Sunday, June 17, 2012

For Pete's Sake OR 321/365

There is a rabbit. Well, more precisely, a hare. I don't see him very often, though he was quite ambitious earlier this week when he hopped within four feet of me as I weeded the front garden. I've named him Peter. I usually try to be more original when I name things around me*, but given this hare's behaviour, I think 'Peter' suits him just fine.

Last year, I noticed lots of nibble marks in the leaves of my vegetables--the peas just barely survived. But after hearing that hair can sometimes act as a natural deterrent, I promptly brushed the cat and sprinkled her fur all over the garden. Someone else stated that garlic was also effective. So I sprinkled garlic powder around a few times, too (if nothing else, it kept the vampires away). Sure enough, the peas stopped looking nibbled, and my garden did just fine. So, I figured I knew what to expect this year.

When I planted the garden, I sprinkled cat fur around it right off the bat. But as the plants started to come up, most of them quickly showed signs of struggling. However, I came to the conclusion that it was most likely bugs, given the holey--not nibbly--state of the leaves. After stocking up on diatomaceous earth for the bugs and blood/bone meal for the rabbit (just in case), I replanted half my garden. Everything has started to come up again that had suffered. Except that the spinach--just the spinach--disappeared again earlier this week. Where's the fairness?!

321/365 by gina.blank
Since everything else is doing all right, I decided that the bugs had been beaten, but the rabbit had not.

I think I made my sixth trip to Rona today in just as many weeks.

Chicken wire; check.
Wooden posts; check.
New package of spinach seeds; check.

How come this garden's taking so much more effort this year???





*For example, my Macbook is NOT named Mac. That's too easy. She IS, however, named Ambrosia (she is an Apple, after all).

1 comment:

Margaret said...

Fight the good fight, kiddo! ;-)

P.S. So you do have your dad's staple gun. Time to get m'self a new one...