2024 garden season

[Del_]

I laugh every time someone mentions urine scareing deer off. I used to pee in deer scrapes just to get the bucks to come back to the scrape and freshen it uo. I have pee'd down the side of a tree stand and then have bucks and does come up to the tree to sniff it. Pee will not stop a deer from doing anything and using it in the garden as a repellent is a waste of time.

Okra is one of my favorite fresh garden foods. I like it fried and pickled and in salads. Not much in soups and stews but will eat it that way. Best method I have found to keeping deer out of the garden patch is lead, Throw enough lead in the garden and the deer will leave, gauranteed. They will either leave or fill the freezer, a win win. In the past, I had my garden completely surrounded with a wove wire fence. Of course the deer just jumped the fence, ate their fill and then hopped back out. What worked well as a deterent then was I strung a string all the way from side to side of the garden, crisscrossing between the fence stakes. I then tied surveying ribbon to the strings, letting the tape hand down so that they waved in just a slight breeze. This not only scared the deer out, it also kept the crows and other birds away. Only problem was it made it a pain to weed the garden. I remember growing up the old timers would hang those aluminum pie pans from post in the garden. Some folks still do. It works and is easy to do and doesnt involve any chemicals. I have often wondered how wind chimes would work to scare deer off. I think hang a pie pan off the bottom and it would wave in the wind and make the chimes ring. Might work, probably will work, worth a try for you folks raising large patches in deer country, might even work for ***** and bears and other garden raiders.

I use lead too.

I often walk the garden at midnight wearing a head lamp.

Works great.

 

[husqvarna257]

Well I found out who was eating my tomato's, it was Rats! My 5 gallon pail with a soda can baited with peanut butter di it's job, lots of drowned rats.
I finally picked some Cherokee tomato's; garden is doing better when I can eat Tomato's before the rats do. If we didn't have a cat and two dogs I would put out bait for them.

 

[TNTreeHugger]

Well I found out who was eating my tomato's, it was Rats! My 5 gallon pail with a soda can baited with peanut butter di it's job, lots of drowned rats.
I finally picked some Cherokee tomato's; garden is doing better when I can eat Tomato's before the rats do. If we didn't have a cat and two dogs I would put out bait for them.
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Do you have some kind of animal feed stored on the property?

I had an infestation in my barn one year - until I realized they were helping themselves to the chicken feed I had in a plastic garbage can... and using the stacked bales of hay for bedding. B&B for rodents.
I got a metal can, put out poison, then got rid of the hay. Problem solved.

 

[djg james]

Well I found out who was eating my tomato's, it was Rats! My 5 gallon pail with a soda can baited with peanut butter di it's job, lots of drowned rats.
I finally picked some Cherokee tomato's; garden is doing better when I can eat Tomato's before the rats do. If we didn't have a cat and two dogs I would put out bait for them.
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Oh man! Fried rat in CI topped with tomoato! MMMM

 

[husqvarna257]

I'm sure the chickens would enjoy fried rat and tomato's. Heck I could add bread and mayo they love bread. I'm not sure where they come from, all of our feed is in trunk lockers with nobody getting in. I put cheap deodorant sticks in there. neighbors are over 1/4 mile away.
I'm off to Lowes to get grounding rod to hold up the tomato cages, the fiberglass rods didn't hold the cages up.

 

[TNTreeHugger]

I'm sure the chickens would enjoy fried rat and tomato's. Heck I could add bread and mayo they love bread. I'm not sure where they come from, all of our feed is in trunk lockers with nobody getting in. I put cheap deodorant sticks in there. neighbors are over 1/4 mile away.
I'm off to Lowes to get grounding rod to hold up the tomato cages, the fiberglass rods didn't hold the cages up.

What kind of "trunk lockers?"
They're pretty clever and determined critters. They might be getting in through the bottom?
There's some reason you are swarmed with rats. I'll bet it's the chicken feed.
If you don't find their feed source, killing them will just become an endless job for you.

 

[farmer steve]

First customer of the day at my campground market this morning. All my stuff except the peaches and watermelons.

Better view of the whole setup from last week.

 

[sonny580]

The crabapple job. 19 quarts of jelly plus 10 pints of pickled crabs.

 

[TNTreeHugger]

The crabapple job. 19 quarts of jelly plus 10 pints of pickled crabs.

Beautiful!
I've never eaten a crabapple, what's the flavor like?

 

[sonny580]

about like sweet pickles, ---- sorta! Kinda have their own flavor.

 

[djg james]

The crabapple job. 19 quarts of jelly plus 10 pints of pickled crabs.

Never had it either. I guess you cook down, strain, add pectin and make jelly like anything else?

 

[sonny580]

I run it thru the steamer then add sugar and boil the hell out of it! Gotta watch how it strings from the spoon to know when its ready for jars.

 

[husqvarna257]

What kind of "trunk lockers?"
They're pretty clever and determined critters. They might be getting in through the bottom?
There's some reason you are swarmed with rats. I'll bet it's the chicken feed.
If you don't find their feed source, killing them will just become an endless job for you.

The trunk locker is a military storage container perfect for storing feed. I would see if anything got into feed as we only have bags. With deodorant sticks in nobody goes in. And the garden is 200 yds from the coops. No more rats, haven't drowned any in the traps and tomato's are untouched. I put in 6' grounding rods in the cages to keep the plants up and tomato's off the ground.
Just finished wild raspberry season, I love the flavor so it's sad when they go away.

 

[ElevatorGuy]

Just pulled all of our pepper plants for the year. Time to start the fall veggies here soon and we have an enough peppers for years to come lol. I gave all the plants i dug out to a neighbor.

 

[Stonesforbrains]

Had to go work in north Georgia for three weeks and just got back. Wife watered the plants but didn’t pick any peppers. Two grocery sacks full and still have white habaneros to pick. Squirrels have decimated the tomatoes, ate all the cantaloupe and most of the cucumbers. Deer ate all the wife’s flowers in her beds, even the deer resistant varieties. My wife is mad as heck and through with gardening this year.

 

[Stonesforbrains]

54 white habaneros off of the one plant my brother in law gave me. Definitely will be saving seeds, pretty good producer

 

[farmer steve]

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54 white habaneros off of the one plant my brother in law gave me. Definitely will be saving seeds, pretty good producer

Learn something new everyday. Never saw that color. Have to investigate. Hot peppers sell well at the produce auction. Those would look great mixed with the orange and red.

 

[ElevatorGuy]

Picked up the Milwaukee cultivator attachment today. Interested to see how it works in our raised beds.

 

[Stonesforbrains]

Learn something new everyday. Never saw that color. Have to investigate. Hot peppers sell well at the produce auction. Those would look great mixed with the orange and red.

He ordered from bohecapepperhut. I probably spelled that wrong. Think he started 10 plants from seed and gave me one. We kinda have a pepper growing competition between us, you know trash talking for fun. He saw all the peppers off that plant and conceded the year to me even though it’s not October yet. That’s when we usually have the production and compare. I told him it was too early to bow out. I plan on saving all the seeds I can from those peppers and the red Savina peppers cause they mix well with jalapeños and milder peppers for a great flavorful hot taco sauce. Salt, vinegar, peppers and time is the best combination.

 

[TNTreeHugger]

My second planting is coming along nicely.