One of my hobbies is gardening. I grow a large variety of fruits and vegetables every year. Flowers are another way to I add color to my gorgeous surroundings here on my property. I love flowers for their color, scent and the vibe they give. Canning preserves my garden vegetables, as well as freezing or dehydrating them. I have wild blackberry bushes and every year I look forward to beating my lovely deer visitors to this luscious snack, by picking them as quickly as they appear.
Since moving here, I have planted apple and peach trees and also raspberry, elderberry and blueberry bushes. The elderberry bushes are growing well. The raspberry and blueberry bushes, not so well. I will eventually figure out how to grow them here, at least, I hope.
My apple and peach trees I have to protect from my deer and bear visitors. I have erected temporary fencing around these young trees so they can grow and thrive.
Every year I battle the deer in my garden. I put up a 7-foot-tall temporary fence each season. Sometimes they still try to be sneaky and get in and this is usually do to another animal chewing a hole in the fencing that I have not noticed. The deer here destroy my beans, green peppers, the variety of lettuces I grow and I discovered recently they love zucchini as well. Though beautiful, the deer are a thorn in my side when it comes to my gardens. I have tried so many methods suggested to me by others to keep the deer out of my garden. I have tried playing a radio, erecting a fake owl, tying plastic ribbon to the fence, so it flaps in the wind and installing solar powered lights to trigger on at night. Nothing has worked yet.
Then we have my pet family, Dalilah in particular. She loves fresh cucumbers. She will trot into my garden, pick whichever cucumber looks the tastiest and proceed to eat half of it. Eventually I find the other half she didn’t want somewhere in my yard. I love her though, and she is always allowed to take her pick of snacks from my garden. Last year when I was picking snap peas, I gave her a taste, and she loved those as well, so I may have to watch her a bit in the pea patch this coming season.
Daisy, one of my other pets, is notorious for getting into my garlic, onion and lettuce patches. I do not know what it is about any of those items, but she consistently chooses one or the other and flops down in the middle of that garden spot and rolls around, then naps.
Rabbits and squirrels are also common here and they seem to multiply by 10 each year. They are very sneaky as well. Their choice of food would be the lettuce varieties I grow and too many other delectables to mention.
This year, I plan on planting cherry trees and try again with raspberry and blueberry bushes. I will also continue to harvest seeds from the vegetables and flowers I will grow. Brussel sprouts will be the new vegetable I try to grow this year. (Did I mention, it’s one of the “things” I do each year, try one new vegetable or variety of a vegetable and see what happens!) I also have big plans to start a wildflower patch in my lower yard so that I can see it from my front porch swing. Roses are on my list as well, though I do not have a green thumb when it comes to them. I have killed every single one I have ever tried to grow, except for a few cuttings I took from my aunt’s rose bushes, those are thriving.