It's 9am and I am outside already rolling up the beach mats and the shower curtain on the garden boat. Going to be a hot one today, and don't want to burn things. Things look good, although I make a note to water later, after the boat is in shade. With the warm sun these last days, the rain of a couple of weeks ago has evaporated. I lose myself again in the beauty of the view for a while. Then become aware of a faint tap-tapping above me. I look up to see a pair of tiny Downy Woodpeckers busily hunting for bugs in the King apple tree. We wander about checking this geranium, that fuchsia, those marigolds, noting that most of the pots need watering as well.
I hear a starling, or starlings maybe, in the holly bushes making coaxing noises and of course, my Muttering Murder of Crows in the Cherry trees. They mutter to one another, either critiquing my apparel - pajamas - or checking out the tomatoes and peas. Yes, I AM paranoid about my tomatoes and peas, what of it!?
Definitely time for cappuccino.
Now I am dressed in my usual jeans and t-shirt and starting my day. Of course, Richard has been up and active since dawn cracked, but as I mentioned before, I am a very slow starter in the morning. I take notice of that summer annoyance - fruit flies - flitting around hanging basket of apples and make a scrunchy face. Richard comments on them and suggests I make my homemade fruit fly trap: a cone of paper suspended in a jar with a 1/2 inch of apple cider vinegar in the bottom; works every time...
...but not this time. Hmmmmm, curious. Two hours later and there is still a cloud of the foul creatures flitting about. I add white wine vinegar to the cider vinegar in the jar, then stand back and watch. They pay it no mind at all, instead start flitting around my face. I scrunch my eyes and imagine I can hear them snickering at me, chattering to one another with their tiny, high-pitched voices about the stoopid human as they get in my nose and eyes. Double scrunchy face.
Giving a shrug I go on with what I am doing; all the while my mind is working on the fruit fly problem. I look up again at my hanging fruit & vegetable basket and it strikes me - gee, maybe there is SOMETHING IN AMONGST THE APPLES THAT IS ATTRACTING THEM, DOPEY! So I start to remove the apples one by one by one by...eeeew GAK! There, right smack in the middle of the pile, is an extremely rotten apple, with dozens of tiny fruit flies practicing their dives: forward dive pike from a standing start, back dive in the tuck and, my personal favorite, the free position. Big Scrunchy Face here!
Richard dispatches the foul apple to the garbage and the little fruit flies soon disappear. I keep one eye watching the fruit fly trap, but see nothing. Still, I leave it there; it is after all summer and you can count on them being back, with their dirty little feet walking alllll over the nice fresh fruit and veggies and doing their level best to spoil whatever they touch...maybe its time for another cappuccino, I'm getting a tad bit testy.
We wander back out to the yard. Richard has gone to work - 12 till 8 today - but managed to mow the garden yard for me before he left. I notice that in the tiny pea patch - that has only two very sad looking pea plants, some Scarlet Runner beans, sage, thyme and tomato plants - there are some tomatoes slowly ripening. Maybe there will be some ready for Rylan to pick when she is here on the 23rd. Over at the garden boat, I see one tiny red Tumbling Tom tomato starting to ripen. Will save that for Rylan too. The peas are setting more and more pods everyday. There won't be gallons of them, but maybe we will get a small feed with dinner one night.
Back inside, I check the fruit fly trap. Ah Hah! Suckers! There are 3 fruit flies inside. Will leave it to attract more. Time to vacuum and tidy the kitchen, get dinner plans on go. Periodically I smugly check my trap. At the 4pm trap check, I don't see any fruit flies...I mean NO FRUIT FLIES! My eyes go slitty and search from side to side. How can that be? The little beggars have made a daring escape, and are even now laughing at me from behind their tiny wings. This trap is supposed to be inescapable! Does this mean that, as I have used this trap over the last few years on succeeding generations of fruit flies, the fruit flies have become smarter? have figured out ways to escape the trap and it's been hard-wired into their tiny fruit fly DNA? that I have to devise a different trap?
Naw, it just means I was careless when I made the darned trap and leaving a gap between the top of the jar and the paper cone, and they were able to push through. Phew, for a minute there I was worried about evolving intelligence in fruit flies. Not that there is much concern there. I mean, fruit fly intelligence, that's just laughable...
...still, I DID see a few fruit flies buzzing around my computer monitor the other day. And I DID see one sitting on my keyboard, moving from key to key until I chased it away.
Hmmmmmm.
wat mom doin'?
lookin' fow mow pepl'.
mow pepl'?
wats mow pepl'?
dunno, but she mad at 'em.
dey gud ta eat?
dunno.
As I roll up the beach mats they sniff the ground by the pea patch, searching for clues. After the mats are up I look down and turn the air blue.
uh oh.
wat?
mom sed a swear!
she mad!
we hep u find da mow pepl', mom.
wats a mow pepl'?
dunno.
The stocks of mint I had placed up against the wall of the shed over the pea and bean seeds has been pushed aside, and dirt has been kicked on it. The red clay pots are still there, but the dirt is all scuffled with little paw prints and there are tiny holes where the seed used to be. I scrunch my eyes. Still no sign of my garden trowel. I stand with hands on hips gazing back and forth, trying to come up with a solution. None comes.
Growling to myself I walk away to the garden boat to roll up the beach mats there and nearly step on a doggie mine. Sigh, that's all I need to make my day complete.
Time for morning Cappuccino.
It's 3pm and I still don't have a solution. I have considered and discarded several ideas as either too labor intensive or too far out there. I decide to revisit the scene of the crime. My entourage follows.
I wander past the pea patch, thinking; nothing new there. Pea seeds are still MIA. Decide that now was as good a time as any to scoop up the doggie mines so I don't step in one while working on the Mole People Mystery. Most of my entourage is now noticeably absent. Having a low boredom threshold, they have moved on to other adventures I guess. Pippi and Emmy remain with me. As my self-designated guardians, they dog my footsteps.
wat mom doin'?
dunno.
huntin' mow pepl'?
dunno.
wen suppah?
dunno
Time to regroup again. When things get tough, the tough bake bread. I am making Craisin Bread to bake in my Outdoor Gas Convection Oven, aka the BBQ. I love dried sweetened fruit. Dried cherries and dried cranberries are my favorites, closely followed by dried blueberries. But today I am making Cranberry yeast bread. The gathering of the ingredients, the mixing of the dough sooth me and I come to a decision about the Mole People.
I will let them think they have beaten me. Let them think they can have all those pea and bean seeds. After all, I do have more to plant. I am moving my pea and bean patch to a very large green tub, two feet high and two feet in diameter, which I used for flowers last year and haven't got around to using at all yet this year. They can't tunnel up from the bottom; can't tunnel through from the sides. I can cover it with landscape fabric to keep them from getting at the seeds should they try climbing up and into the open top. Hah! Take that Mole People!!
And I have another tub the same size I just might plant to peas as well. Maybe if I can finally convince Richard to move the old bathtub from beside the well house into the garden yard, I will plant it too. What else can I find to plant peas and beans in??? There must be something....
Will it work? Will it keep the Mole People at bay? Will they finally return my garden trowel? Will my Craisin Bread turn out?
dunno.
Mid-afternoon, I walk out into the garden yard to stroll around and see what flowers might need dead-heading, what plants might need watering. Of course the first place I go to is the pea and bean patch. I brace myself.
The hole to the right of the McKenzie Sugar Snap Peas box is bigger. Much BIGGER. I scrunch my eyes up. Then slowly let them wander over to the left, where the chewed up pea seeds are...GONE! A growl issues from my throat. War and Peas indeed!! En Garde whatever-pea-seed-eating-creature you are...I am throwing down my garden glove gauntlet. I will have peas from the garden this year. I will not let any cute little Island Buck Mule Deer nor any seed eating Mole People defeat me!!!
Rocks. I need rocks to fill in the hole. Under the old Golden Delicious apple tree beside me, the one with the beautiful rambling pale pink rose climbing to the top, I find just what I am looking for. Take that Mole People!
Time to regroup. Time for a glass of iced-tea.
Now it's 8pm. I go out directly to the pea and bean patch to see if my rocks have worked. The Mole People have returned. Their hole has been excavated larger and the rocks I put in there, all 5 of them, have been pulled down into their subterranean lair. I will NOT be defeated.
I remember from my study of herbs, that Mint is supposed to be a deterrent to mice and I wonder if it will work for all rodents. I hurry to my Mint pots and harvest large stocks of it. These I place directly over the row of peas and beans and even stick some down in the hole. But what can I plug the hole with?
I settle on red clay pots, placing two of them, one inside the other, over the hole. Surely those are too heavy for the Mole People to cast aside and escape above ground to harvest my pea and bean seeds again. It's been a long day. I will check one more time, at 9:30pm, when I go out to unfurl the beach mats over the patch. Those pots had better still be there.
It's 9:30pm and I go out to the pea patch, sigh, again. My feet are dragging because I don't know what I will find. At first glance, the red clay pots are still in place. I begin to lower the beach mats - there are four of them - and I work from right to left. I have 3 mats down and fastened and am lowering the fourth, when my eyes catch up to my brain...
This morning I had shoved a garden hand trowel into the hole on the left end of the pea patch until I could find something better to put in it. It sort of slipped my mind as I was fighting the Mole People over the hole in the middle of the patch. What my brain saw, and my eyes took a bit longer to see, was that the hand trowel WAS GONE!
Now the Mole People not only have 5 rocks in their lair, but they also have my garden trowel. Um, uh oh.
I wonder how hard it is to make plaster casts of tiny rodent footprints? Or collect rodent DNA or samples of rodent hair for comparison?
Whaaat?
Well it's what Grissom and the CSI guys would do!
First thing every morning I walk out into the garden yard to roll up the beach mats on the garden boat. The sun is shining beautiful and bright; the sky is that blue only an Island sky can be; there is a soft breeze kissing my cheek. I am entranced with the view of Mount Arrowsmith in the distance, across Cherry Creek.
I meander slowly around, checking the tomatoes, the peas that are left, the flowers, the herbs. Make a mental note to bring the loppers out later and trim back the weeping rose bush that is crowding the boat. Inhale the sweet scents. Get lost in the view again.
Gradually I work my way across the yard, checking various pots, until I get to the shed where the tomato and pea patch is. I untie the strings on the mats there and roll them up so the sun will warm the ground and entice the peas and Scarlet Runner beans to germinate quickly. And come to a screeching halt.
Let's back up a few hours...Before rolling down the mats over the pea and bean patch last night at dusk, I noticed that a few of the peas and one of the bean seeds had "popped" out of the earth. Hmmmmm, must have had the water from the nozzle turned up too high and washed the soil away from them. I poked them back into the earth and mounded some soil up over them. Still, it didn't seem like the spray of water was that strong.
Flash forward to now...Not only are those same pea seeds and that one bean seed popped out of the soil again, but a couple of the pea seeds have been.....CHEWED! I squint my eyes. Is that...footprints? Tiny little footprints and is that a HOLE AT THE BASE OF THE WALL!!?!! I follow the tiny footprint trail. There, to the right of the McKenzie Sugar Snap seed box and at the base of the wall, another hole! Is it a rat? The holes at the base of the wall are pretty small. A mouse? Then why didn't the mouse pack the seeds away? Could it be......MOLE PEOPLE???
Naw, we don't have moles on the Island. Do we? We have rats, and field mice and shrews. No gophers thank goodness, and no ground squirrels. But MOLES? On the prairies years ago we had trouble with pocket gophers. The little beggers would dig up under where your plants were growing and in the blink of an eye, your plant was gone. Pulled down into their burrow for the family stew pot. But back to the Mole People. Something had dug the holes, popped the seeds out of the soil and chewed some of them up.
Richard comes home from stacking bales and I nag him out into the yard for a look at the mystery. "Do we have Voles here?" he asks. Hmmmmm, Voles. I go to the internet to check. Yes, it says, we have Townsend Voles, which are a rodent not as large as a rat but larger than a mouse and they usually burrow near water. What it doesn't say, however, is if they have an appetite for pea and bean seeds. "Do you want me to set a trap?" Richard asks. "Not yet" I reply. But I am thinking about it.
What I really wish is that I had what my dad always referred to as a "ball-bearing mousetrap". That would do the trick. It's quick, efficient, humane and environmentally friendly. Safe. Leaves no carbon footprint. That should keep everyone happy.
What's a ball-bearing mousetrap, you ask?
Felis Domesticus.
Male.
Unaltered.
I still think it's Mole People. I'll keep you informed.
I am a gardener. Today I planted two kinds of peas: Laxton's Progress and an edible podded Sugar Snap Peas. I planted them in a narrow patch of earth measuring 12 feet long by 20 inches wide in the garden yard, up against a shed. Good shelter, southern exposure and when the sun hits it, lots of warmth. Way back in May, Richard had stapled stucco wire to the shed for me. First it was too cold to plant anything, and then we did the Garden Boat, so nothing got planted in that narrow strip of earth. Until now...
Today I planted the peas right smack up against that shed where they can climb the wire and give me pails and pails of crisp green peas. Pardon me? What's that? I am being a tad optimistic, you say? It's the middle of July, you say? Yes...so?
I live in a valley. Not just any valley but the Alberni Valley. On an Island in the Pacific. And not just any Island, but VANCOUVER ISLAND. Our weather patterns here are, well, different. We have microclimates. Wikipedia defines a microclimate as: a geographical zone where the climate differs from the surrounding area. The term may refer to areas as small as a few square feet (for example a garden bed) or as large as many square miles (for example a valley). And in my microclimate garden bed, in the valley, I planted peas; and 2 Patio tomato plants, 1 Roma tomato plant, 5 Celebrity Tomato plants, 2 Sage herb plants & one Thyme plant.
I know peas like it a bit cooler, so by planting the tomatoes, sage and thyme in front of them, I reason, they will have some shade on their toes and will keep growing. The tomatoes, sage and thyme will get lots of sun, which they love. In a microclimate like the garden yard, you can grow two crops a year. It's just that no one I know of ever does and the cute little Island Mule Deer ate most of the pea crop in my Garden Boat and I really, really wanted some home grown garden peas this year and no cute little Island Mule Deer, or cute little Island Bush Bunny, is going to stop me from my goal!
I planted the peas really thick. I mean REALLY THICK. My dad always planted his peas that way. Soak the peas overnight in water. Then chicken wire strung along the row, peas planted on either side of the wire and just as thick as you can. Not spaced out one or two pea seeds every few inches...oh no. Just as thick as you can along both sides of the wire. Lots of fertilizer. He harvested 5 gallon pail after 5 gallon pail of peas by growing them vertically. It's what I did in the garden boat and what I did by the shed.
In the photo at the top of the page, the Laxton's Progress is on the left up against the wall and the Sugar Snap peas are on the right...maybe. You see a wind came up and blew the empty seed packets around so they became mixed up and I am not entirely sure I have them right, sigh. I will have to wait until the plants produce pods to know for sure.
Oh and did I mention the Marigolds? I have all these Marigold seeds I saved from last year. I planted a big swath of them between the peas in the garden boat and they grew like crazy! Just broadcast the seeds heavily, watered them well, covered with a thin layer of potting soil, watered again and they are now 3 to 4 inches high and loaded with buds. That is my plan for the rest of the open space in that micro garden.
Now if I can just find another open space to put the cucumber, zucchini and acorn squash plants I bought. Hmmmmmm. Say, Richard, what about over there in the corner where the shed and the house meet? What do you mean you don't think so??!!!
I don't eat wild game of any kind. I am not a hunter. My father used to hunt game for food. My husband was a hunter in his youth, to put meat on his family's dinner table. I don't eat wild game; just never could get past the childhood trauma of Bambi. There are lots of others out there like me. You know who you are.
Last night before closing up the garden gate, I seriously considered lowering the shower curtains attached to the bunk bed frame in the garden boat just in case some creature decided to visit. "Naw", I told myself "you'll just have to get up at 6am to put the curtains back up so you don't fry your garden in the heat." I am NOT an early morning person. "Besides, it's too early in the life of your garden to be worried yet, no peas, no tomatoes to eat".
If you have seen the photo's of my garden boat, you know that since the heat arrived here in the Valley July 1st, my garden has exploded. It is lush and green and vibrant with life. Roses blooming, squash blossoms, startlingly orange Calendulas, Geraniums just getting ready to burst into brilliant reds, yellow tomato blossoms everywhere, and, oh look there, the peas are starting to bloom!!!
My best friend Bente is a Dane. She loves green peas in the pod fresh from the vine. Each time she visits, we walk out to the garden boat and she checks the progress of the pea plants. "If you come out here someday, and your peas are missing, don't look at me" she jokes. We oooh and aaaw over how well the garden is doing, dream longingly of the day we can walk out and pick tomatoes and peas. How can I tell her.....
Before breakfast today, I made my morning pilgrimage to the garden boat. On the way, I looked at all my plants-in-pots that I have placed along the inside of the fence. The cute little Island Mule Deer made such a feast of my potted plants outside the fence last year that I moved them all inside the yard. There is probably about 75 to 100 large black florist pots with various veggies, herbs and flowers. As I passed by my pretty and highly scented pink rose-in-a-pot, I blinked. Twice. All the leaves, flowers and flower buds but one were gone. Hmmmmm. Well, it was right up against the fence, and the openings in the fence are roughly 3" x 6". I suppose a cute little Island Mule Deer muzzle could reach through but....hmmmmm.
I moved on down the line. Several pots away another rose, this one a fragrant, creamy white with the faintest hint of pink at the edge, was missing it's 3 blossoms. HMMMMMM! Now I am afraid to look. Afraid to turn and face my garden boat. I had seen from the gate that things in the boat looked normal, but up close? And personal? Oh, deer!
Did I mention that last year the cute little Island Mule Deer ate a lot of my plants-in-pots that were outside the fence? Or that one of their absolute favorite things was my Scarlet Runner Beans growing up the outside of that fence? And didn't I mention before how much they thoroughly enjoyed Richard's Soup Bean Mix Garden? How they munched it down to dust? Sigh...
So here is the GoodNews/BadNews part. The GoodNews is they didn't eat all the tomatoes. Nor all the flowers or herbs or onions. Missed the zucchini, the corn, the cucumber, the parsley, the chives, the marigolds...well you get the picture. The BadNews part: they picked those Scarlet Runner beans clean down to the stems. Nibbled on the tomatoes, LOVED THE PEAS, tried an onion or two, enjoyed the jalapeno peppers, munched up the soup mix beans and ate the geraniums in the bow of the boat down to almost nothing! Oh there are still about half the pea vines growing, in the middle of the boat where he - I know it was that cute little Island Buck Mule Deer who has been hanging around - couldn't quite reach...yet.
So after Richard gets home from work today, we are extending the fence upwards, then hanging old cd's from this extension as a deterrant (Can't you just picture the deer in the dark: "oh look, a Garth Brooks CD! I love Garth Brooks! And an old copy of Greeting Card Maker. Now you can make your mom a card.") Well, one of the gardening sites online swears that hanging cd's will keep them out of the yard.
Richard says that buck is going to look really nice in our freezer this fall. I don't think so. I don't eat wild game. I am not a hunter. Still, I have to be honest here...I think I am getting over my Bambi trauma. And how am I going to tell Bente about the peas?
A family of crows fledged their babies recently. They are a loud and raucous lot. And curious. Very, very curious. I hear them across the creek or the field when I am in the garden. And I wait....
Soon they will be in the big pear tree on the South side of the yard. They like to watch what I am doing, but I hadn't figured out quite why, at first.
When they are across the creek, they caw loudly, swooping and diving and chasing one another while they hunt, putting me in mind of teenage boys laughing, teasing and shoving each other down the street. But when they spot me in the garden, they fly over to the pear tree and sit there muttering softly to each other. Soon one or two will lift off and glide to the King apple tree above where I am working. And they watch. And they wait. After a while I hear one or two calling from the pear tree, as if asking what the others see me doing.
Of course I talk to them and I tell them to just never mind casing my garden. You see, I figured it out, what they were up to, and I don't trust them. They are fun to watch; fun to listen to. There is one who barks like a dog - I have dogs; more on that in another post. But back to the crows in the apple tree. I think - no, I KNOW, they are monitoring the vegetables growing in my boat garden, waiting for that first, fat, juicy, red or yellow heritage tomato to ripen. Or that first crisp, green heritage pea. And when I least expect them to, they will swoop in and steal them. I have their number. They are watching the progress of the garden and reporting it to their siblings. Letting them know how many days until pea pickin' time.
But I have a plan, see. It goes back to the bunk bed frame and the plastic shower curtains - my cute little Island Mule Deer deterrent. Which is now also my cute little Murder of Crows deterrent. I think. I hope it doesn't just turn into a cute little Murder of Crows perch for eating heritage tomatoes and peas. Hmmmmm, maybe I need to rethink this. I'll keep you posted.
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