tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5138459729531944998.post6457929174400207601..comments2024-03-11T02:25:25.123-05:00Comments on Living Low in the Lou: The 2016 garden: what the rabbits taughtSLClairehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17307602613058790026noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5138459729531944998.post-73434865053993566052017-01-24T07:10:54.307-06:002017-01-24T07:10:54.307-06:00Claire:
What an interesting description of your n...Claire:<br /><br />What an interesting description of your neighborhood; it sounds lovely.<br /><br />We did have a lot of rain in the fall. And "a few skinny roots" describes the sweet potatoes pretty well.<br /><br />PamPam in Virginiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00895842137691734477noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5138459729531944998.post-61404445276905943172017-01-23T15:36:02.268-06:002017-01-23T15:36:02.268-06:00Hi Pam,
I wish I knew what that rabbit was doing....Hi Pam,<br /><br />I wish I knew what that rabbit was doing. That's the primary entrance porch to our house that he/she is on. I had to position myself at the corner of the kitchen window and take the photo through the window, figuring the rabbit would take off if I opened either the door or the window to attempt the picture. So far as I know neither that rabbit nor any others has gotten on the porch before or since.<br /><br />The houses on this side of our street date from the 1890s through the 1930s while the houses on the other side date from the 1950s. Pin oaks and silver maples were planted in a row, perhaps two rows (most of the row nearer the houses are gone now, most of the row nearer the street remain) along both sides of the street at least as far back as the 1950s, maybe longer, and many people have one or both kinds of trees of that age in their backyards as well. We live in a suburb just outside the St. Louis city limits. On our street all the houses on our side have lots of 1 acre or so, with 3/4 acre lots on the other side. Our street looks more like an old city park with large trees, some shrubs, and mowed lawns than a forest, but with that mix, a diverse range of critters call it home. No woodchucks, at least not yet, but plenty of raccoons and opossums.<br /><br />We don't have chipmunks, although I have seen them in south St. Louis and the southern suburbs. Eventually I expect they'll make their way up here. We do have lots of squirrels, especially this past year. The squirrels ate every single apple off all three of our trees before the end of July. But we did eat a few of the squirrels in return.<br /><br />Good luck with your early potato planting experiment! I don't know what might have happened with your sweet potatoes. Too much nitrogen seems like a possibility, especially if you had huge vines but a low yield of roots. Did you have heavy rain in fall not long before harvest? In that case the roots may have rotted in the soil. One October several years ago we got 12" of rain. When I attempted to harvest the sweet potatoes that fall I found almost nothing except a few skinny roots.SLClairehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17307602613058790026noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5138459729531944998.post-9220679428431214182017-01-20T11:41:06.646-06:002017-01-20T11:41:06.646-06:00Hi, Claire!
Thanks for this report. That Beatrix ...Hi, Claire!<br /><br />Thanks for this report. That Beatrix Potter Rabbit is something else. He appears to be sitting at the top of the stairs? Why on earth? Your property looks like it is surrounded by woods, as is ours. When you mentioned woodchuck hunting in response to Luddene's predicament, it made me wonder if you are outside the city limits? Are you perhaps in an older neighborhood with large lots? We, too, used to pile brush within reach of our garden and developed a bunny colony. However, we used to have a cheagle (chow/beagle) whose greatest joy was bunny hunting, and the bunnies did not prosper. We had the Year of the Squirrels 3 years ago when squirrels ate everything in sight, even most of the hot peppers. Then they suddenly disappeared - I read that they had migrated eastward - and we were left with one squirrel. They are gradually repopulating. Somewhere that one squirrel found a mate.<br /><br />Our other critter problem is with them eating the compost, which is why my son built a fortified set of three concrete compost bins. That is working well, except that in the winter, I don't like to carry the kitchen waste over to them, so I collect it in a really heavy-duty plastic, covered bin on the porch, and when it is full we dump it into a garden bed and dig it in. Something has been eating it - and this is rather nasty stuff (it takes a month to fill up the bin).<br /><br />I had forgotten potato onions; I have still never tried them, though I have some bunching onions, besides the regular ones.<br /><br />I have done exceptionally well with the Bronze Arrow lettuce, in fact, it is still producing right now even with the sporadic temperatures 20-25F degrees below freezing.<br /><br />Our hot peppers usually do better than the sweet ones, though we are now actually getting better harvests of the sweet ones than we used to. The jalapenos grow like gangbusters.<br /><br />If I can protect the pea plants until they are over 6 inches tall, then they are fine. It seems to be chipmunks eating them, since I would expect more damage to other crops if rabbits were about. We have fall pea vines alive right now (another anomaly) though they look like they have freezer burn.<br /><br />Our potato and sweet potato crops were very small. We have already eaten all of them, except for a few Yukon gold potatoes that were well-sprouted, which I planted in a box yesterday and put in a basement window. An early start? I have never tried that with potatoes. The sweet potatoes I did not cure - as you have said that you do not do so - as there were so few that it was unnecessary. They were fine and made it till mid-January. We usually get a pretty good sweet potato harvest. I have no idea what went wrong, unless it was too much nitrogen?<br /><br />Pam<br /><br />Pam in Virginiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00895842137691734477noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5138459729531944998.post-76757983083913447272017-01-17T17:17:18.945-06:002017-01-17T17:17:18.945-06:00Wow, old Chucky is one resourceful woodchuck (and ...Wow, old Chucky is one resourceful woodchuck (and a cozy warm one this winter). My condolences on his making himself at home under your house and causing your water pipe to freeze. Good luck on your plan!<br /><br />Mike bought a game camera so he can see what animals are making themselves at home around our house at night. Besides rabbits and squirrels, the camera has revealed that at least one opossum and, Mike thinks, two raccoons use our yard as part of their territory. Mike has a hunting license and it's raccoon season. We may be finding out what raccoon tastes like before hunting season ends.SLClairehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17307602613058790026noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5138459729531944998.post-66326110536063946362017-01-16T08:54:47.184-06:002017-01-16T08:54:47.184-06:00I’ve always had rabbits so most everything is fenc...I’ve always had rabbits so most everything is fenced. I learned quickly not leave brush around. However, this year it wasn’t a rabbit, but a woodchuck that helped himself. I know it was a he, because while I was reading on the back porch he climbed up the trellis behind me and started eating the morning glories. His tummy was facing me and he had no teats. I should have done something about this critter as soon as I saw him, but as you learned with the brush pile, I just didn’t get around to it soon enough. Besides, this guy seemed so much bigger than a bunny! While the rabbits don’t attempt to climb the chicken wire fencing, Chucky just plow right over. The good thing is that the only thing he really went after was the Brussel sprouts.<br /><br />The real damage he did was unexpected. Again, I ignored the obvious. He had dug a tunnel close to the house, but his exit hole was 20 feet out in the yard. Silly me, I assumed his tunnel ran perpendicular to the house. So, after an attempt to fill in the hole – which he promptly dug out – I ignored him. During the cold spell (-12⁰ F.) we had just before Christmas my water pipe froze for the first time. What I discovered was that Chucky had dug his tunnel back into my crawl space right along the incoming water pipe. He is now hibernating under my living room. Obviously, I will develop a “Kill Chucky” plan before he emerges this spring. I’m open for suggestions. <br />Luddenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12432295283917484576noreply@blogger.com