Thursday, July 9, 2009

...garden update, 2.0.2

after loosing most of my peaches to rats...
[they climb out on the limbs...
& eat the fruit right off the branch...]



I'm determined to get to eat my 3 Fugi apples...
[which in the past, have suffered the same fate...]

so I'm asking : "does anyone know of a way to protect...
the ripening apples from tree rats & mice ?"

is there something I can put around them ?
something I can put on them ?

anything short of putting out poison...

if anyone has an idea, let me know...



as I was taking the picture of the apples...
something caught my eye...
a movement in the grass...

can you see it ? down & to the right of the old cart...
in the clump of grass below the tomato vines...
[click on the picture to enlarge it...]



"Herself"...Piglet, Queen of the Garden...
snoozing in the tall grass...

until she hears Molly, then she scoots under the chaise...
not wanting to play "chase" with the dog...



the grapefruit sprouts are doing so well...
if you make it bigger, you can see even more tiny shoots...



on the lower left, a growing blood orange...
[didn't have any last year...]
the upper right, tangerines...
[haven't had any of these for YEARS !]



after dealing with the doggie dirt devil aftermath...
I propped up the cherry toms...



which were about to break under their own weight...
with an old trellis & a stake...



I had suspected that the ripening cherry toms...
were the heirloom,"black cherry" by their size...
& as you can see, as they are now "coloring-up"...
they are most decidedly black-ish...

I also munched a "sun gold" that fell off...
it wasn't ripe, but it was close...



there are ripening tomatoes, everywhere...



I've seen some on every bush...



which is very encouraging...
since I haven't always had good luck with the heirlooms...

but not this year...



here's a lovely "pink Caspian" I picked today...
and there are "Bradywines"& "pink Caspians" a plenty...

YUMMM !!....



the pole beans have discovered the whirly gig pole...
I discouraged them a couple of times...
but they are determined to climb every height...
I'll never be able to get the beans down from there...



there are beans here...



and here....



and at least 4 good sized Japanese eggplant...



in these pictures, they need water...
they'll plumb back up after a nice drink...

now if I only had squash...
I could have a home-grown veggie au gratin...
baked with crusty Parm cheese on the top...
just like Mom used to make...

2 comments:

The Calico Quilter said...

Piglet has run of the garden and you still have rat and mice problems? I think management has to have a stern discussion with the staff! Sleeping on the job!

Don't ask me about rodent control - with us, it's chipmunks. I've got about half the chipmunk population of TN in my back yard. They don't seem to mess with my tomatoes or peppers (weird, huh?) but have developed a taste for Gerber daisies. All that birdfeeder seed is payoff to keep them busy so they won't bother anything else. Seems to work, generally.

catsinger said...

...since she has gotten older, I close her "access" after dark... or I'm serenaded with growling & yowling all night...followed by expen$ive kitty injuries over the next several days... she's never been a mouser anyway... Sumo, who died in the summer of 2006 was my last good mouser... also the tree rats travel on branches too small for Piglet, even if she would lower herself to chase them...
the last "prey" she brought in to be "appreciated" by me , was a bean seedling... quite chewed & nasty...
left on my bed, of course...
the most recent victims are my mint & basil, after eating the peaches & cilantro...