GARDEN FALL 08

Oh Boy this garden is like a wicked stepsister, but she is pulling through, and we can still bro down as long as the groundhogs stay away and the rain stops for little while. I never thought I would say this after the summer months of drought, but I guess Fall is really here. So today our lovely garden was getting chomped on by our local ground hog who lives under our neighbors shed. We did not see him but saw the evidence. We found three of our healthy cauliflower plants gnawed almost to the stump. So we decided to grab some of our landlords old tomato cages which have pretty small holes around all of the cabbage and cauliflower (and thought this would deter the furry dudes). we thought the squash leaves would be spikey and less appetizing. Anyhow I come out later in the afternoon to bust this gigantic ground hog gnawing on the same cauliflower plants INSIDE of the tomato cage. I was amazed he could fit through the small holes, but low an behold they can. So I yelled "you get out of my garden" ...and then the groundhog scurried away, but he was trapped in this cage...so he knocked it over and did a hamster wheel maneuver and then ran out of the cage. It was hilarious and sad. This garden has had a lot of problems from things like stray cats shitting in the garden to aphids eating our tomatoes... not to mention the drought in mid summer that killed a batch of seedings and the fall rain which is finally blighting our late tomatoes. With the cold weather we will be lucky if these half dead tomato plants ,that have lots of tomatoes, will have the opportunity to ripen. We are also getting accustomed to the mountainous clay soil that dries out fast when dry and stays really wet when wet. No in between. We are also combating dead soil in our landlords garden space. This space is probably imbued with all types of weird chemicals (from years past) to resist pests and weeds. So trying to grow without chemicals and to reverse the environment is tough. On a lighter note we found some of our supposed "dead seedlings" finally came up and we have some late blooming carrots that are showing up and are growing in between our almost matured squash. We are hoping they can grow in harmony...hopefully there will be no survival of the fittest and we will harvest the carrots and squash together in peace.

PS. We harvested some green beans, a tomato, and some chives. They became part of a rulin' soup we had for dinner.