Planting Garlic

My garlic is planted in next year’s designated onion bed.  The onions follow the greenhouse and the garlic shouldn’t be planted until the greenhouse is moved.  I’d rather the garlic didn’t have a warmer environment inside the greenhouse when starting out – it shouldn’t have too much of a start on growth but rather something slow and regulated to the actual local climate. 

My son TOG has advised against planting garlic in September here in the Fraser Valley since it might get too far ahead before the cold snaps and heavy frosts come in the winter.  So early November garlic planting after the greenhouse is moved works for me.

In the kitchen we can use 15 bulbs with about 6 cloves in each bulb for a winter supply.  Plus we need 3 more bulbs for planting 18 cloves for the next year’s crop. 

My spacing is the same as my onions: rows one foot apart across the four foot wide bed, with plants 8 inches apart in the rows.  They would do just as well with 10 inches equidistant but I find the 12 inches between rows gives me easier access for that final weed cleaning before mulching with old, shredded leaves in May.

I use my row marker for laying out the spots then trowel a 3 inch deep trench, about 6 inches wide.  Totaling up 3 rows across the bed with 6 inches on each end makes up 3 linear feet of bed = 12 square feet.  Applying Rock Phosphate (or bone meal) at a generous 4 lbs per 100 square feet for bulb plants gives us half a pound for our 18 cloves.  Alas, I did my math wrong in the garden and wound up using a full pound.  We’ll see how that works out.

Last March I acquired a full cubic yard (27 cubic feet) of ‘hot’ fresh, free-run, organic fed, layer’s chicken gold (manure) from my brother-in-law’s operation.  He had turned it twice and when I got it home I turned it every 2 or 3 days another 8 times.  It heated up really well but still smelled hot.  So I let it rest, sheltered all summer and hopefully it should be ready for next year’s growing season.  

I grabbed 2 gallons of that fine stuff, smelling much more earthy now, and applied it to the garlic row trenches along with the rock phosphate.

This I stirred in with my small single-handed cultivator.  (I once had a vintage, long, thin, ash handled, four-tight-curved-tined cultivator that was a wonder to use.  I do believe it walked away.  Always lock up your tools.)  Without this fine Chicken, I'd normally use one half pound or a bit more of Soya Meal. (4 or 5 lbs per 100 square feet.)  I feel Soya is longer lasting or slower releasing than Alfalfa meal.

After blending the mix in the trench bottom, I placed my biggest garlic cloves into the fluffed up soil with the pointy ends pointing up and covered with about 3  inches of soil.  I like Russian Red hard necked garlic.  I raked the bed flat and smooth and covered with the obligatory fence mesh to deter cats.  

I prefer not to cover the bed with a mulch for the winter, I’ve had too many pale blanched tips trying to find sunlight in January and February and once they become rudely uncovered they freeze more readily and I think that sets them back.  I tend to think it’s better to let the soil stay cooler and they can harden properly as they emerge.  I might throw some leaves over the plot under the fence wire if there’s to be a nasty week-long cold snap and then pull it off as soon as the rains return but the regular modest frosts here shouldn’t be a problem.  

The next chore won’t happen until mid-March when I’ll top dress with some more chicken gold.  Actually, this time it will be Chicken Gravy from my own hens. I can give out my gravy recipe then.

I re-read parts of our garlic growing resource book: “Growing Great Garlic” by Ron L. Engeland.  His advice on garlic depth (one inch deep) and mulch (6 inches of grass clippings after planting) are good but perhaps better for his location.  He farms in North Central Washington due south of Osoyoos, BC and has a harsher winter than us plus he only gets 16 inches of rain per year.  

I get 63 inches of rainfall and don’t like to mulch my garlic and onions until the soil has really warmed up in early May.  Before that time lack of soil moisture is never a problem and mulching in our wet spring could keep the soil too cold.   

Engeland advises that planting depth and mulch have trade offs and should be fine-tuned.  I’m pretty safe with my procedures, however he has me wondering if I was careful enough in separating the cloves – I may have planted some that became stemless (that’s a part on the bottom among the root sources).  I may have to peek at the bulbs in mid-winter looking for growth to see if I got it wrong. 

Happy Gardening.

Potting Mix Step One: Emptying My Compost Box

My main composting method is a Slow Compost, a 3 or 4 year old box of weeds, shaken out pieces of sod, spent plants, garden waste and kitchen waste from the growing season.  

The other kind of compost, Fast Compost, can be cooked up in almost 3 weeks when one has all the right ingredients at the exact time.  The carbon / nitrogen ratio needs to be just right – the proper blend of carbon containing organic matter, like leaves, straw, spoiled hay, coarse plant stalks (never? sawdust) with nitrogen containing ingredients such as manures, grass clippings and other green garden waste.  For Fast Compost the right balance is blended into a 4 foot wide / high pile and turned every 2 or 3 days to add oxygen. Proper moisture levels must be maintained.  

The temperatures in Fast Compost build up to 160° F which kills pathogens and weed seeds.  It is totally wonderful stuff!  But it’s Magic.  You must get all the incantations right or you either have a cold pile or a stinking mess.  

I prefer to make my stress free, Slow Compost over a 3 or 4 year period.  I build a wooden box 4 feet square and toss in all the waste organic matter I run into from my backyard. (never sawdust, and my tree’s leaves are used for other things) I let the rain get into it occasionally and even step in it to tramp the stuff down occasionally to make room for more.  

The only potential stress comes from the fact that Slow Compost doesn’t kill weed seeds.  Therefore, I must be careful as to which weeds I throw into the box – nothing that has almost mature seeds on them.

This year my old compost box was full, so I built another one.  (That new one turned out to be 3 feet by 5 feet.)  

The front boards of the old box slide out and I start by removing the top few inches and tossing them into my new box.  Then the balance, what looks like humusy soil, is sifted over my wheelbarrow.  

I keep three containers handy, one for stones, one for bits of garbage (trash) and one for woody things like sticks, pine cones or large stems that didn’t break down.  Any non woody parts that didn’t quite break down, but should still break down, like mossy sod pieces, are tossed into the new box.  

The rest is sifted in my fine one quarter inch screen that sits on my wheelbarrow.  

Anything else that doesn’t quite go through the screen but doesn’t fit the other descriptions gets tossed around one of my grapes for mulch. 

My quarter inch screen was a bit slow for such a large amount, so I built a new screen from some galvanized, diamond shaped metal lath – the kind possibly used for some kinds of stucco or masonry work.  

I’ve learned from TOG that the longer lasting, trouble free screens have more than just staples to hold the bottom screen on.  I now use some wood strips to cover over the exposed edges of the stapled on lath.

The wonderful, dark, fine stuff in the wheelbarrow is carried to my collection of barrels under my deck.  This is the main ingredient for my next few years of potting mix.

  

Since my soil is a Sandy Loam and has very little clay in it, even a bit of soil tossed into my compost box with the weeds and sod pieces isn’t a detriment to my potting mix.  More clay in a soil would be different.  The capillary action of water in clays turns a potting mix into something closer to concrete.

The walnut tree I planted in the front yard 36 years ago has extended its roots all through my front yard.  These roots exude a growth inhibitor so we can’t successfully grow many flowers in the front yard.  Therefore, all of our front flowers must be grown in pots and containers.  And my Lovely Wife is quite good at keeping colour in the front yard.  Our large amounts of potting mix are one key to such flowers.  

Of course, the potting mix is also great for my home seeded vegetable bedding plants.  How to fortify the mix will be described in Part 2.

Happy Gardening.

"Can I Move?" my Greenhouse.

 

In the movie, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), the two bank robbers decide to go straight in order to avoid discovery and capture.  They try out for a job at a mountain mine site.  The colourful mine boss asks Sundance if he can shoot and throws a coin in the dirt for him to shoot at.  Sundance, standing still, misses.  Then Sundance asks, “Can I Move?’ and when he's in motion, hits the coin numerous times.  The two are hired as payroll guards.

My greenhouse also has to Move!  Growing in containers doesn’t really work that well organically.  Commercial greenhouse growers use bags of growing medium and a nutrient rich chemical soup piped in to drip into the plants’ root systems.  Pesticides are used for controlling pests and such in the close mono-cropped greenhouses.  Organics don’t abide those conditions.

I plant my greenhouse plants: tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and melons in the soil.  To do that for more than one year in the same spot results in nutritional deficiencies, pests and diseases.  So my greenhouse follows my four year crop rotation plan throughout the garden.  Each year it moves to the next set of beds. 

Eliot Coleman is an advocate of moving greenhouses and hoophouses.  My son, The Organic Grower (TOG) followed his lead and has successfully rolled his houses (13' X 50' and 20’ X 50’) using Coleman’s directions with both permanent and portable wheels for over 10 years.  (mine had been moving for much longer) 

My old greenhouse was smaller, 8 by 10 feet, made of cedar 2 X 2’s and sitting on a frame of cedar 4 X 4’s.  It was light enough to be pulled with a rope on skids to the next two beds.  

My new greenhouse is larger and much heavier, made of spruce 2 X 3’s and built upon spruce 2 X 10’s, it is 12 by 15 feet and covers three beds.  After I put it together, I discovered it wasn’t going to be moved by sliding it over skids like the old one.  And both TOG and I agreed it couldn’t be lifted by four guys and walked across the garden.

Last year I set up some rollers to go under the sides of the greenhouse and some planks to go under the rollers.  That hardly worked.  It constantly slid sideways off the rollers.  It was at the fourth year of the rotation and it needed to proceed over the whole garden to start over from the beginning.  Much like the carriage on an old manual typewriter, the bell had dinged and now the page must be moved to the other end to start another line of typing.  It took several difficult hours to “roll” the greenhouse to the far end.

This year I wanted to do something easier.  I bought four small, 10 inch pneumatic tires with wheel rims and bearings from Princess Auto.  I waited for a sale and picked them up for about $7 each.  Then I bought some ready rod – a six foot long piece of 5/8 inch threaded steel rod, and cut that into eight pieces for axels.  

I made skateboard like ‘scooters’ out of 2 X 4’s and since I didn’t have a drill press to make the holes for the axels perfectly perpendicular, I drilled ¾ inch holes.  There was no need to use nuts on the axels since we weren’t taking any corners, just slide the rods through the holes and wheels and let the weight of the load hold them in place.  

I guessed the house weighed about 600 lbs so that would put 75 lbs on each of the eight wheels. (the other four wheels I borrowed from the grandkids’ wagon).

Using a 45 year old piece of very hard Douglas Fir 2 X 10 for a lever, I got my Lovely Wife to stand on the plank, raising the end of the house while I installed each pair of wheels under the four door frames on the bed’s paths.

Then I pushed modestly and it started to roll nicely.  But then stopped.  Alas there was a kale plant that needed to be pushed down on its side to clear the under carriage.  It would hopefully survive and supply us with an extra early spring picking inside the greenhouse.

Once the kale cleared, the greenhouse rolled like a charm until it got to the end of the bed where the leading protruding wheels on the lower bed path came up to the higher grassed cross path.  I quickly got my shovel and carved a large divot out of the permanently grassed pathway to let the wheel continue the last foot.  Once the house was off its wheels there was no moving it, so I needed it to sit exactly where it was to rest.  

Removing the wheels was easier than installing them.  The sod divots from the grassed cross path were replaced and all sat well.  I will eventually drive some stakes to act as anchors against the winter winds (that is how the old greenhouse died) but I think the house’s weight will be the greater anchor.

Like Sundance’s shooting, my greenhouse performs much better when it Moves.

Happy Gardening.

Winter Cover Crop: Fall Rye

The idea behind the winter cover crop is to keep the soil from being exposed to the elements during winter.  Eaton Rapids Joe says it better: “One reason to plan a cover crop over the winter is so your nutrients don't leach downward out of the root zone.”  It is also great for building up the humus – organic matter in the soil.  Constant nitrogen inputs, organic feed meals, hotter manures, or otherwise, will deplete your humus content as the microbes consume it when breaking down the fertilizers.

I found that out the hard way when I used to move / rotate my chicken run into each bed during the winter.  I wasn’t adding organic matter to the hot manure, even though it was scratched in by the birds and naturally sheet composted in the soil.  Gradually my soil got gummier and stickier as humus and tilth degraded.

One way to improve my humus content was to plant a fibrous rooted plant like Rye in the fall.  Both Eliot Coleman and Steve Solomon lean towards other cover crops and ‘green manures’ preferring legumes like vetches, clovers, field peas and the like.  They prefer ones that are killed with the frost and so don’t produce weed seeds and are easy to till in in the spring.  Both deem rye as too hard to work with in the spring (it can grow quickly) --- better for agribusiness and its machinery they say.

But I’ve had good success with Fall Rye.  It gets planted in most beds after their crop has been harvested.  The secret is to cover it with black plastic in the spring, a month or more before needing to work the bed.  This covering stunts or even kills the rye plants and still leaves a good supply of fine rootlets in the soil.  

The plastic cover also keeps the soil dryer during our very wet Pacific North West spring so I can pull off the plastic, trim the edges for weeds and till.  No need to wait for 3 or more dry days before working the soil.

My son TOG likes to stir in all the residual organic matter but I still like to shake out by hand the remaining plants in the spring so they don’t foul my little tiller.  This still leaves a lot of mostly decomposed organic matter in the soil.  My tilth has been improving these last 5 years without chickens.  But now with two new birds acquired for this Covid emergency, I’ll be more considerate in adding additional organic matter into their run as well as the fall rye they get to eat and dig up.

Several years ago, I bought a big sack of rye seed from Otter Co-op to last a number of years.  Alas, the second year it grew bugs instead.  I left the grain in its original sack in the garage and the moths and their worms went for it.  Smart bugs, they ate the germs – the nutritious plant growing part -- and left the rest of the seed grain.  I tried planting that the third year but nothing came up.  

So I bought another sack – it’s so much cheaper per pound than buying smaller quantities.  This time I stored it in a large plastic pail with a tight lid but also added a secret weapon: cinnamon sticks.  And boy did that work.  

No moths or worms or clumpy webs in the rye seed.  This year my two year old seed came up splendidly.  (cinnamon sticks also work great for keeping the bugs out of larger stored quantities of walnuts, oatmeal, organic whole grain flours and the like.)

I experimented with seeding 1 lb per 50 square feet verses ¾ lb.  Also tried the usual raking the seed in verses lightly covering it with screened soil.  Not too much difference so it is now to be ¾ lb per 50 square feet, raked in.  (I may try ½ lb in another later bed)

First, I raked the beds flat and kept the surface stone free so I may mow it with my lawn mower if need be.  Next, I broadcast seeded each bed, always sprinkling seed sparingly at first so I didn’t run out of seed prematurely and then went back and filled in any sparse spots.  Then I gently raked / scuffled the bed with the teeth of my bow rake.  Finally, I covered each bed with my fencing wire pieces so the neighbourhood cats wouldn’t scratch it all up.

The rye came up like weeds in the good weather.  It is now tall enough for me to cut some each day for the chickens – they love it.  Great for making bright yellow-orange yolks too.  Now I need to remove the wire fence sections and hang them up on the back board fence for storage.

A lot of the rye won’t be needing much turning in with the birds rotating through most of the rye beds before spring.  Once they’re moved out of a pair of beds, I’ll either reseed or cover with a piece of black plastic.  

Soon I’ll start to rake leaves in my neighbourhood and I’ll chop up some with the lawnmower to add to the bird’s run.  That should blend well with their droppings, adding some gentle carbon to help build up the humus levels. 

Happy Gardening.

A Favourite Tool: My # 1 Shovel

 I was once called up to volunteer at our kid’s school’s Saturday work bee.  “Bring a shovel.” was the suggestion.  I brought mine and all the guys just stared.  They had never seen that shiny a shovel before.  And it wasn’t made of stainless steel either.

This isn’t that shovel.  It died.  This was my number two shovel that graduated to number one when the first one died of metal fatigue.  Actually, I owned this one before the other one, it just went to second status later in life.  And now it’s first again…..confused yet?  The other one was shinier.

You can see by its scars and welds that like me it has had a full life.  The bubble etched marks are from the welding of my Lovely Wife’s Brother when I broke the shank off about 40 years ago.  The fine weld in mid blade is from a skilled friend who remedied my concern over a crack that was appearing three years ago.

The shininess comes from always rinsing and wiping the blade immediately after use.  The need for shininess / smoothness is so the soil slides off even if it is damp.  Nothing sticks better than dirt to a rusty shovel.  So don’t let it get rusty.  And don’t leave it outside.  In our wet climate, weather also eats a wooden handle in a few years.

The best way to keep your number one shovel in peak condition (besides washing and storing inside) is to have a number two shovel.  My number two is owned by my Lovely Wife.  And it’s heavier and stronger than my number one.  My number one is light and used for moving soil around, turning over beds, trimming grass edges on beds and shaking out weeds and sod chunks.  

The number two is for going where no shovel has gone before --- digging virgin beds or digging out stumps.  Roots and rocks are what kill a shovel and a heavier one is best for those.  Like these two brand new beds that the chickens were in first and now I’ve discovered how far the dead cherry tree’s roots really went.

I picked up the blade of the number two from a fellow who had left it outside (as most people do) and the handle quickly aged and broke.  It had one of those short little ‘D’ handles that work really well if you’re four feet tall (Munchkins in Oz).  I had a nice new long handle waiting for it and bought a couple of rivets for it and installed it myself.

When shopping for a shovel, make sure the grain of the wooden handle is perpendicular to the blade.  That goes for axes, hatchets, hoes, rakes, hammers, canoe paddles, baseball bats, ,…. pretty much everything.  The force has to go with the grain.  If your shovel handle’s grain is parallel with the blade you’ll break it with one good pull back against a hidden rock or root.

Also, if shopping, don’t buy a shovel that is embossed with a name brand sticking out of the metal (dirt sticks to it) and never get a shovel with a ‘hammered’ finish (dirt again).  As for those composite handles – I don’t’ really know how they stand up.  They’re possibly heavier and definitely thicker to handle.  I prefer a more slender handle that I can get my fingers around, that also has a taper that I can sense where the end is without looking and so can maneuver it more easily.

My son TOG once bought a stainless-steel shovel.  He didn’t always have time to wash his shovel to keep it clean and rust free smooth.  Alas, that stainless one was curved from side to side like a normal shovel, but it also was slightly curved from front to back as well.  Every time he pushed it in it wanted to curve itself out.  Very frustrating.  He did eventually find a use for it but it wasn’t for digging or trimming soil along the paths.

Shovels vary in weight and a heavy, dirty shovel will build your muscles.   You’re constantly trying to toss the same soil that sticks to the shovel.  My number one shovel is one pound lighter than my number two. Sharpening my spade is a rare thing for me since it already slides through so well.  But if I must, I bevel / sharpen the underside of the blade with a file.

The easiest way to get your new shovel shiny and smooth is to lend it to a young labourer who will be shoveling gravel at a work site for the next week.

Once we were sitting in a small park in Sidney, on Vancouver Island eating our lunch and an office ‘kid’ came out with a short-handled spade and started attacking the weeds near the office’s sidewalk.  I guess the boss told him to look after the verge.  He was all bent over and swinging wildly in a circular motion, like a windmill and smashing the blade into the soil with his arms and hands, bam, bam, bam, bam. He was totally exhausted in two minutes.  Obviously, he’d never used a shovel before.  Perhaps he was imitating a rototiller?

The goal is to use your feet as much as possible.  Whether you jump on the blade or stomp on it or gently stand on it is up to you and the blade but you only use your arms for pulling back on the handle or moving the soil.  I prefer work boots for that but when my Lovely Wife occasionally uses her shovel in her flower beds she tends to wear her flip flops.  Maybe they’re easier to clean?

 Happy Gardening.

Ripe Cantaloupes

 My Hannah’s Choice F1’s are ready!  This is all new for me.  Heat loving melons were a bit of a luxury item for me with space limited in my old greenhouse but with the building of my bigger greenhouse a year and a half ago, it was a new option.

Years before I had an attempt at growing melons in the garden.  I got seed from West Coast Seeds that were specifically for our cooler summer climate but got the usual two and a half muskmelons.  Knowing when they were ripe was a difficulty I remember – one over ripe, one bug eaten and one tastelessly immature.  Not too successful. 

Last year was my first serious try at melons inside the greenhouse.  It wasn’t well planned out -- I  just grabbed two varieties of something off the seed rack.  Hopefully they’d be good for here since they came from Pacific North West Seeds.  And being in the greenhouse it shouldn’t really matter that much.

All went well with a few melons successfully catching and getting to half size when whoosh – all the foliage died.  It appeared my watering with my wand onto the foliage, possibly too late in the day, was enough for the diseases to take over fast. 

This year I planned better.  Using Johnny’s Selected Seeds I chose not Sarah’s Choice F1 --- “Our most flavorful cantaloupe.”  but instead settled for Hannah’s Choice F1 --- “Strong disease resistance.”  I started the seeds indoors on April 15^th and transplanted into the greenhouse May 24^th – a bit late but okay.

For watering I asked my son TOG (the organic grower) to set me up with some bits of drip irrigation that he uses in his greenhouses and hoop houses.  He was most helpful, knowing all the ins and outs of garden hose threads verses irrigation fittings, drip emitters, manifolds, plugs, end knots and the like.  The plan was to run three lines in parallel down one of the three beds in the greenhouse.  

Then cover the lines with landscape fabric to inhibit weeds and insulate the foliage from any excessive moisture.

My goal was to not hook the drip lines up to the hose but to fill a tank (garbage can) on a stand and let it seep into the bed slowly.  

TOG also solved my dilemma of engineering a ‘spigot’ coming out of the cylindrical tank.  It took a bit of trouble shooting with filling and emptying but it worked.  I watered / filled the garbage can usually once a day and it drained in four or five hours.  My sandy soil could have used a fourth line for better coverage – hopefully next year.

The two plants grew well and I let the delicate vines go anywhere within their allotted 20 square feet.  

The flowers weren’t catching right away but I waited patiently and eventually they started to catch here and there.  By mid-July ventilation control in the greenhouse trumps temperature control since the tomatoes can get blight with damp foliage.  Thus leaving the doors partly open overnight for ventilation probably helped the cantaloupes as well.

I counted seven then eight melons and lately found a ninth hidden in a corner.  A few weeks ago the foliage started to die and now everything is mostly dead.  But would they ripen?  And how would I know when they were ripe?

A week ago, TOG came by and looked at the hard things – nicely netted but green in the background underneath the netting.  He said to wait and use my nose.  So I did.  On my hands and knees with my butt in the air and my face in the dead foliage.  After five days things started to smell and change colour!  The green was turning a nice champagne beige yellow.  I picked one.  It was almost ripe – not totally yellow all over.  A day later the greenhouse was full of the sweet smell of cantaloupe and I found the culprit.  He was very tasty and sweet.  Now I’ve picked the third one.  I think we’ll be able to keep up.

  

So far they average two pounds each, smaller than advertised.  I’ll definitely have some finished, aged compost going for next year.  

My Lovely Wife figures we won’t need as many Roma paste tomatoes next year so it looks like I’ll have room to try some watermelons too.

Happy Gardening.

 

Raccoon Wars

Raccoons have been a problem for me for years.  With 5 grape vines in the backyard and a bit of corn growing I have exactly what they want.  They also climb up my 30 year old Wisteria in the front yard and get up onto the front roof over the garage and sit and scheisse (and even copulate) up there, protected from the rain under the roof overhang.  

Their scat is full of parasitic worms and eggs and can eventually erode the integrity of the shingles.  In the suburbs there are no other animals higher up in the food chain so there’s nothing keeping the raccoon population in check except food supply and they can get rather aggressive.

My neighbour lady once knocked on my door looking for some help in her front yard.  She showed me the remains of a cat.  The night before it had been cornered / surrounded by raccoons and half eaten.  I told her not to worry, I’d look after it.  I wished I’d taken a picture (yuk) because in a week there were posters on the lamppost about a missing cat.  I called the number and a dear, grieving couple from a block away came by and kept showing me pictures of their dear Tom.  “Was that the one?”  I was mostly sure it was.  Maybe it was best I didn’t have a picture.

Five years ago I bought an electric fence kit plus 500 feet of wire.  My back yard is surrounded by a six foot high board fence and I installed 2 inch insulators and a braided wire on the inside edge of the top fence rail all the way around the 320 foot perimeter.  

Soon I found that wasn’t quite stopping the persistent beasts and I needed a second wire so I bought 5 inch insulators and ran another line parallel to the first.  It sort of worked.  But when the arbor had almost ripe grapes littering the ground, I set up my large live trap and left half a cob of corn outside it and a half inside.  The next morning the old scourge had looked at the trap and in his anger knocked over all five watering cans including the two up on the deck.  Another time we left one bed sheet on the washline overnight and he tore a big hole in it just for spite.

Often I’d find digging marks and a gap under the old gate or the older part of the fence and I’d need to shore up that spot or place a brick and then another brick under the gate.  Every time they got through there’d be carnage.

Last year the two wires just weren’t enough.  They ate all my corn except for one cob and had taken random bites out of my squashes.  I thought perhaps I hadn’t plugged in my fence early enough.  Maybe if they started avoiding my house earlier in the season they wouldn’t come by later.  This year I plugged it in a month earlier but eventually the grapes started raining down again and one early corn plant was knocked over and sampled.  

So I set up my old standby.  I built a quick 4 foot high frame out of stakes and bean poles all around the corn bed and draped it with ample pieces of plastic bird netting.  

The secret is to leave a good two feet of netting draped over the ground all around the fence.  They don’t like to get their toes tangled in the loose netting.  The netting on the ground must be raised occasionally to keep any grass from growing through it and nullifying the tangling effect.  That worked.  We’ve now harvested most of our small stand of corn and the squash are safe.

But the grapes were still raining down from the arbor.  So I bought more insulators and wire and ran a third wire.  This time along the top of the board fence.  

That almost worked.  Soon, after I chased one out of the arbor and into the espaliered peach tree next to the gate, I discovered how he’d been getting past the wires.  He’d been reaching the peach support posts from the taller gate post and getting over the wires there.  I beefed up that spot with extra wires and it seems to be holding them at bay.

I’ve also made 3 foot by 5 foot frames with old one inch chicken wire stapled to it and laid the two frames on the roof at either end of the garage overhang.  That should discourage them from getting up onto the roof to continue …. making more raccoons.

Happy Gardening.