We tried… we got no tomatoes out of 20 plants! We had a HUGE ground squirrel problem this year and those buggers took every single tomato! They didn’t even care if they were small and green. They chewed their way through all the fruit tree netting and took all the fruit (and destroyed our netting). It was either them or the voles (or both) that took all my strawberries and blueberries. Then the 4 squash plants we had were literally GONE overnight… all the way to the ground. We saw ground squirrel eating the squash itself but I guess they moved on tot he whole plant!
We have waged an all-out war on them. Trapping them and driving them about 8 miles from our house. Then, the deer mowed down the fishing line perimeter I had around the middle gardens and ate the tops off of all the strawberry plants. We even have a motion activated sprinkler to deter them…
Grasshoppers ate my pepper plants.
Birds pecked all of the nectarines off the trees (because we don’t net them due to their size).
It’s so very frustrating. Makes me not want to plant anything anymore… stop netting the trees and just let them die. Cheaper to buy our fruits and veggies than to waste all this money on trying to protect our crops with zero success!
The only thing growing are my sacred plants in the enclosed garden, 4 pepper plants in the enclosure, and the lone cantaloupe in the enclosure that is like 20 foot long but still has NO cantaloupe on it… just male flowers and a the few female flowers are just shriveling up and falling off.
@spankyjr1@CaliRob - the plan is to build more enclosed gardens… if we can build one a year, that would be great but it’s both time and money intensive. I don’t even want to add up what we spent on the one LOL…
So after about 3 hours of running fishing line and string around the strawberry garden the very next morning, this little guy JUMPED over the string to get in and when I chased him out, he hopped right over the other end
You can see that I have to cover up a lot of stuff with netting to keep the birds off.
So last night I put even more up! At least 8-9 foot tall. I just didn’t think they’d jump over it because there isn’t a lot of clear room inside once they jump.
I didn’t see anything on camera this morning except a female deer heading towards it but nothing on the camera that shows the garden… We’ll find out. The females are REALLY hungry will will completely mow the strawberries down to a nub.
Not really… it is very dry here and our gardens use a lot of water as it is. We keep a fresh bale of alfalfa for them, we have a large food bowl where we throw some of our extra scraps (most go into my bokashi bin). We tried planting clover in a large area around the fountain (where they love to drink) but it never grows… as soon as the little sprouts appear, everything eats it (especially the turkeys)… I don’t know how some of the farms around here do it other than using a LOT of poison, really tall deer fencing, and the air cannons LOL
Another week gone by! Fall is in the air but Summer is back on the menu for the end of this week.
It’s been getting down to around 52-54 at night here (Great sleeping weather!!)
Two days ago, I found s few more thrips (nymphs) so I sprayed again with PC1.
I was seeing some signs of maybe phosphorus and manganese deficiency and realize I hadn’t fed them in a while, so the next day, I top dressed with The Back Roads Blooms from @roadsideorganics.ok, some kelp, and bone meal. Watered that in with some WOW fulvic and humic, liquid bone meal, and manganese (all low strength).
Yesterday, I went out and I was losing leaves (quite a few actually… enough to be concerning. Only affecting older lower leaves and up towards the middle of the plant and no higher. Thanks @Budbrother for your guidance!
So first up on the agenda is a soil ph test. I’m leaning towards a micro nutrient problem (specifically Molybdenum and Boron) which can often be brought on by sudden drops in temperature (which we have had), and poor ph.
I am preparing a foliar of spring water with aloe, Peruvian Gold Micro Builder, and a touch Lactobacillus Serum (LABS).
Let the mad scientist experiments begin. I feel fortunate that I haven’t had too many issues until now. I still need to spray again for the thrips as well… probably tomorrow morning then again Thursday Morning.
