I've been having so much fun in the garden that my blogging can't keep up!
About 4 weeks ago, I gave up on the seeds I'd planted in the back raised bed due to the ongoing squirrel attacks. While we're planning an enclosure, I got busy on a new plan for spring. I pulled out a couple plants that I could salvage after the squirrel damage (the two asparagus, some chard and alyssum that may not make it). The soil level had settled a bit since the bed is so new, so I added several bags of raised bed mix, a few bags of composted chicken manure, and some coffee grounds from Starbucks. This helped bring the level up. After letting that settle for about a week, I then planted some tomato starts and one eggplant there. I did plant the tomato starts extra deep, but next time I think I'd plant them deeper. They're a cherry tomato and a plum tomato. I'm hoping since we don't actually eat those plants but rather their fruit that the squirrels will leave them alone. I did put a plastic cylinder around them to protect them for a bit just in case they're tempting. So far, so good. I also planted 2 of the cherry tomatoes in pots nearby.
We've deployed a couple rat traps that we hope will be annoying enough to at least discourage the critters. I also heard that sometimes the squirrels want the water in the seedlings as opposed to the seedlings themselves, so to try to help this I put out a saucer of water on the ground on the other side of the garden. The first few days of the traps being out and baited with sunflower seed butter, the traps were sprung. Since then, it's calmed down. Maybe it is helping, but I wouldn't bet on it. I don't notice a big recovery of the poor chard sprouts.
We also planted a white guava tree in the back. On 3/30 it was 53 inches tall. So far, it's looking like it is fairly happy.
I received cuttings of several types of sage and a red fig tree cutting that I'm attempting to root.
At the garden exchange, I also picked some aloes suffering in a pot. Perhaps they hadn't been watered in a while. I'll see if I can revive them.
I sowed some old herb seeds indoors. Most haven't germinated, but the cilantro has. In fact, so much has come up in one little pot that I'm considering if I should attempt to separate them.
This last weekend, we bought the cedar 2x2's to make the cage to exclude the rodents. We still need to get fasteners and hardware cloth.
