Answers, Austrees & critters

I wandered out to the garden this morning to plant round 2 of the corn, a batch of yellow beans and some pole beans. I took a peek at the Rattlesnake beans and got a surprise. I'm quite sure there was a rabbit in the bed last night. The little bugger dug out a spot just behind the sticks in the picture from my last post, between the beans and one of the Roma tomatoes. I noticed one of the Romas wasn't looking good yesterday, now I think it's done for. I'll probably lose a few beans but I have more seed and it's early enough in the season to replant with no problem. I'm quite sure now that the previous mystery digging was a rabbit after all. It does still seem surprising that they didn't seem to eat anything. Today's digging looked like the digging in the mulch earlier this spring. I think I gave the bunny easy access to the bed by leaving a pile of straw flakes I had removed from one of the other beds when I planted it. I removed that pile today.

While repairing the bunny damage, I noticed more buds forming on the Austree trimmings. I figured since there was already disturbance in the area, I might as well check to make sure there weren't any roots forming on the sticks. I yanked one out and wouldn't you know, that sucker had roots on it!. Not what I wanted to see at all. I pulled out all of the sticks that showed any signs of green. I had roots starting on 3 or 4 of them, so now I need to come up with a new plan for them this week, before the beans & cuke get very big.

The critters were active the last couple days. In additions to the rabbit, I also found that the pocket gophers have been active on BOTH sides of the backyard. I'm used to finding evidence on the north side but today I had a busy digger on the south side as well. I found one Mountain Mahogany chewed off at the roots, and a second that may or may not have been a gopher casualty. It was headed for a third, nice, healthy little bush that's only about 6" tall. There was also a hole inside the fence. I hope it doesn't make it to the new fruit trees.

On the plus side, I did notice today that one of the two Saskatoons is actually blooming -which is surprising since they are really just sticks at this point. They're so small and hard to see, I actually have fencing around them so the dogs don't run over them. The second one is getting a few leaves now. I also am finally seeing signs of life from the Anne raspberries. I was starting to wonder if they'd ever grow. 8 of the 9 raspberry plants either have leaves or buds now. One Caroline isn't doing anything yet. I'm only seeing growth on one of the blackberries so far but I'm trying to be patient. The raspberries were all planted before the blackberries, so I'm going to wait & see.

The downside to feeding the worms

Today, I was out planting the second round of beans and I saw something that gave me a bit of a scare (not as much as something else I heard today, but I'll get to that in a minute). Right behind the peppers' covered area and actually under a piece of chicken wire that was laying on top of the straw, I saw a clump of what I am quite sure is bunny fur. Then, I looked across the bed and saw this raised area. It's a little hard to see in the photo because of the straw, but there was a hump 6-8" or so high where the yellow beans are supposed to go. I had a moment of panic, thinking there was a bunny nest in my garden bed and I have seen spots in the mulch out back that looked like bunnies were starting to nest. I resisted the urge to immediately dig into the mound (though I'll admit, I did peek) and went inside to get my camera.

Thankfully, I don't have a bunny nest.

Remember my happy worm pictures?? http://transplantedgardener.blogspot.com/2009/03/worms.html

What I do have is lots and lots of squash or pumpkin sprouts (still, much easier to handle than cute little baby bunnies though I'm not quite sure what to think of the fur).

I guess we shouldn't be too concerned about planting Curcubit seeds too deep...

Don't get me wrong, it DID occur to me last fall that this could happen - I didn't put any squash in the bed I where I planned to plant similar plants come spring, but I didn't really think they would push up such a big area on their way up. I found another mound toward the north end of the bed, where I have corn starting to sprout. I reached into that one and tried to pull those loose without disturbing the corn too much then smushed it back into place. We'll see how effective that was before too long.

This photo shows the Sugar Snap Peas two weeks ago (Friday, 5-15)

and here they are today!

I can't believe the height change in two weeks. The hoop and the brown wire fence visible above are still in the same spot, just much harder to see. For a good reference, check out the hoop behind the peas (over the lettuce). No peas yet, but there are more blooms. The weather has been cooler this past week though today was the first of several (forecast) warm days, so the plants should be kicking back into gear again.

The beans are starting to sprout. These are the Rattlesnake Beans but some of the Landreth are popping up as well. I'm really really hoping I didn't make a mistake with the sticks I used here. These are prunings from the neighbor's Austrees, a vigorous tree of the willow family. They had been removed from the tree for several weeks and to (hopefully) be on the safe side, I peeled all the bark from the bottoms of the branches. I'm worried though because the branches are starting to bud out again. I don't know if it's stored energy in the wood or if somehow they are sprouting roots?? Is it possible for them to grow even though I peeled them??

The direct-sown zucchini I planted under plastic in Ring #2 sprouted early this week. I had 3 sprouts under there Tuesday (when I was telling the neighbor what was planted where) but when I looked yesterday, I only had two!! One was completely missing and another has a couple holes in it's little leaves. I forgot to check on them today, I hope the others are still there.

My Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce I sowed in the milk jug this spring http://transplantedgardener.blogspot.com/2009/04/photo-update.html was split up. Some went into the garden and some are living in yogurt cups on the front porch waiting for my friend to build her garden where they are supposed to be living. Maybe the ones in the garden have been busy growing massive roots or something, but I may have to steal one of Andrea's plants for a comparison. So far, hers are bigger than mine, and she doesn't even have them yet!

Lettuce in the garden...

Lettuce on the porch...

It didn't make it into the photo, but her spinach is bigger too. I may just squeeze one of these into the garden to see if I should leave mine on the covered porch longer next year. The porch plants don't get as much sunshine but they probably warm faster because of the containers and stay warmer because they're up next to the house.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you my scarier story! I could see from my house that one of the neighbors on the street behind us was having a garage sale today (the house in the distance in today's pea pic). I stopped by on my way out to run errands today, in part to see if there were any goodies I needed and partially as an excuse to meet them. I get a chuckle sometimes as I hear her yelling at her dogs when they take off - hers listen about as well as mine do! Anyway, we chatted about the dogs a little (she notices Veronica's impatient yelping at the door - it is a bit different for a big dog. I mentioned to the husband that Wilson was obsessively barking at something last night (every time he went out the door, he ran out barking- several times in a couple hours) when he tells me he heard something going up the street past his house one night that he really thought sounded like a MOUNTAIN LION. I'm not actually sure what he meant - what the sound was - but he said it was distinctive.

So I went about my merry way and later on, I spotted the neighbor behind us out in her backyard (the other house you can see in the pea pic). I wandered out to say hello as I haven't seen her for a while and told her what the guy across the street told me. She told me that about a month ago when her brother was in town, they were headed in to register their ATVs (they recently moved here) one morning about 8:00 and as they passed the open field at the edge of the neighborhood (about 1/3 mile from my house by road, shorter as the crow flies) they both saw a large animal, reddish/brown color with a long tail, out in the field. They thought it looked like a cat but didn't think they lived out here. When they were at the office (wherever you have to register ATVs- I don't actually know here) they were looking at the mounts there and became quite convinced that they had in fact seen a mountain lion.

Having TWO people tell me this kind of information in the same day is incredibly disturbing to me. I thought the most dangerous wildlife we have here is the fox. Mountain lions are one of the scariest animals around. I think I'd rather have bears.