Thursday, May 28, 2015

The Edible Hedge and Storm on the Horizon





We didn't get any more rain today but all day long I got to watch this storm front marching towards us from the South. I was looking to see if it was carrying Sandy or Texan on it's winds and maybe they would get dropped lightly somewhere in my neighborhood. Kinda a South to North Wizard of Oz type scenario only no houses falling on anyone's sister and no damned winged monkeys thank you very much.

I finished the garden weeding and mulching this afternoon and I had a bit of company in the form of a very inquisitive young lady who seemed to have a never ending supply of questions. She was spending the day with her grandmother who happens to be a friend of my Moms and they came over to bottle feed the lambs. Somehow the grandmother types ended up chatting on the porch while I got the tag along. She wanted to take the neighbor's dog home with her but her grandma wouldn't let her.



I say neighbor's dog but he hasn't left in over a month and we started feeding him with our other dog that showed up and never left. They used to come by and pick him up every week or so but I guess they finally gave up. Looks like it's our dog now. Get this. We also had another neighbors dog come and stay from the other direction too. A young boxer. We called the number on his collar and they came over the next day and said they were sorry. I told them no worries but I think all the neighbors are starting to think we are dog stealers or something. It's like this old stray that showed up years ago goes out and recruits new packmates or something.

Now that the garden is weeded and mulched and should be relatively maintenance free for a while I have started looking for other things to do while I wait for the ground to dry a bit more.




The edible hedge project is beginning to get a little out of control. In fact several of the trees around the place need a bit of pruning. The only trees I pruned this Winter were the peach and apple trees but I should have cut the hedge back some as well I think.




However the outside branches are all covered in Plums. Hmmmm maybe I can live with the unruly hedge until after the Plums ripen. I am kinda interested if they will turn out to actually be edible or not. Since my son likes unripe and extremely tart fruit I think I will use him as the guinea pig for this experiment.

I had a rabbit attack over night and they ate one of my bean plants down to a nub. This won't do. I have had to dispatch some varmint Cong rabbits in the past so if they are once again raiding the garden they may need to be dealt with in the same old style. Perhaps a claymore set up in that gap I have in the fence? Or maybe the pellet rifle with the overkill nightscope? MMMM I love that over kill nightscope but the 410 has a certain appeal as well.




Normally one innocent bean plant wouldn't be enough to make me bolster the defenses but I only planted about half the beans I usually do. It's still early yet though so  maybe I will start a few more beans in small pots tomorrow and fill in the empty spaces. Those rabbits better get to eating other stuff soon though as they don't have a lot of room left before the gloves come off.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!!


12 comments:

  1. I don't think the rabbits can find anything in my garden for all of the weeds, you are very far ahead of me with the garden this year. Of course I have the palletsade around most of mine so only a small one can squeeze through. I have native plums and I am waiting to see what the fruit is like as they are getting out of control. I had to take out one patch of them and may plant them out in the wild areas where they can form their own patch away from my stuff and provide some food and cover for wildlife which may be more valuable than the plums.

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    1. Sf - well my garden this year is a mere fraction of what you planted. I am way ahead of the game to be mulching this early but it is easy when you only have a few plants not like the huge garden you have each year.

      I have heard many claim that all the Wild Plums are good if you add enough sugar. I will be interested to see how many survive the bird attacks over the Summer though.

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  2. i am glad that you have as big a heart as you do, taking care of all those strays and being kind to the little tag along! i hope those plums ripen into deliciousness and that you get a hug harvest from them!

    sending much love! your friend,
    kymber

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    1. Kymber - I figure if they are sour I can always make sure my son sees em. He likes sour fruit.

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  3. PP,

    I can see you now outside waiting for those darn rabbits with your high powered scope and pellet rifle. They sure would make good meat for the freezer.
    That storm front didn't carry us up your way.......I think we would more than likely be in our Ark floating by ready for animals :-P

    My friend, you always sound tough but you have a large kind heart when it comes to animals..................

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    1. Sandy - Actually I always was told you have to wait until a hard freeze to eat the rabbits around here because of all the parasites.

      Ya if I was as much a hard ass as I act we wouldn't have all these worthless dropped off cats hanging around all over that's for sure :)

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  4. Ran over here to answer your question....The ground cover in between my raised beds is a heavy duty black woven ground cover. its more than a weed block..its heavier... last years. It can be bought at Home Depot or Lowes on rolls. It doesn't let water through as easily as regular weed blocks so that is why its not good to use it in a flower bed etc. We saw it being used in nurseries here as ground cover in their outside hoop houses. We noticed with all the traffic a retail nursery got it seemed to hold up very well. . Before we used regular weed block which lasted less than one year as it is mean to be covered with mulch we soon figured out. We put this down a couple years ago now and its held up fantastic. I wish I could tell you exactly what they call it but I don't have the package. Its woven black heavy. If I can think to next trip to the hardware store I will look and get a name for ya.

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    1. Texan - I am going to have to put something like that down between the raised beds. The wood chip mulched worked great for years but is starting to degrade enough that too many weeds are coming through now.

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  5. We are absolutely swamped with bunnies this year! I re did my electric fence, used aluminum wire. The old galvanized wire was all rust. WOW what a difference! Now those little shite asses are gonna get 8,000 volts if they even try to get in. I gave up on shooting all the woodchucks and bunnies, although they are tasty :) Just too many, and gotta work sometimes, can't snipe all day long.

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    1. Jim - LOL you may not need to shoot em. They may end up already fried and waiting for you to go collect em :)

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  6. your such a big softy PP. We have a family of rabbits up here that hang out. One is a dark brown one with a white cotton tail...we named him "NESQUIK".. one day he may be called "supper" lol

    Honestly, I have always been partial to the flying monkeys... : )

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    1. OMG I hate flying monkeys. We sure are getting a lot of rabbits this year though. Maybe some flying monkeys would thin them out for us though :)

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