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I was going to mow, but…

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I was given something of a “personal morning” and finally made it outside at 11:00. I brought the push mower (http://www.billygoat.com/Product-Categories/Detail/high-weed-mower-residential-commercial) out and walked along the lines of sprinklers to try to make a visible path so I wouldn’t bump into the sprinklers or their poles. I had two sets of two beds to do (see https://farmingmum.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/20150920_104052.jpg?w=300) – one had been mowed before and not watered much after – I think it had been mostly buckwheat, and I think one part is going to be a Junebearing strawberry bed. As I got near the end of a bed of super-green sorghum-sudangrass, I started pulling out tall, mature pigweed plants. Somehow I lost my protective eye wear and I can’t find it again. That area is too wet to mow, anyhow, but I need to find those goggles.

I decided to mow the drier area without the eye wear, and started up the mower with some difficulty. I couldn’t really get it to run at full volume, but finally I let it start mowing. It promptly sputtered to a stop, and I remembered that some drip tape had gotten wrapped up in it at the end of my last mowing. Doh! This time, it actually had spit out two good-sized pieces of tape (the smaller was like 15 inches)!  I was like, I’m not turning over a mower with a full tank of gas in the garden to pull this thing out, so I put it away. I certainly wasn’t going to try later on in a 100 degree day, especially since a slight breeze was starting up and it’s fire season.

So I hoed 3/4 of the unplanted area of the pea bed, in hopes that I’d get back out there this evening to finish hoeing and plant (I didn’t). We ran errands in the afternoon, and I was told to go to the gym (this would guarantee that I’d get a shower). I got home about 15 minutes before dark. Sigh!

There are so many deer (sightings) out there today!

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The temperature is predicted to be around 100, so I guess the deer are stocking up on blackberry fruit or brambles, as well as whatever they can get their mouths on that’s close to our house (perhaps because there’s a cat/bird water bowl near there). Just don’t come into my garden!!

Not the most productive day- strawberry crowns needed!

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Today I didn’t get out to the garden until 6:00. The new greens seemed to be pretty much ok after the raccoon family’s visit – there were small digging marks near some plants, but mostly on the other side of the drip tape from where I’d put the seedlings last night.

I picked strawberries, pulled out dead leaves, and killed tons of slugs and about 3 cucumber beetles.  I got less than a basket from 3/4 of our berry planting :(. The end of the season is coming quickly. We’d get a lot if we picked every three days and there weren’t so many bad ones! I usually throw the really bad ones on the ground and pick them up afterwards so they’re not just sitting out there like free food for rodents, but I didn’t get time to do that. T and Z returned with takeout right at sunset.

I picked green beans from our 2nd to last pole bean planting. We missed a bunch earlier in the week that are now really big.

I’m trying to find strawberry crowns that I can plant this month. People always recommend Chandler as a Junebearing variety. I’m having some trouble finding it (some do say to plant it in August, maybe that’s why?). A lot of places have early-season varieties that are good for planting zones 5-8, but we are “9b.” Sunset calls us zone 14, iirc, so I get really confused and can never remember our zone. But like, could I get away with planting a really early variety? Maybe if I can get just 25 of them, I could try. I got ahold of a commercial nursery that said to call back in 2 weeks, and they recommended just one of their varieties for our zone. They sell in lots of 1500 so I’d have to find some folks to go in on them with me… Last year I tried to get in on 2 different orders and none of them came thru for me (“we got shorted on our order”). So we’ll see!

These guys had better not mess with my newly-transplanted greens!

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M2E1L0-2R350B300
skunk
M2E1L0-2R350B300
raccoon
skunk sneaking around
skunk sneaking around

We have a motion-sensitive camera in the garden because we needed to find out what was doing so much digging out there. At first, all we got was raccoons- I was surprised because I really thought it had been skunks. We got some motion-sensitive lights, hoping that they’d bother the animals enough to stay away. Nope!

Then, 2 weeks later, the pictures showed a skunk and a fox – both on the same night! One night we had a very large cat and a smaller one that I think was the Bengal cat we’ve seen around. Maybe I’ll post those pictures sometime…

Now, we’ve been trying to figure out how all those animals get into and out of the garden. We have deer fencing on most of 3 sides of the space. There’s chainlink fence along the 4th side. Some low areas at the base of the fencing have been blocked. So we’ll keep observing, when we can!

Moving garden lights around
Moving garden lights around

Tuesday’s report

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Getting anything done in the garden takes multiple days. On Tuesday morning I was going to plant two six-packs of greens (one is dino kale, the other a red cabbage). I spent an hour hoeing and straightening out the drip tape, hoed out a few extra pigweed plants, and then it was time to get ready to pick the kidlet up from preschool. He goes to school 2 mornings a week, which affords me about 3 extra hours of garden time per week – I can do things like fertilize (I alternate btw a fish/seaweed mix and Biomin 153, which supplies some minerals that our soil is lacking), harvest, etc.

That evening, I picked beans- we still  had a few purple beans, a lot of yellow ones, and some new green pole beans. I also picked ~2 baskets of strawberries. I think we got 1 basket of good ones, and 1 basket of damaged berries. I either eat the damaged ones, or we freeze them for blended juice some evening.

I hadn’t had a chance to rake off the weeds I’d hoed, so I’m a bit nervous to go out there and see what kind of a mess is out there. Plus it’s still really wet from yesterday’s ~0.4 inch of rain, and I don’t want to leave too many sinking footprints…

Hm, I need to find an extra $99 to get rid of the ads below, don’t I? :/