What Are You Growing This Year?

[Bubba's Mom]

I grew up a farm girl, my immediate response to pests in the garden is to shoot them. If you're in the city maybe animal control could come catch them and take them away. I'm all for live and let live, but I won't let my food and hard work go to waste for some furball thief.

Believe me, if I could shoot those suckers I would! I'm afraid one of our dogs would get in the way and I'm not a very good shot.

I read that putting Double Bubble gum out will kill them. I tried it out of desperation. I found a lot of empty wrappers, but the woodchucks are fine. They're probably sitting there practicing blowing bubbles when they're not eating my garden!

[GF Lover]

Could I use a shot gun on the hugh green worm monsters?

[IrishHeart]

Could I use a shot gun on the hugh green worm monsters?

Now, that's what we call OVERKILL. :lol: :lol:

[GF Lover]

Now, that's what we call OVERKILL. :lol: :lol:

Overkill or not, it would work eh.

[IrishHeart]

Believe me, if I could shoot those suckers I would! I'm afraid one of our dogs would get in the way and I'm not a very good shot.

I read that putting Double Bubble gum out will kill them. I tried it out of desperation. I found a lot of empty wrappers, but the woodchucks are fine. They're probably sitting there practicing blowing bubbles when they're not eating my garden!

I had a great visual of that, Bubba :lol:

I doubt the bubble gum will kill them, hon.

Hubs says "they have to go" when we see them. I do not like shooting any animals unless they are injured or rabid or endangering my pets. I even shooed a bear away and never fired a shot.

But trapping them and putting them elsewhere just makes these guys someone else's problem.

Environmental Conservation won't do it here in NYS.

So, we sometimes have no choice, but if he shoots them, I do not want to know about it.

[Adalaide]

I picked my first cucumber today! I was out watering and got at just the right angle and saw it hiding under the leaves. I had seen a few babies growing but didn't even notice this one. It's a nice fatty that sprung up without me even noticing. I'm going to have to get some refrigerator pickles going for the hubby to deal with the slow start until we have enough at once to can.

I've also been eating a handful a day of beautiful sunshine colored grape tomatoes, but no large ones have been ripe yet. We've got a half dozen baby watermelons that are so freaking adorable.

We had some bugs so we stopped at the garden shop yesterday and I saw some brown-eyes susans out front and asked how much they were when I paid for my bug dust. They were $1 so I brought them home and they're keeping my tomatoes company now. My husband was like do we really have money to waste on flowers? I was like can we really afford NOT to spend a buck on the world's best flower ever? Duh! I am kind of sad though, I wanted to be pesticide free but darn it all I don't go out there in the 100 degree sun every afternoon to feed the bugs. So far no bugs are bothering my tomatoes so I've only had to dust my cukes and melons.

[IrishHeart]

Chip and Dale, the resident chipmunks are eating the blueberries and hubs is not happy....I think they are cute.

Him? er, not so much. Bella, the cat finds them "amusing".

[notme]

I grew up a farm girl, my immediate response to pests in the garden is to shoot them. If you're in the city maybe animal control could come catch them and take them away. I'm all for live and let live, but I won't let my food and hard work go to waste for some furball thief.

i grew up in new jersey - not a farm girl - but when i moved to tennessee, we had some animals (fox, ok, snake is not an animal) that needed 'removal' so i called animal control and said: i have a fox that i think is rabid. it has approached my 5 year old in broad daylight. will you send someone to trap it? there was dead silence on the line. then they guy says: well. why don't you just shoot it? i was absolutely mortified!!!

fast forward 15 years...

a POSSUM got into my KITCHEN we chased it into the BASEMENT (with a wooden spoon, haha!)and husband shot it with my .38 loaded with snake shot.

the next possum? the one that was tearing up my trash every night? yeah, shot that one myself with my 410 in the backyard - it turned around and hissed at me and i was all like, "HELL, no" seriously, those things are nasty!

so: tennessee agrees with me

garden: i pulled a carrot on saturday but i don't think they're ready yet. it's been so dry (AND HOT!!) that i haven't been weeding like i should and my tomatoes and peppers are getting lost but still have tomatoes and peppers coming in. going up to visit my sister and my bestie but when i get back, gonna straighten everything out. and plant more stuff...crazy, i know......

[Adalaide]

Weeding? Forget that nonsense, I plant in pots! Yes, it sounds quite like Tennessee agrees with you. If you would have told me 10 years ago that today I'd be a spoiled rotten city girl with my garden in pots so I don't have to get my hands dirty weeding and spending my summer days indoors playing with my high speed internet I would have called you crazy. No worries though, I'd still totally shoot a possum if it was in my house... except the whole not being legal to do so thing and all that. But I'd WANT to!

Also, you are right, snakes are not animals. They are sos. Shoot on sight. They should be eradicated from the face of the earth and never spoken of again. At least where I am though the things come with warning bells, none of that sneaking up on you nonsense from back east. I once stepped on one in my bare feet in my daffodil garden. If I can't live in a snake free world at least I can live where they have the decency to have a warning system.

[Bubba's Mom]

My Bloodhound killed a racoon out back. It's belly was full of my Raspberries. Last night he got an Opossum. It looks like I'm dealing with more than a hungry Woodchuck?

This is a little too EI-EI-O for me!

[GF Lover]

This has turned into an episode of Grizzly Adams. All the shooting, killing, feasting, snakes, large furry monsters.

And I thought my green worm monsters were horrifying enough.

I do applaud you guys for protecting what is yous. I just won't come creeping around eating raspberries

[IrishHeart]

First tomatoes today!!! yaay!

It's summer for real now.

.....but the racoons stole the suet feeder....I do not mean they ate the suet. I do not mean they stole the suet. (this happened often until we wised up and put it away every night)

I mean, in the night, they somehow OPENED a tightly CLOSED metal garbage can somehow, and took the whole thing!!!...we cannot find it anywhere.

The only way we knew was from these little footprints on the slate where the suet had melted a bit from the humidity and caused a few prints---they look like little baby hands

I have pics, but I have no clue how to to post it. Cracked us up!

Little buggers!!

[kareng]

I'm growing brown, crispy grass. Anyone have a recipe to use it in?

[IrishHeart]

I'm growing brown, crispy grass. Anyone have a recipe to use it in?

yes, but only the nearby horses and cows will LOVE to eat it....sorry, kiddo---I've got the same crispy crop growing right here.

RAIN.... we need RAIN.

[ker0pi]

We don't have a yard, but for mother's day my hubby gave me wine barrel planters and soil so my son and I planted a small vegetable garden which includes Radishes, Green Beans and Cherry Tomatoes. We already harvested all the radishes, I have never had sweet radishes before they were amazing and we even cooked up the radish greens and put them into the re-fried beans for our burritos and chopped some for salad. We are having the coldest summer on record here, doesn't even crack sixty and so the radishes flourished and the green beans are finally starting to take off. Our tomatoes are hanging in there but growing very, very slow they're about 3 inches tall right now.

[freeatlast]

I've been impressed that my greek oregano, thyme, and chives have weathered the drought just fine. Two blueberry bushes, not so well. Just hope they come back next year.

[notme]

harlequin bugs (which i had never heard of) have destroyed my brussel sprouts while we were away i guess when ever we dust the cabbage plants, we should do those as well: they are 'cole' crops. i was hoping to do pesticide free, but...

anyways, sorry for all the shooting stories, but you have to remember that is over a span of 15-16 years. no shooting going on here lately

giant storms here while we were gone, so tomatoes need a little propping up. i have jalapenos already and i am afraid to look at how many. those things produced a good 5-600 peppers last year. the good news? everybody looooves the jalapeno jelly! i guess i will be doing some (more) canning this week.... i'm sweating just thinking about heating up the canner

[love2travel]

In my raised beds I am growing:

- mesclun

- peppergrass

- arugula

- Swiss chard

- green beans

- carrots

- lemon thyme, silver thme, lots of basil, tarragon, sage, summery savory, chives, lavender, rosemary, Italian flat leaf parsley

- celery - it is HUGE! And so beautiful.

- mizuna

- several kinds of tomatoes

And this is funny - several potato plants have sprouted from peelings I put in the beds in spring. They have buds so I wonder whether I will actually get potatoes from them!!