Chipmunks & Squirrels & Critters - Oh My!

Sunday afternoon - I went to water the vegetable garden, and it looked as if the little critters decided to play tag in the dirt. My Dad said he saw a squirrel taking a 'dirt bath' earlier in the morning. Needless to say, I'm not very happy and have declared war on any critter that invades my garden. We went to Lowes this afternoon and bought a spray called Shot Gun (R) Repells-All by Bonide that should repel the critters; it smells strong enough to keep humans away, so why not little critters? I sprayed it along the fence this evening. If that doesn't work I'll try spraying it on the bricks around the beds.

The Sevin seems to have worked - the insect damage to the plants appears to have stopped. The carrots are finally coming up, as is the lettuce. The second lettuce planting went in today so we can have continual harvests. This is also called succession planting in Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening book. I'm also succession planting the radishes, and the scallions.

Mom got her parsley and chives planted tonight, and we also planted the space around one of the trees. I'll take some pictures tomorrow.

Farewell for now ~
Sarah

Veggie Garden: Coming Soon!!

This will be the first vegetable garden I've had in 2 years. There will be 2 8x4 raised beds. My family started Square Foot Gardening many years ago, so we will continue doing that and we are going to try 'Lasagna Gardening'. I picked up the book at the library, and was very intrigued with the methods described. The last frost date for our area is May 18, but we've always planted on Memorial Day weekend. So, before then I have to clear the area chosen for the garden, set up the bricks for the beds, fill the beds with soil, and build a fence to keep out all the little critters. (So far we've seen rabbits, groundhogs, chipmunks, squirrels, and foxes).
Our soil will be in layers (this is where the lasagna gardening comes in). We will start with layers of newspaper. This will keep the weeds from coming through 8" of soil, and will eventually decompose. Then alternating layers of compost, grass clippings, straw, and anything else that sounds like it would be good for the plants.

My perennial garden is doing nicely this year. It has snowdrops, crocuses, hyacinths, daffodils, tulips, and 2 rose campion plants. I saved seeds from the rose campion last year, and have started 2 more plants. I'm not sure what else to put there. I need to find something that will bloom or continue to bloom after the tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths have faded.

In my flower garden, my Bee Balm is spreading - I pulled some up, and hopefully it won't take over too much space. My Yarrow is coming up, and so is the Valarien. So far the Anise Hyssop hasn't done anything, but I'm hoping it just needs a little more time to start growing.

Farewell -
Sarah

PS: The books mentioned are Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew http://www.squarefootgardening.com/
And Lasagna Gardening for Small Spaces by Patricia Lanza, Available at Amazon.com