Garden Progress Update

Bottom (B) working up, Left (L) to Right (R): Strawberries (B); Sweet Potatoes (L); Beets (R); Yellow Squash, Lettuce (L); Beans (R); Basil, Cilantro, Red Hot Cherry Peppers, Eggplant (L); Beans (R); Yellow Onions, Red Onions (L); Beans (R); Brussel Sprouts, Late Cabbage, Cauliflower (L); Cucumbers, Bush Pickles (R); Early Cabbage, Red Cabbage, Acorn Squash, Yellow Squash (L); Butternut Squash and Zucchini (R).

 At the top-front of the garden we have Hungarian Wax (top bed, 2 rows), Jet Star Tomatoes (beds 2-4 with 2 rows each)

At the bottom front we have Broccoli  (transplanted from a traditional row (or was it 2 rows) that were where bed 5 now lies.  Then we have 3 tomatoes left over from beds 2-4, followed by Big Bertha Green Peppers and 2 dozen Cauliflower.  The bottom 4 traditional garden rows are all Broccoli.
   The Cauliflower are under attack, along with the beans you can see in the beds in the back half of the garden.  I believe the culprits are army worms, based solely on the leaves being eaten from the edges in.  There were flea beetles in the eggplants, which are above the green beans, a chipmunk is eating half of each strawberry left to ripen and the beets are disappearing, I think crows might be getting into them.
   Other than that, the plants are all healthy and growing well.  Melissa visited relatives down state this weekend and she said their plants look sick compared to ours :-).  That makes my competitive side happy!
   I'll try to get some pictures posted of the back half of the garden soon.

Chickens, Chores and Staining Tip

   This past "weekend" sure was a hectic one.  On Wednesday Melissa and I spent the morning running down the best price on stain for the deck.  She pressure-washed it on Tuesday in preparation for the long, sunny forecast that dictated outdoor house maintenance be done.  We spent Wednesday afternoon with our son "Luke" and his girlfriend staining the railings of the deck and the 2 staircases leading up to it.  It took the four of us 5 hours to complete it with paint brushes.  Wednesday evening a friend asked if anyone wanted one of her chickens that refuses to stay in the fence and keeps digging up her garden.  Melissa has been after me for a couple of years to get chickens, and since I wouldn't have to raise it from a peep, I relented, as long as she gave us two so the hen would have a friend.
   On Thursday morning I had scheduled a contractor to install gutters on our house so bright and early Luke and I were out putting silicon in the nail holes of the aluminum fascia where they had pulled through and tacking it down before they arrived at 9:45.  In the meantime, Melissa started building a small chicken fence inside our large dog fence.  She went out to our friend's around noon and got the chickens.
   When the contractors were finishing up around 2:30 with the gutters we were talking about the things I had to do that afternoon, which included staining the deck floor and the steps on the stairways. He passed on a tip that we found very useful: instead of using a brush for staining, use one of those rectangular paint edging pads that you can put a broom handle in.  We happened to have one and gave it a try.  Melissa stained the entire deck floor in an hour and a half, the same amount of time it took me to brush-stain one of the 2 sets of steps..  The last time she did it with a brush and it took her all day.  She did the other set of steps in about 30 minutes.
   At 5pm we started working on a chicken coop for our new "flock".  We found some left-over pressure-treated 2x2 square railing spindles to use for the frame. Then we found some tongue and groove cedar plank cut-offs left over from my brother's camp we had planned to use for a dog house that we used on the two sides.  We had a sheet and three quarters of 3/16" interior plywood that we used for the floor, front, back and roof.  I keep a supply of deck screws and roofing nails on hand and we had shingles that were left-over from building our house.  By 9pm we put the chicken coop in the fence and then put the last piece of fence up and locked the chickens in their new coop for the night.
   On Friday morning we got the roll of wildlife netting that we had left over from fencing the garden and and covered the entire enclosure to keep Miss Houdini in.  SHE'S NOT GETTING IN MY GARDEN!  We've been getting 2 eggs a day ever since.  - Thank you, Sharon!

Vermin Venison

   Last year we planted a flat of Strawberries (4 dozen) in front of the boulders in front of our house.  Some of them disappeared before fall and I strongly suspected the local Whitetail Deer population.  This past week I've been watching my nice lush plants with berries with just a hint of color starting to appear in them.
   This morning, while going out for our walk, I discovered that I no longer have berries with any color, and most of the leaves on most of the plants were gone as well.  Out of the 4 dozen plants we planted last spring, we transplanted just 17 survivors to the bottom of the fenced-in, back garden and only 3 of them escaped undamaged.  The rest are just gone, even though I had let the sporadic volunteer wheat from the straw mulch I put down grow up around them, standing.
   The incriminating hoof prints in the road in  front of the garden, pointed directly at the strawberries are all the proof I need.  Yes, deer are vermin, tasty vermin, but still vermin; and I'll be fighting the ever-losing battle to eliminate them again this fall!