I know, this is Denver. I know, I know. It will probably freeze again. It could snow, even.
Just don't talk to me right now, because the day is yummy hot, and the light all golden and sideways outside. 85 degrees today. The cold frames are open and the plants are all doing stretches and deep knee bends, getting ready to get out there and GROW and bear fruit.
The lettuces and greens are just plumb gorgeous. Our hothouse of warm weather plants is having mostly good success, but some failures. (The hot house is "Old School," our name for last years garden, with the cold frame Brad built from pvc and plastic sheets) The watermelon is not going to make it. The tomatoes, sugar snap peas, peppers, and cucumbers are alive and well. and eggplant. and broccoli.
But we have to put them in the ground!!! And tomorrow is the day. Jess gets back with Travis (meaning we will have some muscle back in town), and we are doing this thing. And we'll have pics.
Oh, and we are winning the bunny battle! With pepper. Cayenne powder, chili flakes, you name it. We've sprinkled it around the lettuces that are tender and sweet. (Apparently rabbits aren't into arugula.)
So far, it is immediately successful. Except the rabbit has found a new plant as of yesterday in a different part of the garden, so I had to protect it with the magic pepper powder. I feel like some medieval witch sprinkling red dust in a circle around my plants, muttering. I imagine a rabbit frozen with terror, peering through the weeds behind the shed out at me. Bwa ha ha ha!!!!
I think I'll pour a glass of wine and sit in the pretty. Brad has flown off to Italy without me, but I will toast him. And the sunset. Aaaaahhh.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Rabbits in the Garden!!
Kill the Wabbit
It's official. A rabbit has found my lovely lettuce cold frame and is wreaking havoc.
What has happened? How can this be? I've had a garden there for three years, no wabbits. Is it because Jess has deserted the garden to loll around a pool in Texas, basking in the heat? Is it because I never agreed to Gavin keeping a cat? Is it because of my vaunting pride, that had me forcing every guest to my home in the last month outside to admire my garden?? (I forced Jim and Nina out in the rain to gaze at it.)
Whatever the reason, the beast is here,
and it's devastating the garden.
Actually, so far, it's just lifting the plastic and feasting on some leaves of crisp, lovely Romaine near the edge. But still! I'm no fool, I know what this means. I am in official panic mode.
My immediate impulse was to post its wittle skin stretched on sticks at the garden perimeter, ala Planet of the Apes, as a warning to all rabbit predators. But after some deep breathing, I've decided to explore more humane methods. Briefly.
Look, I admit I am capable of horrible acts when my domain is threatened. Those who know me will recall the indicent with the peanut butter sandwich laced with rat poison pellets that I offered to a squirrel who had chewed through the soffit on our porch. I still feel shame about that twelve years later, even though the little devil just picked out the pellets, ate the sandwich and survived. (We found bright blue poison pellets covered with peanut butter scattered all over the porch under the soffit hole.)
And then there was the time I encouraged Brad to shoot a squirrel (same squirrel, maybe. we hoped.) with a paint ball gun. He got him in the back, and we watched with mutual horror as the little guy dragged his helpless paralyzed back feet behind him to safety. (Picture me wailing as Brad marched over with a shovel to dispatch him.) But that guy recovered and escaped too.
Even so, I can't carry any more guilt over animal torture.
So please help me to find a more humane way to thwart this garden beastie.
I have heard they are afraid of coyote urine, but can't think how to get a coyote to come piss on my garden.
I did do some quick research before I left for work. People talked about cayenne and black pepper mixtures sprayed on the garden. One guy spread the used litter from his cat's litter box around the garden and that seemed to work. No more rabbits approached the garden. (Jess would never approach the garden again either, though. Hmmm.)
I did run out to my garden just before leaving for work with a huge pepper grinder and frantically ground pepper all around the lettuce.
(Hopefully, my neighbors didn't see me apparently dressing my salad before I'd picked it.)
I will post further suggestions, pictures, attempts, failures, successes.
Help.
It's official. A rabbit has found my lovely lettuce cold frame and is wreaking havoc.
What has happened? How can this be? I've had a garden there for three years, no wabbits. Is it because Jess has deserted the garden to loll around a pool in Texas, basking in the heat? Is it because I never agreed to Gavin keeping a cat? Is it because of my vaunting pride, that had me forcing every guest to my home in the last month outside to admire my garden?? (I forced Jim and Nina out in the rain to gaze at it.)
Whatever the reason, the beast is here,
and it's devastating the garden.
Actually, so far, it's just lifting the plastic and feasting on some leaves of crisp, lovely Romaine near the edge. But still! I'm no fool, I know what this means. I am in official panic mode.
My immediate impulse was to post its wittle skin stretched on sticks at the garden perimeter, ala Planet of the Apes, as a warning to all rabbit predators. But after some deep breathing, I've decided to explore more humane methods. Briefly.
Look, I admit I am capable of horrible acts when my domain is threatened. Those who know me will recall the indicent with the peanut butter sandwich laced with rat poison pellets that I offered to a squirrel who had chewed through the soffit on our porch. I still feel shame about that twelve years later, even though the little devil just picked out the pellets, ate the sandwich and survived. (We found bright blue poison pellets covered with peanut butter scattered all over the porch under the soffit hole.)
And then there was the time I encouraged Brad to shoot a squirrel (same squirrel, maybe. we hoped.) with a paint ball gun. He got him in the back, and we watched with mutual horror as the little guy dragged his helpless paralyzed back feet behind him to safety. (Picture me wailing as Brad marched over with a shovel to dispatch him.) But that guy recovered and escaped too.
Even so, I can't carry any more guilt over animal torture.
So please help me to find a more humane way to thwart this garden beastie.
I have heard they are afraid of coyote urine, but can't think how to get a coyote to come piss on my garden.
I did do some quick research before I left for work. People talked about cayenne and black pepper mixtures sprayed on the garden. One guy spread the used litter from his cat's litter box around the garden and that seemed to work. No more rabbits approached the garden. (Jess would never approach the garden again either, though. Hmmm.)
I did run out to my garden just before leaving for work with a huge pepper grinder and frantically ground pepper all around the lettuce.
(Hopefully, my neighbors didn't see me apparently dressing my salad before I'd picked it.)
I will post further suggestions, pictures, attempts, failures, successes.
Help.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
From Yard to Garden
We dug up the yard today to put in our organic urban vegetable garden, and it's unnerving. And great. We've had small organic vegetable gardens in past years, but this year, we're going all in. Basically taking out huge chunks of our lawn to grow veggies in the city Lawns aren't big here in the heart of Denver. But we've just added at least 200 square feet to our garden by digging up the grass.
This is the backyard. (We dug up the front yard a couple of weeks ago, and pictures of that will follow.) Today we (and when I say "we" I mean my husband, Brad) put in a wall to make a raised garden so that we can really make this soil good, and plant square-foot garden style. Denver soil is full of clay, and kinda bad here in the city. We'll dig up the grass next ("we" here is all of us, and definitely my husband Brad), use a little of the soil under it, but add lots of peat, vermiculite, a little bit of better soil, and some compost.
Here's the deal. We're doing a massive change in our eating habits. My family has a history of chronic inflammation, and the stuff that goes with that: stroke, diabetes, alzheimer's, allergies, heart disease - and on and on. We want to fight back, and diet is critical. My adult son has made a high stakes bet with me that I can't change my diet radically. Leave processed foods behind, abandon sugar, white flour, white rice . . . the whites in general -- and start to eat plants again. I believe that at this point in our history, we're inundated with foods thick with chemicals and stripped of value, and we're swamped with advertising that convinces us this is normal. Commercials with all these happy, healthy looking actors eating really weird non-food stuff that we call food. It feels like it takes a full-on war to resist these "hey, this is normal, so buy this" forces.
So this is our crack at a "victory garden" circa World War II. We're going to give this a shot - all in -- and record our efforts, failures, victories, discoveries in this blog. We'll tell you what works, what doesn't. What grows, and how we've decided to cook it or otherwise keep it. Listen, I'm basically a potato chip eating, cookie lovin' gal who is converting to health before it's too late. So this is a massive experiment.
Here are the players, all of us living in this old Victorian house in short-season (gardening wise) Denver: Me and Brad, my hubby. My son Gavin. And my niece Jess who is the spectacular photographer recording our endeavor.
Today's high points:
1) We planted a Red Siberian tomato plant in the cold frame - which really acts like a kind of greenhouse -- that my husband put together for the first time this year. (more on that in another post). WE WILL HAVE EARLY TOMATOES! WE WILL HAVE LATE TOMATOES! This must be, and it will be, or there will be deep disappointment.
2) We dug up a bone today, and we think it's human. This part of Denver is built on a huge former graveyard. Second bone we've found - the first was bigger, and no, we don't have pictures. Here's the vid.
3) And we've dug up the only part of the back yard that might -- I say might -- have enough sun to make us some veggies.
4) And we finished the evening with a nice French Rose wine that matched that Denver sunset. Aaaaahhh.
This is the backyard. (We dug up the front yard a couple of weeks ago, and pictures of that will follow.) Today we (and when I say "we" I mean my husband, Brad) put in a wall to make a raised garden so that we can really make this soil good, and plant square-foot garden style. Denver soil is full of clay, and kinda bad here in the city. We'll dig up the grass next ("we" here is all of us, and definitely my husband Brad), use a little of the soil under it, but add lots of peat, vermiculite, a little bit of better soil, and some compost.
Here's the deal. We're doing a massive change in our eating habits. My family has a history of chronic inflammation, and the stuff that goes with that: stroke, diabetes, alzheimer's, allergies, heart disease - and on and on. We want to fight back, and diet is critical. My adult son has made a high stakes bet with me that I can't change my diet radically. Leave processed foods behind, abandon sugar, white flour, white rice . . . the whites in general -- and start to eat plants again. I believe that at this point in our history, we're inundated with foods thick with chemicals and stripped of value, and we're swamped with advertising that convinces us this is normal. Commercials with all these happy, healthy looking actors eating really weird non-food stuff that we call food. It feels like it takes a full-on war to resist these "hey, this is normal, so buy this" forces.
So this is our crack at a "victory garden" circa World War II. We're going to give this a shot - all in -- and record our efforts, failures, victories, discoveries in this blog. We'll tell you what works, what doesn't. What grows, and how we've decided to cook it or otherwise keep it. Listen, I'm basically a potato chip eating, cookie lovin' gal who is converting to health before it's too late. So this is a massive experiment.
Here are the players, all of us living in this old Victorian house in short-season (gardening wise) Denver: Me and Brad, my hubby. My son Gavin. And my niece Jess who is the spectacular photographer recording our endeavor.
Today's high points:
1) We planted a Red Siberian tomato plant in the cold frame - which really acts like a kind of greenhouse -- that my husband put together for the first time this year. (more on that in another post). WE WILL HAVE EARLY TOMATOES! WE WILL HAVE LATE TOMATOES! This must be, and it will be, or there will be deep disappointment.
2) We dug up a bone today, and we think it's human. This part of Denver is built on a huge former graveyard. Second bone we've found - the first was bigger, and no, we don't have pictures. Here's the vid.
3) And we've dug up the only part of the back yard that might -- I say might -- have enough sun to make us some veggies.
4) And we finished the evening with a nice French Rose wine that matched that Denver sunset. Aaaaahhh.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)