Groundhog vs Gardener

 Honestly, I'm not sure if it was the groundhog (or groundhogs) or a chipmunk. But something got in my garden soon after I transplanted many of my seedlings in and mowed them down! 

BEFORE

AFTER

I would water them twice a day and they'd grow back and just when they were going again, mowed down again. Finally, this worked to keep whatever critter was doing it out even though I didn't even enclose them completely. 

I used this mesh hoop and bed curtain. It used to go over Rylie's crib. Yes, I keep meaning to buy some mesh and do it right but it worked and I haven't had time yet. You can lose a lot of time in Joann Fabrics!

NEXT year I will do what I used to do and forgot. Plant garlic around all the beds along the edges. Turns out it repels these rodents. But last year when I planted didn't even have two of the beds yet and just planted in one area. This year we really enjoyed the scapes! If you plant hardneck garlic it grows these scapes you need to cut off and can eat. I made a pesto one night and a soup another night and both Rylie and Pat loved it. I enjoyed the tasted but the soup sure was fibrous! Food processor perhaps instead of stick blender next time. 

Winter Sowing

 I used to start seeds under lights but very few made it successfully into my garden. One year I tried hardening them off in a "mini greenhouse" and fried all of them. VERY UPSETTING. Then my husband took all my "grow lights" and used them for lighting in his workshop area of the garage. 

A tree fell on my garden in 2015 or 2016 and then I got distracted by the Cubs and hadn't gardened until last year. After the Cubs, I was distracted by my mom's failing health. She died July 2020 from old age basically. 

Then in 2021 wood was so expensive we only built two raised beds for the garden. Here's one of them. 

This year my husband has built two more big beds, two smaller beds for blueberries and a strawberry tower. He also finished the fence (sorta) but has taken it apart at garden entrance again because it wasn't to his liking. However, he's about done with that and then just needs to put up the trellis trim on top. 

3rd bed in progress

Soil so expensive too. So first filled beds with cut up tree that was the destroyer of previous garden. This technique called HUGULKULTUR. 

4 BEDS AND A STRAWBERRY TOWER

But this year I tried a new technique call winter sowing and it was awesome. Starting in January I sowed seeds in milk jugs and set them outside. 

Here they are in a moat around the NW corner of our building. Then I moved them to the back entrance. 

I set them down on that black plastic otherwise I'm sure someone would have taken great joy in knocking them off that ledge. In April most had sprouted. 

You don't have to harden them off because they've already been living outside. So later in April I began transplanting them into the garden and the seedlings looked great but then this happened....

to be continued....