the little wild kingdom

[flowerbug]

while out weeding today i found a groundhog hole in the middle of my big bean patch. first time one has been brave enough to try something like that. dunno if it is in there or not now but i plugged it up after trying to find out if the critter was in there or not. put a few old garden implements in the area to try to discourage it from trying to dig there again. we'll see how it goes. i may have to get out the live trap.

 

[flowerbug]

since i dug up these two older pictures to post on TEG about hollyhocks i can also put them here. historical documents... (a reference to Galaxy Quest as we always get some laughs from that).

from July 2008

the space behind the horseshoe garden was turned into flower gardens for a while but those eventually had to be changed due to needing a drainage trench going through it. since then it has gone through several permutations of gardening and now it is being mowed but i sure would like to turn it back into a garden of some kind as soon as i can get enough $ to put fences up to keep the deer out.

but in this picture you can see we had plenty of them back there but also we had them showing up in random locations due to birds and other animals moving the seeds around. we even had some growing up here near the house and right outside my patio door and you can see them in the foreground as the bright pinks.

and July 2011

this space was behind the fenced gardens. eventually i turned it into a strawberry patch until the deer found them and we ended up covering the space to keep the weeds down.

 

[flowerbug]

ooh!

yesterday when weeding i scoped out some potentially really interesting bean plants. likely a new cross.

today i sampled one of them to see if it was edible (it was! ) and so now i am excited to see how they turn out and what the seeds look like. it will be hard to wait until there are dry seeds to harvest and i sure hope there are a lot of them because i really hate to work with just a few seeds at a time...

purple dove and painted pony cross.

tons and tons of many different kinds of bees out in the gardens and a lot in the beans.

thank you Momma Nature!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

purple dove and painted pony cross.

That sounds cool!

 

[flowerbug]

i have at least two plants out there with this type of pod and in the right place for them to be the cross of Purple Dove and Painted Pony. now i have to be patient and hope the groundhog will ignore them long enough (it did eat half a bean) to get well formed seeds before i pick them to finish drying inside.

direct seeded on June 8th.

bush habit, edible and early. hope they give me seeds enough to work with for the future.

i've planted Purple Dove every season since 2018 and Painted Pony i've planted twice (2020 and 2021) and set aside seeds when i shell them out for replanting.

hope the groundhog will leave them alone (it did nibble on one of the beans already) so i can get them picked as soon as they are fully formed. i won't leave them out there a day later than i have to.

 

[FarmerJamie]

Maybe something would help?

8 Natural Ways To Get Rid of Groundhogs

Wondering how to get rid of groundhogs? There are lots of safe, healthy ways to do it. Here are some suggestions.

www.farmersalmanac.com

 

[flowerbug]

Maybe something would help?

8 Natural Ways To Get Rid of Groundhogs

Wondering how to get rid of groundhogs? There are lots of safe, healthy ways to do it. Here are some suggestions.

www.farmersalmanac.com

fences are the best. we found a spot (and fixed it) today where one was getting under the fence, but they can also climb and go above for this fence so... (it is not the right kind of fence ).

we have lavender, garlic, onions, thyme, oregano, and i can get the old jars of cayenne pepper out to put on the pods i want to protect, but i'm not going to be able to spray the entire gardens here. there's just too many.

up until this year we've usually not had too much predation inside the fenced gardens so i expect i may need to get the trap out and then i will have to kill it and bury it. i will not relocate any animals i trap. i consider that just dumping off our problem onto others or being cruel to a creature. i quick kill is merciful compared to what could happen elsewheres.

we have an endemic population of them, they will not ever be "gone". better fences are my goal because then they would not be able to easily climb over or go under and that will probably reduce them being an issue in any of the gardens here. the large ditches are prime den sites and as soon as i hunt some they will be replaced by others (same for raccoons and chipmunks and ...).

 

[flowerbug]

weeded more today, also since i was weeding the pea patch i had some dry pods i could harvest that the chipmunk did not get after. yay! extras for me (or someone else who may want some).

pretty much reached one of the the goals for the pea patch which was to renew some of the peas that i had given to me a few years ago and instead of trying to plant all twenty of them i picked four and went with those.

plus another pea planting (which seems to be a blend of two which i really would like to segregate further because one of them isn't as good as the other). that second goal i've not accomplished yet, but i'll keep at it. the pods are good eating for one of them and the other is rather bland but still edible.

so the pea patch got weeded and picked through and then i went around the edge of the beans a bit and then got the columbines weeded out of the pathway (they always like to try to take over).

Mom had cut some of the super thorny canes off a rosebush and stuck them on the top of the weed bucket so it was perfect for me to take that bucket and turn it upside down over a spot where the groundhogs like to come through the fence and then push it down with my foot. fight fire with wire and thorns and being too lazy to plug it up from the other side (not easy it's on a slope and hard to get at). what i really need to do is get some more cheapest metal stakes i can find that are a few feet long and pound them along there. some day, not today and probably not even this year...

tomatoes are starting to get some color on them so it won't be too long before we get some processing and fresh eating going on those. no worms seen yet on the tomato plants. surprised so far. will keep an eye on them...

right about when we catch up on weeding we'll be right into canning. all good to me, like we planned it this way... hahaha, yeah, right...

 

[Mini Horses]

At least you have a plan, a goal...often mine get extended. Those flowers were beautiful.

 

[flowerbug]

At least you have a plan, a goal...often mine get extended. Those flowers were beautiful.

oh, for sure i have extended and delayed goals here. a few projects i've needed to get done for ten years or more but because they're not critical or an emergency they can get pushed off until i finally do get around to them.

right now would be a good time to do one particular project for a few days but it is a bit too hot for me to do that and i really don't want to get sick or overheated.