Re: I think I need minions

Hoo boy! Am I glad we don't have gophers/ground squirrels here. By comparison, the possums, raccoons, and tree squirrels are no problem at all. [If you had millions, you could hire minions.]
On a happier note, I'm going to cut a bunch of collards for supper. This will be the second "harvest" from these plants this spring. Be interesting to see how long the plants last. 

On Mar 26, 2007, at 12:33 PM, Johnson Cyndi D Civ 95 CG/SCSRT wrote:


So I spent hours outside over the weekend and I don't feel like I did
much.  Long ago I made up a joke about work, I tell people that
everything takes an hour so you can't possibly do more than 8 things
during the day. I'm beginning to think that's true at home but worse,
everything takes four hours. Actually it wouldn't be that bad but we've
been neglecting a lot of maintenance so we're playing catch up now.
Saturday, between cleaning animal pens and running errands, I finally
pulled back the row cover and started weeding the pea bed. Arrgh.
Something unknown had been in there and nipped off the shoots for about
80% of the peas. I was saying unprintable things for quite a while; the
weeds in there are almost exactly the same color as the pea sprouts so I had to weed carefully by hand to figure out what was left. Finally I had 
it clear, had to go buy more pea seeds, replanted and then reluctantly
put down Sevin dust (in case it was bugs) and then blood meal (in case
of rabbits) and sealed the edges of the cover. The more I think about
it, it is probably ground squirrels, we have got to figure out how to
get rid of them. The highly charged electric barrier is starting to look 
pretty good. We need to buy one of those anyway for the horse pen; they
can charge miles of fence so I bet husband could figure out how to fry
us some squirrels. :-)
The whole thing was pretty frustrating, it's been at least three years
since I've had a good pea crop and while I was swearing to myself I was
seriously considering chucking the whole veggie garden and concentrating 
on the rest of the yard. But I think I'm over it...for the moment.
Sunday I had to clean up the patio before I could start dragging plants
out of the greenhouse. I put my lemon tree in the front garden this time 
since something (probably the squirrels) chewed off the sole baby lemon
it had last year. This year there are about five, but it is in bloom
again so we'll see what happens. My husband fixed all the sprinklers and 
I went out to the back fence to see what was left worth watering. I've
been avoiding it, fearing the worst, and I was right. Everything I
planted last year is dead either from the cold or gophers. Even the
8-foot tall saltbush that's been there for close on 15 years is mostly
dead, although I did see a few living sprigs on it. Well...I planned on
making a trip to the natives nursery this Friday, guess I'll add a few
more plants to the list. Sigh.
The lilacs look very pretty. A single tiger swallowtail was fluttering
there in the morning. I was out cutting sprays for the house in the
evening and I saw these huge moths! Looked closer and they are, oh
great, tomato hornworm moths. Well...my tomatoes aren't out yet at
least.
It was nice weather, great that it's spring, I was happy to be out
working and time spent gardening is always good. I'm struggling not to
focus on the negative. At least it's cloudy and ugly today, I always
feel a little cheered when the weekend weather is good and it turns bad
on Monday.

Cyndi

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Island Jim
Southwest Florida
27.1 N, 82.4 W
Hardiness Zone 10
Heat Zone 10
Sunset Zone 25
Minimum 30 F [-1 C]
Maximum 100 F [38 C]

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