Life....

Wow it's been 2 weeks since I've written.  Sorry, but sometimes life gets in the way of blogging.. about life:)

While I've not been writing, I have been doing & taking pics.  It'll take a few posts to actually catch up, but that's ok I SHOULD be able to do a bit more posting this week.  Hey guys, it's a garden - it grows, slowly... so this isn't going to be the daily post anyway.  Although I do hope to post at least weekly.

So, there was the problem with the raccoon & mockingbird & the tomatoes... here's what we had done.

Amy & Oscar

Notice how it slopes on the right side & we had put in some pvc pipe to keep the tomatoes from being squished by the netting.

That didn't work out as well as we hoped.  The birds really appreciated the pvc pipe as it gave them a place to land while they pecked at the ripe tomatoes though...

 Here's what it looks like now.  We added some netting to the front, as well as putting in conduits on the front of the beds, thus keeping the netting from being directly on the plants.  This is working really well. YEA!

Amy & Oscar

Most beds though are not so close together & remember we only care about covering the ones with tomatoes.  Next year I will not be putting anything but tomatoes in the covered beds.  This year however Oscar (on the right) has a cantaloupe in the front & Amy (left) has beans...  Again - experiment!

For covering a single bed (we did 3 of those) we had to add the front conduit, then cover with the netting.  We did it 3 different ways (duh - wouldn't you?) the best way we found was to cut a length of  netting for the top, like so.  You can see that the netting doesn't have much over lap on the long ends of the bed, but the short ends have a lot of netting hanging.

We then cut another length & wrapped it completely around the bed.  We then stitched the 2 pieces together.

Julia w/netting - LOOK AT THE BAY TREE!

If you look on the left side you can see the stitching up toward the top, it's that way on 3 sides.  The reason you don't see any on this side is because we were able to stretch the TOP netting to one side (remember how we had all that extra length) & stitch up from the bed.  Thus the stitching here is right next to the conduit.  Sounds complicated, but works really well.  We have extra on the bottom, that we will be able to tent out (more pics in another post) so the plants don't grow through the netting.

So, how do we get into them.... Raise up the side & voila!

Julia

I used the long ka-bob sticks to hold the netting up - works like a champ!

SUPER Mockingbird!! Or NOT!

So.... the green netting #2 looks ok & works great for BIRDS.  We think we have bigger problems.  The other morning the ONE tomato that was almost ready to pick was GONE!  GONE!  GONE!  Oh wait - what's that by the pool?

Looks like it would have been good.

Hmmm... something got in & CARRIED a 5 oz big tomato to our pool, & ate HALF of it.  OK guys if this is a bird - I'm never going outside again!  I know the mockingbird was picking on the cherry tomatoes in Kate - I saw him & I know from the past that they will peck at the larger ones, but NOPE they just don't carry them 10 feet away.

So it's most like a raccoon that's getting in there & that is a whole different problem!  Darn!

So went out & put more rocks on the netting & sewed up the back - no more wooden sticks.

Next day - well I'd show you the almost red tomato he got - but... can't find it!  Gone from Amy completely!

I'm now thinking DEF-CON 4 (electrical fencing with razor wire)!  DH (thinking that HE is going to have to be the one to actually DO the work) is thinking there might be another thing or two that we can do before that. 

This is our bait - not red enough to pick YET

So we made some more wire stakes from clothes hangers, put a lot of those to hold down the netting.  Today there is another almost red tomato (see the pic above) .... no, I'm not gonna stay up tonight with a flash light & a ...a... a.. "stick" to see if he shows up.  Let's just see how this goes.

Green Netting #2

The green netting has worked so well around Kate keeping the mockingbird from getting all my ripe tomatoes that it's time to cover some of the other beds.

So, we sewed some together & covered two of the beds. 

This covers Amy & Oscar

As seen from the front

Yep - not too pretty.  Oscar, the one you see in front, has tomatoes in the back & middle rows & cukes & squash in the frontmost row.  We put that pvc pipe on the right front side to keep the netting from coming in & laying/smashing the tomato plant.  Need to keep it covered, yet not let the plant grow thru the net, not an easy thing to do.

We had to bring the netting around Amy in the back & used wooden ka-bob skewer sticks to weave in & out out the netting - like below.  We also used them to stake the netting to the ground.

wooden stake holding it closed

Amy, being the 2nd bed works a lot better.  She has tomatoes in all 3 rows, but because the netting goes straight across at the top, there is no pressure on her tomatoes.

So, there Mockingbird - let's see you get those!

Horizontal Stabilizers

When the garden beds are only 6-8" deep & are on concrete or have a weed barrier underneath, you really don't have enough depth to put up tomato cages.  We have had SO much WIND this spring - & then the one day we had 3/4" rain I went out & found many of our tomato plants laying on the ground.  Not good.  In the short term I just put in a bamboo pole to help support them.

We knew as they grew taller (those that were not next to the north side netting) would need some support help.  One thing I DID think through was to plant only DETERMINATE plants (those that grow only so tall & then stop - most of our tomatoes should stop at 4' tall) in the non-netting part.

So we've been experimenting.  First we created another metal structure.  These we put at the short end of the beds & yes mounted them the same way we did the vertical netting bars. 

This is about 2' wide

The first thing I tried was something called chicken netting... not what you're thinking - this is made out of plastic & while it's ok to be cut with scissors it was very time consuming.  Anywho this is what the first try looked like.

Added chicken netting - attached using tie wraps

This shows the hexagonal spacing - had to cut this by scissors

Plant went through it fine (for now)

You can see that the plant goes through it ok, but I really think as the plant would grow I'd have to do more cutting / removal of the "netting" & then next year - well what are the chances that the next plant would want to grow RIGHT THERE! :)


So DH & I discussed it & he asked why I didn't just use the white netting that we were using for the vertical net.  I told him that I couldn't think of a good way for it to be tied off on the long sides.... he wasn't sure it would need to be supported on all 4 sides.  After all we're just trying to keep the plant from falling over.

ALSO the netting is wider by 1 square than I needed for the vertical netting.  So when I was putting up all those nets, I was just cutting off this LONG net only 1 square wide.  Nope, didn't toss it as I figured the netting material is so nice that I might be able to use it again.  AH HA!

Same plant with netting used on vertical side

This is better pic - showing it going down the whole bed.  I left the bamboo stakes in for now until the netting can support them.

Here is a double row.

So, that is what it looks like.  It's using something we already bought & can be scooted to match where the plants are actually growing.  I can just put up one or two rows, whichever I need.  Too cool!

Did you notice all those wonderful looking green tomatoes!  YUM!  Won't be too long before they start to red up & YES.... I will have another feud with the mockingbirds.  So, stay tuned friends & we'll have pics of how we think we can put the green screening over these beds.  We're trying a few different ideas out now as I write this.  More experimentation - aren't you glad we're doing all this work?

Dirt, Drips & Netting

One of the cool things about square foot gardening for me was that gardening was put into a context that I could understand.  I don't have any friends that have vegetable gardens, so I can't go over & look & ask questions.  But, most of the things I've learned in my life I've learned from books.

The things that I love about Square Foot Gardening are:

• since you are planting in a square & presumably remember roughly WHERE you planted it - then anything else is a weed.  VERY cool for me!
• I love the idea of the netting & vertical gardening.  Can't wait to see what all my nets look like full of melons & tomatoes (yep - I'm an optimist!)
• My old beds have 1 type of soil (rose soil), then some of my new beds have mostly rose soil & some Mel's Mix Soil & my last 5 beds have 100% Mel's Mix.  It's interesting to see & feel the difference.  I LOVE the Mel's Mix & I suspect that will be our soil of choice in the future.
• I like how each bed is it's own experiment.  I can plant the same things in different beds, in different sides of the yard & see what, if any, differences there are.
• Lastly I can easily see how easy it will be to pull up one thing & replace it with another & not have to wait until the whole bed is ready.  I could have done it before - just never thought about it.

DRIP LINES
 We are big on using drip lines.  Currently Houston is in the midst of a drought.  I know that using my drippers will allow me to water my garden with LOTS less gallons than had I done it by hand.  Also the water gets right to the base of the plant, which is better too.

I found a really good place  online for drip lines & assorted drip stuff.  They sell drip "spaghetti" lines that already have the drippers with predetermined spacing. 12" or 6" apart.  We got the 12" & can see (NOW) that we'd have been better off getting the 6" apart one.  So, this weekend we'll add more drip line to compensate.  But, doing it from scratch - get the 6".

Something else we decided to do is to put shut off valves on each bed.  That way when we are changing out the plants, or there is nothing there, etc. we don't have to water that particular bed.

I just twist the green knob & I can control the water to each bed.

NETTING
Because of my reading I was able to get lots of ideas from several different sources.  I don't always remember where I read what, when I do I will give credit.  This book has a lot of good information & I know that his beds have interchangible stuff. 

And it's important to us to be able to easily change out aspects of the beds without major work.  As much as possible we try to think first, thus making less work later on.  But, as in most things, there are a few ideas that pop up later.  Here is how we did our "tinker toy" netting.

We got 10' electrical conduit at Home Depot.  They are hollow & bendable, with a tool you get there too, you'll also need a cutter for them.  Then DH cuts each pole into two 5' lengths.  He then takes another pole & cuts it to the length he needs.  He'll then bend each end of that pole, & he uses this for the top of the structure. We use connectors that you also get at Home Depot to connect them, just a few twists of a screwdriver & you're done!

This show the connector... ok not a great pic

To connect these to the garden beds he creates several 5" lengths of the conduit, then using metal brackets, yep from Home Depot, he screws these into the bed.  This picture shows you what it looks like.  Attach another connector & this neatly allows you to connect the netting poles to the bed.  How cool is that!

Now we can take the netting structure on & off easily!

To connect the netting to the poles we got small plastic tie wraps, put that through the pole & netting, pull tight & snip off!  There's a neat tool for that too.

We made each of our nets 4' wide so they are going to be interchangeable.  We got the netting from Burpee.  Hopefully it will last a few years.

We had an agreement!

We love our birds.  We have 2 ponds with bogs & a fountain.  The birds come & drink & bathe there.  We even provide bird seed for them & the occasional crust of bread. Our backyard gets robins, blue jays, cardinals, wrens, doves, chickadees, sparrows, finches, woodpeckers & an occasional grackle.  We get along fine with all of them - EXCEPT the MOCKINGBIRD.  He just doesn't understand our rules.  They are, you must admit, pretty simple... I'll let you bathe, drink & eat YOUR food in our yard - just don't eat MY FOOD!

When I first started gardening I put in full sized tomatoes, then ONE day before they'd be ready - the mocking bird would come down & peck it!  Ruined! And to add insult to injury - he won't even eat it - he just thinks it's something else!  So, then OK I'll plant cherry tomatoes, at least he can't ruin them all - wanna bet!  So then we tried the black bird netting - such a pain to deal with, it catches on everything & is hard to reuse. Last year at least 3 times they were able to get inside the netting.  Don't get me wrong I won't whack them or anything, so I have to let the frightened bird outta my netting enclosed tomatoes without injuring him or me!  And usually it's been a while (hours) before I find them, not good for either party.

This year, new beds, more tomatoes & I'm back to full sized tomatoes in addition to the cherry for our salads.  My mouth is all set for slices of red ripe tomatoes on burgers, sandwiches, with mozzarella... yum! So, how ya' gonna deal with the mockingbirds.  And if you're thinking - Cindi they aren't that bad!  Right!  So, Friday evening I was at my kitchen window & saw HIM!  He flew into the yard & right up to Kate (I flew out the back door!)  He was right there getting ready to peck a cherry tomato when I yelled at him, he turned his head, saw me & flew away!  YES SUCCESS!  But I just don't have that kinda time to save every tomato!

But we have a plan.... it's kinda hard to find 5 more scary words around our house.  I found new netting.  This stuff is has a little smaller mesh, so am a bit concerned that maybe bees won't be able to get inside it & we want them to be able to... but not gonna worry about that now.  It drapes wonderfully, folds up fine & you can stitch it together to make bigger pieces.  Too cool.  I just couldn't find this netting locally.

So yesterday DH had figured out how to make this work - step one gather all those shepherd hooks you have from feeding those freeloading birds & make a framework around the cherry patch (Kate).

There are 8 shepherds hooks - they create a nice round top.

I already have 6 more mostly ready tomatoes & TONS more that are very hard to see here.

We needed a fairly large piece of fabric to drape, so we sewed it together using garden twine & a chopstick!

DH drilled hole in top & sharpened stick end.

Then just weave.

Double sewn for durability.

Now drape & you're done!

Bet they can't get in here!

You do realize that had I just started the post with this picture you would have thought "You did WHAT!?"

P.S.  So, does it work?  Well the little fink came back again tonight!  I had enough time to get the big camera so I could get a picture without spooking him.  He spent a good 5 minutes walking & flying all around it - here's how it turned out -

You'll notice he's on the OUTSIDE!  Success!