Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Garden Update January 19, 2010

Can you believe that even after a hard freeze (low of 18 Degrees for 5 straight days), a lot of neglect before the move, and then moving, my container garden survived! That is until something in our woods ate about 1/3 of it, including some of our onions. I am disappointed to be sure, but I'm trying to chalk it up as a lesson learned BEFORE I actually build and plant the spring/ summer garden.

I have several different plans for a garden floating around in my head. One includes raised beds with small holed chicken wire under the beds and a mesh covered hinged top on each. This would be expensive to build and would only really work for things that don't get really tall or spread out too much, which means I'd need another option for those items. A second idea is a fenced in area with small chicken wire covering the entire ground inside of the fenced area and tall fences since deer are everywhere on the property and they jump regular fences as easily as I walk.

If you have experience gardening in this type of environment, I'd love to hear your experience and what you've done to help your garden efforts make it to your table. Does a dog help? We are getting one in a few weeks, but it will most likely be indoors or in the kennel at night, which is when I think our uninvited dinner guests are dining.

We are also ordering chicks soon, so if you have thoughts on breeds, coops, etc, I'd appreciate hearing your advice.

In the mean time, I think I will stick to making compost from the acres of leaves we have scattered all over the property, and trying again to grow salad greens indoors. At least I know the deer won't get that salad. :) I'll post pics once I get that experiment started.

1 comment:

Alea Milham said...

For deer I recommend a tall fence and a dog.