Friday, June 18, 2010

Growing a Salad Bar

Despite the gardener's best intentions, Nature will improvise. ~Michael P. Garafalo, gardendigest.com

So, yesterday I went out to check my garden, excited that we've had this rainy / steamy weather that plants seem to love. I had visions of ten foot tomato plants covered in blossoms, cucumbers for days, squash plants taking over the garden...

... what I found instead were deer prints and 6" high nubbins.

Yep, it's true. The deer came and pretended my garden was a salad bar. All but three of my tomatoes were eaten down nearly to the ground, the cucumbers are half the size they were, and even the squash had a a few bites taken out of it. The also trampled my baby lettuce, and I lost about half of what was planted.

So, I guess my grand harvest will have to wait a while.

I swear, I'm going to move into the middle of the city.

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In Pillar Place, we have one more pillar on walkabout: Beta hit the trail last night. There are two more in The Box: Theta and Eta, but I don't think they'll be quite ready to start baking for another day or two.

Alpha should be bursting free of his chrysalis early next week, and I'm excited to see our first butterfly of the season.

Speaking of butterflies, Maria Zannini emailed me about a great Monarch site I hadn't visited before. It's www.livemonarch.com and they have all KINDS of cool information about monarchs. I know Groovy is planning to host monarchs up in her neck of the woods, and there might be others of you. You should check it out.

Even cooler, they offer monarch eggs for sale. I'm seriously considering buying some... but they aren't cheap. We had such a shortage of them last year, though, I think it might be a great idea.

Again, I say to anyone who has some space: GROW MILKWEED. The loss of habitat is one thing that has affected the monarch population more than nearly anything. I have some milkweed seeds now and will have more in the late summer. It's common milkweed, indigenous to pretty much the entire USA, so you wouldn't be introducing a non-native species to your part of the country.

I will send it to you at no cost... just plant it if you can.

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You Are a Delight



You are easy to get along with and easy to be with, but you're definitely not a doormat.

You'll cheerfully ask for what you want, and you're almost always ready to compromise.

You are comfortable speaking your mind, and you're also willing to admit you may not be right.

You know how to work well with others. You can bend in the wind, but you don't break.



Actually... I think I'm a little pushier than that, lol.

8 comments:

Michele said...

two years ago, I had one lonely milkweed plant.
Last year I had five.
This year, eleven!
I keep looking under the leaves, hoping to see... something.
But all I see are... leaves and spiders.
and the landfill I drive by every day to work has had a profusion of milkweed explode all over it. Finally , something good from something so unsightly.

sorry about the deer snacking on your garden. That's the absolute pits. I hope they leave mine alone...
oh yeah..it's m~

Maria Zannini said...

Agh! Bad deer!

Ref: monarchs
When I was a kid, I would see monarchs everywhere. Now, not so much. It's criminal to see their numbers diminish so dramatically in less than 50 years.

MomJane said...

You Are Dominant
You know what you want, and you're not afraid to go get it. You believe the world is what you make of it.
You are determined and driven. And sometimes this means stepping on a few toes.

You know you can't succeed if you don't try, and sometimes trying means being assertive.
If you're not dominant, someone else will be. So you might as well go for what you want!

This is about 50/50. I am so sorry about the garden. Are you putting out stuff to deter them?

Dru said...

re quiz: I'm a Delight.

Sorry that the deer is destroying your harvest.

Brandy said...

I'm sorry to hear the dear destroyed your garden. Is there no type of fencing or repellent you could place around it?
Is milkweed something you can be allergic to? If not I may plant some.
As for the quiz, I am a Delight. *snort* Yeah, right.

I hope you're having a nice day!

Marianne Arkins said...

m~ -- YAY! I wish you many monarch pillars :-)

Brandy, the milkweed sap (the "milk") can give you welts on your skin if you handle it too much. I've never had that problem, but I've heard that it can -- but no one that I can find is allergic to the flowers / pollen (and they smell like roses, only better, when they bloom).

To everyone else: YES... a pox on the deer!

Tori Lennox said...

Bad deer! Go eat somebody else's garden!

Tori Lennox said...

Somebody obnoxious who deserves to have their garden eaten. :)