Time to Reevaluate

I've been in a fairly deep funk about vegetable gardening lately. There are times when I just want to rip everything out and throw it in the compost and give up trying to grow vegetables. If I could just flip a switch that would turn off the compulsive desire to grow good beautiful things to eat I would do so without hesitation right now. Why, I keep asking myself, can't I just be like a normal person and leave the work and the heartache of growing food to someone else.

Every time I find new destruction wrought by some effing rodent it sends me into a tailspin.

I've been in a lot of tailspins.

The neighbors within earshot must think I'm off my rocker. "She's screaming at the rodents again!"

Oh please, put me out of my misery.

As I spin down into a sea of frustration and anger I still can't stop myself from grabbing at ideas of ways to thwart the DR's with plans of ever more elaborate systems of protection. Egads. Enough already! And yet, and yet, there's another 100 foot roll of hardware cloth that just got delivered.

Sigh. DEEP SIGH. I don't grow veggies to save $$$.

But because I don't have an OFF switch for fanatical vegetable gardening I have to reevaluate what I can grow and the lengths to which I will go to protect whatever ends up in the garden. I can't stop gardening but I will not make it easy for the DAMN RODENTS to find their next gourmet veggie treats.

First step. What are the favorites? Not mine, the pertinent question is what do the RODENTS love to eat.

What has entered the jaws of death? The list so far...

• amaranth (maybe it was birds and not rodents?)
• beans
• beets
• broccoli
• broccolini
• cabbage
• calendula
• carrot tops
• cauliflower
• celery root (just the sweet fat root, not the tops)
• chard
• collards
• coriander (seeds not cilantro, usually)
• corn
• cucumbers
• fava beans
• fennel
• kohlrabi
• melon blossoms (they don't even wait for the fruit to form!)
• mizuna
• napa cabbage
• parsley
• peas - snap, snow, and shelling
• peppers
• radish tops
• tomatoes
• tronchuda beira
• winter squash (some)

What does that leave that hasn't been attacked yet.

• arugula (birds eat the babies)
• basil
• brussels sprouts (birds like the tops)
• celery
• corn salad/mache (birds eat the babies)
• cress (birds)
• eggplant (a whole other story of pests and diseases)
• garlic (no-grow because of rust)
• kale (birds)
• lettuce (birds)
• mustard (mostly)
• onions and shallots (no-grow because of downy mildew)
• pac choi
• parsnips?
• potatoes (so far)
• rapini
• spinach (birds)
• tomatillo?
• turnip
• winter squash (some)
• zucchini (birds)

Just because something hasn't been attacked yet doesn't mean that given the opportunity and a lack of more tasty targets that just about anything edible will be on the hit list. But, as I've indicated, what's not on the rodent hit list is not necessarily free from the attentions of birds so I have to consider that too.

What on the rodent/bird favorites list can be protected in a fairly reasonable manner. Or perhaps I should start with what can't be protected in a fairly reasonable manner.

So, not worth the effort.

• anything too tall to grow in a cage.
• corn (I will not wrap every frigging ear in hardware cloth again)
• fava beans (sob)
• anything too big to fit into a cage without being overcrowded
• large varieties of cabbage
• large varieties of cauliflower
• large varieties of anything
• sprawling space hogs like most winter squash or melons
• pretty much anything that needs to or can grow on a trellis
• pole beans
• tall peas
• cucumbers
• melons
• winter squash
• one exception is summer squash, so far the DR's prefer the seeds of mature squash
• tomatoes (if I'm honest but I'm not)

So, what is or should be easy to grow in my hardware cloth tunnel cages. 

• amaranth (hard to find dwarf varieties)
• arugula
• beans (bush)
• beets
• carrots
• celery root
• cilantro
• cress
• kohlrabi
• lettuces
• pac choi
• parsnips
• peas (dwarf)
• pea shoots
• radishes
• turnips

Things that can be grown in individual hardware cloth cages.

• broccoli
• broccolini
• cabbage
• cauliflower?
• fennel?
• peppers (really just for seed saving, the confined plants don't seem to be as productive)

Things that might be safe to grow "free"

• basil
• Brussels sprouts
• celery
• potatoes
• summer squash/zucchini
• not much else!

There's just no way that I can anticipate just what will or won't be targets for DR consumption. (Aeoniums? really? yes!) So it's been a learning process as the DR's keep switching targets.

So, here are my latest schemes to keep the DR's away from my veggies. It involves a lot of hardware cloth.

One of the first lessons I learned in my battles with the rodents is to not wait until the destruction begins to put up de fences (ha ha, get it? defenses...  sorry). Reams and reams of hardware cloth fences. The second lesson is that the fences are only as good as the gaps that you leave in them. Trust me, if the DR's know that there's something good on the other side of the fence they will find the gaps. And if there are no gaps they will dig their way in. And if they can't dig their way in they will climb in.

So put the fences up before anything goes in the ground. This is important for 2 reasons. First, to avoid smashing and slashing (the plants, not you) as you try to put the floppy "cloth" into position. And second it might prevent the DR's from getting that first bite that will bring them and their family and friends back for more. (Oh wow, have you tried her fava beans this year? You have got to try them, they're fantastic!)

I'll start with my attempt to protect the peppers. I'm going with a 2 layer system for the pepper bed. First a short fence that is stapled to the inside of the bed. All the way around with NO GAPS. At the other end of the bed where it crosses on top of the soil there's about 12 inches that covers the soil beyond the perimeter of de fence.

The next step will be to put up a second layer that will overlap the first layer and extend the fence up to about 2 1/2 feet. That layer will be in removable panels so that I (and hopefully only I) will be able to easily reach into the bed to harvest the peppers. The biggest issue with barriers, aside from cost, is that they must keep the critters out but I must be able to have fairly easy access otherwise it's too much of a hassle to harvest or plant things.

I'm growing some bush dry beans in another bed. I put up a similar system for them, although the sections of hardware cloth running through the center of the bed are buried 6 inches deep in the soil. The panels that will run along the outside edges of the bed will be attached more securely because I shouldn't have to get access to the plants until it's time to pull the plants to harvest the dry beans. I only put one row of beans into the space to allow them room to sprawl inside the enclosed area. I've learned that cramming too many bean plants into a restricted area just invites disease and insect pest problems. At the moment the beans are under cloches to protect them from birds and climbing rodents. My plan is to eventually cover the area with some lightweight fabric or mesh.

Earlier this year the broccoli, cabbage, Tronchuda Beira, and broccolini plants were attacked even though they were in a bed protected by a hardware cloth barrier. That was when I learned that the rodents WILL find the smallest gap in a barrier that they can fit through. It's also when I learned that they WILL dig their way under a barrier. They WILL climb over a barrier. And I learned that they don't like the taste of spicy peppers.

Encaged Batavia Broccoli

This week I managed to harvest a head of broccoli in that bed. The plant was protected by a ring of hardware cloth and I had liberally sprinkled the plant and surrounding area with hot pepper powder. (This year I'm growing a couple of full heat Habaneros just so that I can have an extra spicy rodent deterring pepper powder). The problem with pepper powder is that the rain washes it off the plants so it's not useful here in the winter. Once the winter rainy season is over though it's long lasting and easy to wash off at harvest time.

Post Harvest Batavia Broccoli

I have learned which rodents like what veggies mainly by what I've trapped in proximity to damaged plants. Last year it was voles in the corn patch. In the past it's been tree rats in the tomato vines. The latest was a roof or Norway rat (I can't tell the difference) in the collards (the barrier climber). And I have no idea what the mice are munching. I'm really tempted to get a critter cam that can take night shots so that I can see what is scurrying around where in the garden. It does help to know which rodents are attacking what because different traps are more or less effective at trapping different rodents.

The Best Kind of Rat

So, my rodent woes are why I've not been posting lately. It's just been so frustrating and depressing that I've lost interest in writing about it. But until I find that elusive OFF switch that will transform me from a vegetable gardening fanatic to a normal person I will continue to try to grow good things to eat and my blog will continue to be the place where I try to record both the good and the bad about my veggie garden.

Enough of this, I need to get out to the garden and wrestle more hardware cloth into place.

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