Wascally Wabbits!

We are under attack!  While our backs were turned, the backyard bunnies launched an unprecedented attack on our pole beans, and pretty much wiped them out completely!  How did they get inside the fence?  They chewed three holes in it (so far).  They seem to like eating the runners off of each plant—you know…the ones that climb up the poles.  I must say they’ve won this round, but we’ve got a plan of action that should allow us to have pole beans this summer, after all.  The second planting of beans might be harvested a little later than we originally planned, but harvested they will be!

There’s a special fencing made to keep out rabbits that is made out of wire.  It is sold at Lowe’s, and it is made for just such a problem.  I’d like to see those wascally wabbits chew through that!  We’ll soon have it stretched all the way around our garden perimeter.  We’ll sprinkle blood meal around our peas and beans (bunnies hate blood meal), and we’ve found a special bunny repellant spray that, if not effective, the supplier will give us our money back.

I’m proud to announce that tonight the Disciples Men voted to make a sizeable donation to our garden project that will defray the cost of remedying our rabbit problem.  Thanks DM!  We’ll put it to good use.

We have only 20 more tomato stakes to put in place, and almost all the tomato plants have been tied up.  Have you seen the pretty little tomatoes growing on them already?  Our plants are very healthy indeed.

We have plans to till under the first crop of buckwheat tomorrow (Monday).  That should improve our soil for a second planting of tomatoes, squash and cucumbers later this summer.  I’m anxious to see how well this first planting improves the dirt.  We’ll sow another crop of buckwheat right away in hopes of improving the soil even more.  There should be plenty of time between now and when we must have those rows ready for transplanting second crops.

Now that all our plants have been put in and the trellises built, we’re moving from the planning and building phase into the maintenance phase of our garden project.  We’ve stayed on top of weeding and watering and fertilizing, so there isn’t enough maintenance left to justify a full-fledged workday next Saturday.   For that reason, we would like to do some watering demonstrations.  So far, there are only a few of us who water regularly, and it will become a big hardship in the hot summer months, without more volunteers.  Watering, however, isn’t as easy as it sounds.  Managing 200 feet of hose without knocking down all our fragile plants takes some care and planning.  In fact, it’s a two-man job.  For this reason, we’ll schedule some training.  Please plan to attend Saturday morning around 9:30 AM if you’re willing to be available this summer to help out.  Once we see how many watering volunteers we can recruit, we’ll come up with a duty roster and waterers’ schedule to make it as fair and easy as possible.

It is also time to discuss harvest and distribution and to answer questions like what day of the week will vegetables be available to subscribers?...How often will they be collected and distributed?...Where will the pickup point be located?  In other words, we need to discuss and come up with a system that works for everyone.

I can’t wait until we move into the harvesting phase of our project.  Except for the beans, we’re fairly close to being on schedule.  I’m really looking forward to one of those soggy, home-grown,  tomato sandwiches.  I’m shooting for 4^th of July as a target date for our first tomatoes.