I'll try it all

I've gone through the list. And have tried most of them.

Predator urine. Nada

Marigolds. Nada. Not even three foot tall Marigolds.

Cayenne Pepper. Nada.

Nothing will stop the squirrels from destroying my tomato plants. They have picked all but one of my green fruit. That's eight or nine in the last week. Each time they pick, they break a limb or branch of whichever plant they set out on. They never eat the fruit. One bite and drop it.

The internet says to do the things I already did. So today.. I just started buying things. Trying shit.

Like maybe this plant stand will help?

Or this hawk.... shut up....

Or this peace offering fresh water dish... 

(side note: I read somewhere that they may be munching juicy tomatoes for the water content)

Or maybe this chime hidden behind the branches will startle them...

I don't even fucking know.

Lost

I feel defeated. I feel outsmarted, outwitted and out of ideas. I feel like I don't know what I can do next, or what will help, or how to even try. It's so much more than a lost tomato. Or a broken tomato branch. Or a bunch of dug up carrots. It's failure. It's failure to know what to do to protect these things I grew with my very own hands. It's failure because I should have done it better from the start. It's heartbreak. It's losing things I care about.

But you probably don't understand that.

Radish Round Two

I'm trying the radishes again for a fall crop. Cross your fingers!

And a pot of carrots that I still need to thin out!

Today's tomato

After a sprinkle of cayenne pepper last night, this is how one of my tomatoes looked today...

How did that mouthful of pepper taste Mr. Squirrel? 

Bad enough that you didn't want to pull it down?

That's progress at least. 

Declaring War

... is not something I like to do. But today I am officially declaring war on the squirrels!!! 

The past three days I have lost half of my green tomatoes and a whole limb of one of my plants.

They are not scared of my screaming and shooing. They are not deterred by the fox urine I have been sprinkling around the perimeter of the garden. It's as if they don't even notice the 3' tall marigolds that surround my plants. 

I'm declaring war.

My first move is cayenne pepper. 

My second move is pulling the one tomato in a pot out into the open. Maybe without the help of the garage wall to shimmy up, their little arms won't reach. 

I'm not sure what my next moves will be. But it's on.

Pollination Day

Our female flower finally opened up, so I took the opportunity to pollinate it myself. I stuck a Q-Tip in the neighboring male flower and then swooshed the lifted pollen deep inside the female flower. I sure hope I got this little lady pregnant. 

my marigold problem

I think I have mentioned my marigold problem before, but today I would like to elaborate. 

The books on companion planting and natural pest deterrents suggest planting marigolds alongside certain veggies. When I started from seed the last week of April, I bought some marigold seeds for this reason.

They started out innocently enough. 

But then they just kept growing!

It was around this stage that I started wondering why they weren't flowering. They had two successful months growing and seemed an appropriate height to earn some buds....

But they just kept growing!!! So, I finally checked the seed package. Apparently, the marigolds you see in most gardens are the miniature variety and, apparently, I unknowingly went big then brought them home. My marigolds are to grow to 24" average height. 

This last week or two I have learned the affects of not reading the package. Things are starting to crowd and not work out the way I planned.

Example 1:

Flashback a few weeks ago, I originally wanted the lower portion of my herb planter to have a row of marigolds. You know, to keep the bunnies away. So I planted a few. Six or so along the bottom rim. And they did what my marigolds do, grew and grew...

Last week I realized that if that marigold between the tomato and kale is as big as it is... and still growing... These little guys in the blue pot will soon be towering over the top shelf sage and outright consuming the middle row basil. 

Today I pulled all of the marigold out of the herb planter and dropped them into  the dirt next to it. Today, I also had to do something about this guy. 

The tiny seed in the tiny blue pot is now two feet tall. She is root bound and the pot dries out minutes after a watering. I dropped her into the soil with the others and hope that her transplant shock won't slow down her flowering.

I'm not kidding these things are getting huge. The difference in sizes are due to some starting from seed indoors in April and others starting from seed outdoors when we planted at the end of May.

SERIOUSLY!! See the terracotta pot in the middle? That's all marigold.

And lucky for us, some of them are getting their first buds... 

... or as I am affectionately beginning to call them... My little monsters.

and their heads popped off

Remember those big, beautiful zucchini blossoms? Need a reminder?

Well yesterday, the biggest one broke off and lay in the dirt next to the plant. When I saw, I thought it seemed strange - maybe a critter ran through and snapped it off? It certainly didn't look chewed on. And whoever might have broken it off obviously had no interest in eating the delicious blossom. The stem looked clean cut, not chewed or bent or damaged in anyway. Must be a critter brushing past, right? So I did the only thing I knew how to do and put out some Shake Away (fox urine) on the grass circling my crops to deter the pests.

Then this morning... I see this:

Two more snapped off! Laying in the dirt. That's three stems that look severed at the tip. You can see them in the picture. The weirdness seemed weirder. Now I did the only other thing I could think to do - google it.

Apparently this is a normal thing. A normal thing that my gardening bible didn't mention. When male flowers are finished they just pop right off. I suppose in attempt not to waste energy. The other reason this happens is female flowers will fall when they weren't properly pollinated, presumably for the same reason. So then my question was... Do we have a pollination problem and when do you step in?

I am also turning to google for this one. I watched a vimeo with explanation of male and female flowers and how to help pollinate. I learned that the three flowers we lost were all male flowers, so I guess it's not terrible that we lost them. Zucchinis produce both male and female flowers but the trick is that they have to be open at the same time to have the chance of cross pollination. This might be reason enough to plant multiple zucchini plants, we only did one and maybe multiples would make this process a little easier or greater chances of happening 'the natural way'.

So today and tomorrow.. we will survey the scene. It looks like we have some male and female flowers that are getting close to opening. I'll report if we intervene!

come on little guys

You can do it!

Zucchini

Raspberry

Tomato

Bean

what two weeks looks like