Failures in Living Sustainably: Growing Food for Groundhogs
At least someone had a good meal or two!
This year we made a pretty good size garden.
When we returned from a spring seedling sale... we had bought a bit more than we had space for. Good thing I prepared an area that needed some TLC, the ground there had a couple holes which I filled with small branches, leaves, grass clippings and than dirt. I figured I could use the same idea behind Hügelkultur.
And you know after a couple of weeks it seemed the seedlings loved where were. They adapted really well to our grounds.
Here's what we planted:
Tomato
Zucchini (courgette)
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Red cabbage
Kale
Peppers
Radish
Lettuce
There's enough for quite a few people... but I was thinking we'll need more storage space unless we give it away to our friends and neighbors.
We'll need a root cellar!
We went to my mom's for a few days, so we brought some veggies with us... but when we got home a friend, who is staying with us on the land, told us of her groundhog sightings!
In deed, there had been something making a feast out of the garden!!!!
The broccoli, the cauliflower and the cabbage are gone... I don't think they will mame a come back. Although the broccoli is looking like it could now. The lettuce is totally making it's way back and so is the kale. And for some reason our little furry friend left the peppers alone (maybe he was full by the time he saw them 😁), the tomatoes and the zucchini.
And things are growing... there are a couole little peppers, some of the zucchini flowers are starting to look like they're making fruit and the tomatoes are getting bigger!!!
I have secured the perimeter of the fence, and hole our ground is too rocky for anything to make tunnels now...
Lesson learned 😁. Don't leave parts of the fence above ground.
Be happy and more of happiness will come..
Oh no that's so devastating!!! Dammit.
Once I planted a whole heap of beetroot - this is when I lived in England and no one ate beetroot and I couldn't get it anywhere. I nurtured that beetroot and was so excited to watch it grow. One day I came home and the neighbours pig had got out and eaten it all. I was NOT impressed.
oh that sucks!!! I bet that pig would have tasted pretty good after that feast 😁.
The english didn't eat beetroot untill just recently?
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Dang, that sucks! Didn't know a groundhog would do all that. I think we've got prairie dogs in our neighborhood, but they haven't come to our place yet. Just moles here, which aren't a threat.
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It's ok... it means we have one less task to worry about! Not really giving up actually, the fence is now without holes and we're keeping an eye on it.
I also have been letting the milkweed grow and something ate all the tops!!! I wanted to try the flowers as fritters...
With eats milkweed??? Is it useful? I thought it was poison.
Supposedly cooked shoots, leaves, seedpods and flowers are edible (they say it is poisonous when raw). And I hear they are also great for monarch butterflies!
What a happy, lucky little groundhog. In Thailand we ALWAYS give a little bit of everything back to the earth, to the critters. Just plan for it. :) Maybe next time plant a tiny patch outside the perimeter fence just for them? Great karma!
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Ah that's sweet... yeah maybe I will do that next year. thanks.
ah, so disappointing when that happens, we've had our share of that around here! If you leave the cabbage stump in the ground it should grow some cute little mini cabbages. Not sure if broccoli does the same.
Broccoli will grow some secondary heads. Sometimes they can get quite big if the conditions are right.
Awesome to hear that, thanks for the confirmation that something may happen with the broccoli 😁!
First time gardener here!
Ok good to know about the cabbages... we are letting things in the ground as an experiment now. The broccoli seems to grow these little clumps that look like the flowers, at least on one stalk...
Thanks
That reminds me of our garden, when we had rats! We make sure there's no chook food left lying about, so we didn't realise they were around until I started noticing the cauliflowers were being eaten!
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Ah rats! They are so grosse to me... but that may be because I see them as disgusting city things. They are probably a little cleaner in the country side than I see them. I'm sure they are arpund us too!
What is chook food and were you able to salvage some of the cauliflower?
Sorry, chook is the colloquial word for chicken here. I try to make sure we don't over feed so that we don't leave grains around for rodents. We did manage to get a few cauliflowers for ourselves.
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Ah ok got it 😁.
That's a bummer, but everything else is looking really good.
Yes for sure... the courgettes are starting to grow and the tomato plants are starting to get big. Even the waterless ones I am working on 😁 (re-wilding three different species).
Thanks
Hey, I feel that pain.
Yes, and bites from groundhogs are not uncommon as they can be aggressive and unpredictable. They are known carriers of rabies and other diseases. Groundhogs eat a third of their weight in vegetation each day and can be very damaging to crops, vegetable and flower gardens. Suggest you read this article https://peststopexpert.com/how-to-get-rid-of-groundhogs/ about how to get rid of groundhogs
Yes apparently they can be damaging! Better fencing is on our horizon for next year. Thanks for reading
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