

I bought Heather a bunch of garlic for her birthday. I picked a ten-foot-long spot in the middle of row 4 in the garden, dug out a few inches of soil, and lined it with some chicken wire we had lying around and hardware cloth we got from ReStore. We planted about 120 garlic cloves there. Heather also planted a similar amount in the mushroom area. Both of those spots are Siberian hard neck garlic. I also bought her four heads of Music hard neck garlic that she will plan in front of the house, inside the French drain perimeter. We’ll see what happens. We feel like the threats against our garden are so serious that we’re not sure what the future will hold.

On the bright side, I guess: while digging the row in the garden to prepare for garlic planting, I came across an underground pile of potatoes that had been cached by the gopher. They came spilling out when I hit the spot with my shovel. I’m glad we were able to stumble across those potatoes, but it’s maddening what the gopher has done.

Posted on by Josh

I planted Oregon sugar peas and the first 12 sweet corn seeds in row 1 of the garden.  The dirt on that row seems really compacted, so we’ll see how it goes.

We planted potatoes in part of row 2 a few weeks ago. They’re up and looking good.

We’ve had a good amount of volunteer lettuce and orach growing that we’ve been harvesting and enjoying at the dinner table.

We transplanted tomatoes and peppers last weekend.

We watched a deer decimate the fresh leaves on our grapevines yesterday. I’m glad the netting around the garden is working to keep them out.

The baby goats are all growing quickly. They’ve all been disbudded. In a few weeks, they’ll get banded and turned into wethers.

I think I’ve already ruined the new chainsaw engine. Not sure what’s going on.

Posted on by Josh

This is our second basket of beans, picked a few days after the first. It takes over an hour to harvest this amount.

Our trail cam recorded one deer the night after we put up the netting, and none since. Even the roses by the front porch are blooming again. Not sure why they disappeared so completely

With the deer gone, the peas have given another nice flush of pods to harvest.

Posted on by Josh

We got a nice shot on the trail cam of a deer walking through the monofilament like nothin’. So we installed polypropylene deer fencing around the garden. It seems to be working, but we’re keeping the trail cam out there in case the deer try anything.

I planted the last batch of corn today. The previous plantings are all up.

We’ve been picking a few beans here and there, but I think we’re just days away from a good crop starting.

Posted on by Josh

We installed three lines of 50lb monofilament around the garden a few days ago. The same day, the field across the street got mowed. The guy who mowed said he saw several deer bed areas. Since that day, the garden is doing better, but we don’t know if it’s because of the monofilament fence or the mowed field.

The volunteer orach plants (from the ones that went to seed last year) have been doing really well. We got our first handful of bush beans today, and there are tons of blossoms. I think the peas are done (healthy vines but noore blossoms). The third planting of corn is sprouting.

Posted on by Josh

Heather harvested the rest of the garlic a couple days ago.

Only half of my first and second corn plantings came up (I think the birds got to them), so the third was a reseeding. Today I planted a fourth batch where the just-pulled garlic was. The soil was compacted, so I took a shovel and pitchfork to it.

The deer are systematically decimating our garden. Every day, it’s something… Topping off the pea vines, tomato plants,and potato plants. I’m sure the beans are next, and kale. We saw deer twice today in broad daylight (10am and 12pm). We’re not sure what to do. This is the first year we’ve had this problem, other than the very end of the season last year… which was our omen of things to come. Perhaps it’s because our neighbor doesn’t have a dog any more.

Anyway, apparently we haven’t collected eggs from our two chickens for a few days.

Posted on by Josh

We removed the fences from the small fruit trees to pull out grass, and yesterday a deer ate most of the apples off the apple tree, along with the tops off two tomato plants.