Chasing the Sun

One of the biggest perqs of the house that we're renting is its large, verdant lot, screened in almost completely by blackberries, laurel, and bamboo.  The back yard has seen a lot of pleasant picnic lunches this month, requiring no more trouble than walking out the kitchen door with your plate to the blanket on the lawn.  Pretty damn decadent.

The same shade that dapples the lawn, however, also dapples darn near every other spot on the property.  Three very large trees (and several smaller ones) guard the southern perimeter.  Our favorite one, a gargantuan incense cedar, is perfectly positioned like the world's biggest sundial, gracing every last square inch of the back yard with its shadow for at least a couple of hours each day. 

As a result, many of our edibles are patchworked around the northern half of the property, tucked into the sunniest spots I can find:


The unused west wing of the estate?  No; just the tomatoes and basil, huddling together for warmth along the south wall of the garage. 


The raised-bed area saw some nice new construction this weekend, courtesy of Bamboo Bob.  Over winter, when the tallest things growing were collards and kale, I arched sections of pig panel over the beds to keep the neighborhood cats out (with mixed success).  Now that we're preparing for climbin' cukes, it's time for a different solution.  My stingy little heart glows with pride; not only did Bob fence in the beds without acquiring ANY new materials, AND use dead bamboo culled from our sideyard, it's also cute!  And it's easy to use!  Each walkway is accessed by a little gate.  The gate attaches to/detaches from the rest of the fence by two bamboo rings that slide over the bamboo "fence posts". 

Most importantly, the matching bamboo trellis really ties the room together:

Maybe it will also be slug-proof?

A cat could jump over this if properly motivated, but I predict that they'll go looking for a more accessible litterbox instead.  The nutria that chomped down several kale plants this winter will definitely be stumped.  The digging squirrels?  We shall see.  They're too fat to fit through the 2"x4" paneling, that's for sure.  If the nocturnal slug snacker (who has paid us a couple more visits) clambers over it, it'll be a strong argument for raccoon or possum.  Stay tuned!

In Good Company

The summer squash that I've been cultivating in my nice warm office are three...or four? weeks old (oh garden journal, will you ever be recovered from the burning wreckage of my hard drive?), and growing in leaps and bounds.  I guess that's what happens when your first food is a big, delicious squash seed!  The cukes are more moderate, but equally attractive in their development:

Foreground: Cavili and Patio Star squashlets.  Hidden in the middle: Boothby's Blonde cukes.  Background: Sunburst patty pans and a couple more Cavilis.

Since they all sprouted and seem to be thriving, I've been frantically canvassing my coworkers to find good homes for about half of them.  My capacity for baby summer squash is doubled by the fact that I enjoy them raw (especially grated as a replacement for cold pasta salads) as well as grilled, steamed, souped, and roasted; however, my sweetheart does not.  So.  If all else fails, I think I'll grow my extras in 5-gal buckets out front by the sidewalk (one of the sunnier parts of the yard anyway) with "Harvest Me" signs on 'em. 

Naturally, now that the rangy Sunbursts have two sets of true leaves and are rooting up out of their peat pots in search of soil, the weather has switched from last week's sun to driving rain and temps below 60 F.  Sigh.  Hang tight, little patty pans!  Hopefully the weekend will dry out your little bed!

A New Nightwatchman?

My morning visit to the raised beds today revealed evidence of a very busy night in the garden.  No plants had disappeared; no leaves had been chewed; the soil was undisturbed save for a moderate hole in the corner of Bed 1.  But Somebody had dug mysterious moats all around the outside of the beds, right up against the boards.  We're talking a good 48 lineal feet of trench, up to 4" deep.  Pretty impressive digging.

I immediately assumed that Somebody had been trying to break into the beds from below.  Voles?  Moles?  Rats?  Having bragged to my older brother just last week about our inexplicably mole-free neighborhood, I feared divine retribution for my boasting.  Reason quickly dismissed this theory, however.  Whoever dug these trenches is obviously a champion earthmover.  S/He would not have needed to try every inch of the perimeter in order to get into the beds.  Besides, the soil surface was totally accessible (and a lot softer than the clay pan upon which our garden rests). 

So what would Somebody be after at the outside edge of our beds, where the nipplewort thrives in defiance of my attempts to suffocate it with wood chips? 

It seems too good to be true, but I suspect that my garden has been blessed with a nocturnal slug snacker. 

Our backyard is a known hideout for raccoons and possums, and although I've never seen them, the neighborhood definitely harbors at least one skunk.  Could we have a backyard skunk??  The imagination thrills!  The imagination also suggests that we start keeping the cat in after dark. 

At any rate, even if this Somebody is also the culprit who filched a whole baby Bibb lettuce the other night (which, come to think of it, was pretty slug-infested..), it is a small price to pay for such an industrious pest-removal specialist.  It will be interesting to see if my slug beer-traps start going unused...