It’s hard to believe it with the mildness of this winter, but it’s nearly time to start preparing for spring and gardening. I love winter, and all the seasons, but I can’t wait to soak up the sunshine in the summertime.
Up here in Rochester, (zone 5) we start growing the super-slow things like peppers and tomatoes from seeds in March so they are ready for the ground in late May.
I’ve slowly been opening my binder of garden notes from last year, and reading new tips and tricks to help us have a higher yield than last year.
We’ve got a difficult spot to garden: our backyard is totally wooded, and the only sun we have is a small patch on the side yard. We’ve got deer, cats, slugs, squirrels, chipmunks, and a mailman that all walk across our yard potentially eating and trampling things. By far the worst of that list are the deer and slugs – the bane of my garden’s existence.
In the spring we get slugs that destroy the leaves of our plants. I’ve had some success with putting coffee grinds in a ring around the seedlings, but I need to be more diligent and earlier in my placement. I’ve also had limited success with the beer cup in the ground method. Luckily, this plague only lasts during the rainy season, and I think I have enough knowledge and preparation to get it fully under control this year. So that leaves the tougher, more stubborn, and larger problem: Deer.
The deer are constant trouble. They’ll eat everything they see, and even plants that they aren’t supposed to like have been reduced to mere stubs several times. The worst is when they leave the tomatoes juuust long enough for me to think I’ll have a chance to harvest them and then destroy everything that I might have wanted to pick. Any sign of ripeness and they are destroyed.
I’ve tried mixing deer resistent plants, like basil and marigolds, around the tomatoes to no avail. I’ve tried spraying them with deer deterrents, again with no success. I’ve tried putting out a bar of soap, and putting up blood scented diffusers. I’ve even tried putting up a mesh fence four feet high. All things the deer have gotten around. Although the fence nearly worked…
This is the third year I’m trying to grow tomatoes, and I’m determined to outsmart the deer this year. I’ll put the fence up higher, put the blood scent out in advance. Spray the plants, AND mix things they don’t like around those they do. I figure if I do a combination of all three things I should have some success, right?
Besides the animals, we also have soil issues. Our soil is sandy and not conducive to growing lettuce or spinach. Our radishes never got very big either, and our garlic never reaches full sized. I think I’ll have to do a full soil analysis to see what we are lacking, and likely augment the plots with fertilizers and topsoil.
But other than all that, it’s been easy peasy. Ha…
At least in our situation, where we are constantly battling the elements and the forest, gardening in our apartment was much easier.
In the apartment, even though we only had limited space on the balcony (I never really measured it, but we had maybe 10 ft square, and likely less than that.) we didn’t have to worry about predators. We still got decent pollination and plenty of bugs, and and had plenty of sunshine all day.
The biggest worry there was that the soil would get too dry and many times in the heat of summer we had to water twice a day. The other issue we had was caterpillars in the broccoli. I’m still not sure how they got there. But otherwise, gardening in an apartment was a breeze.
The quality of soil was always high, because we purchased good stuff. The plants loved the sunshine. And for the most part, everything thrived.
We actually got a lot more harvest from our container garden plants than we have from either year in our house yet.
I came across this video, of Martina who lives in NYC and has a “farm” on her balcony and roof. Her site is fittingly called Farmtina. She grows enough that she doesn’t need other vegetables all summer. Although you do have to be creative with containers in small spaces, she certainly makes it look easy.
Do any of you garden in tricky places? What have you found to help you overcome natures natural inclination to sabotage your garden?
I’m determined to have a successful garden this year – so all tips and tricks will be appreciated.
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