Gardening this year has taken on a completely different meaning for me. The fresh vegetables bought from my local grocery store has been lacking so to speak. You can taste and feel on your lips that there is way more pesticides being used on the produce, which is why about ten years ago I stopped buying the fresh produce all together.
Growing your own vegetables can be a challenge but not impossible, unless you have barriers that can make it very difficult and most times for me heartbreaking. In February and March I usually begin my vegetable growing journey by sowing seeds into small containers, and also placing older seeds that I am uncertain will sprout on damp paper towels to see if they will germinate. That is just the beginning of the journey and the long wait for spring here in Northern Ontario Canada can and is a long one while waiting on warmer days dreaming of growing my own food.
This year after many years of losing cooler weather crops to the cabbage moth butterfly which flies non stop to each plant laying many upon many eggs which will hatch in mere days to devour your plants, stripping them down to the stems. Year after year I would rise just after the sun rose with a cup of coffee and soapy bucket of water to hand pick off the tiny lime green caterpillars from beneath the leaves knowing that no matter how many I pick off the plants there is always millions more hiding from my sight.
So, last Fall I decided to spend some money on netting and shade cloth to perhaps save these cooler loving plants. I do most of my gardening these days of my vegetables on my large deck since I can monitor the weather and cover the containers at night when it falls to 6 C just last week. Spring and summer this year as with most years is a crap shoot weather wise as it can be 37C during the day and fall to 7C at night. The warmer loving plants such as tomatoes , peppers and the like do not tolerate the colder temperatures and just die post haste if not cared for and covered.
Those are the easy aspects of my gardening year. Last year my dog passed away leaving my back yard free from her doggie scents to ward off some of the hungry critters that arrive each spring to gobble up your newly planted seedlings that you have babied for months indoors underneath grow lights so they don’t become leggy and yes plants becoming leggy is not a good thing.
If you have ever tried to outsmart a squirrel or chipmunk you will know that is a losing battle since mother nature gave her creatures the knowledge to hunt for food no matter what we as humans try and do to protect them.
Nets work well but the creatures can become entangled in them and if you care about all living things and don’t wack it over the head with a heavy object then you must get your thick gloves and scissors to cut away the nets to release the creature from its grasp. Needless to say the first time I had to do that I no longer bought those type of nets that are usually used in a high location to ward off the birds from landing on your fruit.
Cages are wonderful except when built to keep the critters out also means it will keep the gardener out as well. A cage with a door will never work against a chipmunk as their bodies are like mice and can magically squeeze through tight spaces. Also they will dig from under the ground and rise up right in the middle of your caged area, unless you add wire on the ground and set your newly built grow wooden box on top. But just to be on the safe side I used a double layer of wire on the bottom, then a layer of cardboard, a layer of branches , limbs, twigs, leaves, compost all before the beloved seedlings are place inside the box which was and is surrounded by four feet high wire and topped with wire.
I have peppers and tomatoes planted in there out in the yard having to defend themselves since my job was done to the best of my ability.
Usually the back yard garden consists of flowers of all types that come back year after year. Those I love…. No work needed after planted except for dividing them every few years.
I have a permaculture bed in the yard as well that was built back in 2015 after a birch tree needed to be taken down as it was then just a woodpecker hotel with many holes adorning the massive trunk of the tree that was threatening to fall any day. My heart sank on the day it had to come down but I knew I would be putting to to good use in making a permaculture bed out of its remains.
Over the years other trees on my property needed branches trimming back or other trees losing their branches into my yard. So I began the back fence branch society so to speak. Resting the bigger hardwood evergreen branches upright so as not to rot laying on the ground. As it turned out it made the height of my back fence go from 4 feet tall to double that height, which helped when a mother bear and her three baby cubs wandered into the back area just beyond my back fence.
My pup was alive at that time and outside barking her fool head off at the bear with her bear paws resting on the back fence growling at my dog who was barking like the world would end any moment, and I up on my deck yelling at my dog to come to me. Hoping the bear would not risk going through the tall branches that were merely leaning on the fence. Thankfully, she climbed the tree along with here cubs just 2 feet behind my fence. If the cubs fell into my yard the mother bear would have followed I am certain.
Luckily, my dog finally came to me as the police and wildlife officer arrived back there to retrieve the bears in different sized cages to transport back into the wild . There is a small brook behind my house down the way and that summer had been drought worthy indeed, and the bears were thirsty I would imagine and got turned around trying to leave between houses. Black bears are common as the bear hunts have been cancelled and the bear population has been on the rise knowing there is food in the neighborhoods for the taking. I digress and for that I don’t apologize for since the bear scare of my life was worth it in the telling.
After all of these barriers that every year try and stop me I pondered over why I never just gave up trying to garden when some years there was little to show for it. I realized that if I quit and gave up that would mean that I was not being the person I knew myself to be. I actually enjoy the challenges of the spring and summer garden. I enjoy trying new ways to protect the garden and the bug netting I purchased last Fall is working amazingly well and I can tell you there has been stir fry being made in my tiny kitchen and also bowls of ramen noodles with freshly harvested pak choy added from the garden. The caged yard box in the back yard is working wonderfully and the tomato plant has grew to the top of the cage, soon there will be tomatoes for me to enjoy.
Nothing in this life I have learned over these 6 decades comes easy because if it did come to me easily I would not enjoy the harvest for its taste and my determination to have some of it come to harvest and the rest that either gets eaten by the squirrels , chipmunks, bird, and slugs ~ Well my growing my own food outside on their land , their stomping grounds, their habitat ~ It’s only nature and Natural that they feel I’ve gone and set the dinner table for T H E M… Rightly so I suppose when you really think about it.
So I’ve added a new level to my gardening this year and it’s a trail Camera for which to capture images of the critters as they dig up the popping corn I planted for them as a distraction so they may or might leave the rest for me to eat. Oh how they love the corn stalks, tender and sweet.
bluebird4udaily 