The Garden Part 11 -- 6/28/09

The peas are dead.

This is all that's left...

It only took a day, but those stupid rabbits disregarded the Guardener, the fence (that has 2 holes in it), and the dried blood (that might have all washed away in the rain we had), and went to town on the peas. In one day they snapped off every single shoot of peas, just as they were blooming and pea pods were starting to sprout. Then they came back to just munch on the shoots as if they were at a salad bar. This all happened last Wednesday, and I took some wood to try to fill up the hole in the fence, but I knew it was too little too late. No peas for us this year.

So on Friday we went back to Russell's and decided to get serious. Not only did I get 2 more barrels of Deer Scram, but also a bottle of natural deer repellent spray, and I also bought a metal rabbit-proof fence to replace the plastic one. With everything purchased, it was time today to put my Plan B in motion. But first, photos of how the garden is doing.

The remains of the radishes. The peas are all gone (as are the bamboo posts), and of course the lettuce was gone weeks ago.

The squash (in the front) are doing great, and of course the potatoes are still lush and nuts. I might need to build a trellis for the squash.

The peppers are doing well. No blossoms yet, but the sun hasn't helped.

The tomatoes are growing rapidly. I'm letting the blossoms go now, so we might start getting fruit soon.

But the main project for the weekend was to put up the new metal fence. I'm hoping this one will keep those rabbits out, but only time will tell. With the new fence I decided to put it a foot or so outside of the beds. This will give me room to move around the beds to weed, pick, etc. Something I should have done to begin with, but I was trying to keep the fence cost to a minimum. The first part was to dig a 2-3" trench around the garden so that the new fence would be in the ground a bit, making it more difficult for anything to dig under.

A couple of posts for the gate, the trench, and the new fence ready to be placed.

The metal fence is annoying, as it always wants to curl up as you're working with it. So I had Sage help me as I put it up around the garden.

Trying to fill in some dirt around the fence, and getting annoyed because Sage is taking pictures instead of helping out.

The hard part of the fence is complete, and Farmer Doug is happy.

Working on the gate.

Fence completed, and the gate is in place.

View of the "new" garden. Sage put some flowers around the border to add some flair.

I started to take down the plastic fence, but then decided that I might as well leave it up until I need to take it down. Who knows, maybe this new fence will keep the rabbits out, but without the plastic part the squirrels would start to go nuts. Either way, if this setup doesn't work (along with all the "natural" repellents"), then I don't know what I'm going to do. Let's just hope I never have to go to "Plan C".