Nemesis

Texas gardners have their share of pests to deal with. Anyone who's tried to grow so much as a square foot of grass in this state is well aware of that fact. It seems that every new plant comes with its very own special pests to defeat. And BONUS! If your plants happen to survive the many many bugs that want to devour them at any stage of their pre-fruit bearing life cycle, you then get to wage war against the many squirrels and birds that would love to get their grubby little paws (or beaks) on your precious fruit.

Nothing infuriates me (or my husband) more than losing that almost ripe tomato to a squirrel only to find it slightly nibbled and tossed aside, because, I don't know, I guess it didn't taste good enough. Well no crap, IT'S NOT RIPE. Someone should really teach those squirrels about all the starving children in China.

Back to the whole "waging war" thing. Did you think I was exaggerating? I am not. At all. Not one little bit. Last year when our precious Cherokee Purples started producing we couldn't wait to enjoy our first juicy tomato. Then we came home from work one day to find a just ripening tomato, lightly nibbled, discarded near it's plant. And the battle was on. We tried bird netting, but the little bastards just figured out how to get under it. So, we took it to the next level with an electric fence, which worked pretty well. At least well enough for us to not be pissed off every day.

Well, this year the garden is WAY too big for an electric fence to be affordable, and the bird netting has been working as well as it did last year (read "not at all").

We decided our final step would be to set some humane traps and see if we couldn't bring an end to this insanity. On day two of having the traps up...Victory! I must confess we were a little excited. Abi was excited as well.

Although it turns out her vicious gaze (or more likely the heat) was to much for him.While it wasn't our intention, the little guy was gone before we got home.

None of our tomatoes have been touched since, so we may have been dealing with one pesky little squirrel who decided to make his home in our neighbor's pecan tree and use our garden as his grocery store. RIP nemesis.

My Inspiration

Last year's garden was a bit of a spontaneous decision, and most of our research efforts were focused on square foot gardening since we knew we would need to pack a lot of plants into a small space. We didn't spend too much time thinking about what plants to plant and where to locate them. We just bought what we liked and stuck it in the ground.

Most of our plants did fairly well, with the exception of our broccoli and pepper plants. I couldn't figure out what went wrong with them. This year I decided to do a lot more planning and research on what types of vegetables and herbs we wanted to grow, and in my search I found this book: Grow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Spaces, by Gayla Trail, author of the garden blog You Grow Girl.

I LOVE this book! Love love love it. Have I mentioned how much I love it? This book is packed with useful tips on growing all kinds of vegetables, herbs, beneficial and edible flowers and what to do with all of your bounty. It also focuses all of this information on growing a great organic garden in small spaces. What I have found to be most useful about this book are her tips on what plants to grow together and what plants to keep away from each other in the garden. For example, grow tomatoes near basil and cilantro because the strong smell of these herbs will keep a lot of pests away, but don't grow pepper plants near your tomato plants because they are in the same family and require the same nutrients. Turns out this was my problem last year...the tomatoes were sucking up all the nutrients from the soil and my poor little pepper plants couldn't get any nutrition. This year we planted them in a separate bed from the tomatoes and they are doing much better.

She also talks a lot about using helpful flowers in your garden, which not only attract beneficial bugs and repel harmful pests but also beautify your garden. I used a lot of marigolds this year for a couple of reasons: 1) they are inexpensive and easy to come by ready to plant (I don't recommend growing them from seed as they are SLOW growers and not worth it), and 2) they have a strong odor and repel a lot of pests. The third benefit I wasn't expecting was how much prettier they made our garden look.

I highly recommend adding a dash of color to your garden with flowers, especially if you're planning a front yard garden. They really help transform it into a type of landscaping, instead of just a garden in your front yard (which, let's admit, some people think is weird).

Our Front Yard Garden

Last year my husband and I decided to grow a garden. Because, you know, remodeling a 60 year old house wasn't keeping us busy enough. Since we have ZERO sun in our backyard and live in a community that will pretty much let you put anything in your front yard, including a giant metal rooster, we planted our garden out front. We kept it simple last year with two 4x4 above ground garden boxes and stuck to the basics: basil, tomatoes, spinach, collard greens, etc. Everything grew pretty well and we were happy.

So happy, in fact, that we decided to expand...by about 400%. We cut down the much hated Mimosa Tree and tilled up pretty much the entire east side of our yard (we went in ground this time to save money). I was charged with research and garden layout. M was charged with the manual labor. And before you start thinking I got the easy part of the job, do you know how many rules there are about growing and not growing plants near each other? After a couple of weeks of planning and a couple of weekends of hard but satisfying work, we have our garden.

Voila!

 

Something has the munchies

Something has the munchies and they're going to town on several of my root plants. I've found radishes, beets, and now garlic bulbs chomped on from under the ground. What the heck eats garlic?! I mean, garlic is supposed to be the miracle plant that repels everything...even vampires!



The internet has been no help at all on the matter, as any search only leads me to endless articles and "How To" tips on using garlic to keep pests away from your other plants. Well, the garlic did a good job of keeping the slugs away from my lettuce, but apparently it has lost the will to defend itself. This is the only site I've been able to find with any helpful information. My inclination is this particular garlic plant contracted Fusarium (Basal or Bottom Rot), and then in its weakened state was devoured by one of the most loathsome garden pests of all, the pillbug. I planted the garlic late in the season anyway, but thought I'd give it a shot just for kicks. I still have 3 other plants hanging on, but worst case scenario I'll try replanting when the weather cools off.