Pests

Look closely near the centre of the picture and you can see a deer munching happily away

I sprinkled lettuce, kale, pok choi, spinach and romaine lettuce seeds very early this year while it was still chilly. I was too lazy to plant them in rows and so, carelessly mixed the tiny seeds, and sprinkled them in the garden bed.

Even though many of the packets said that these greens like the cold, nothing really started taking off until last month when everything came up and the lettuce has been growing like crazy. I confess I cannot say the same for the spinach. I have never successfully grown spinach on this property. There I said it. I have tried different soil, different pots and garden beds. I don't know if it is pests or just lack of green thumb. It is supposed to be very easy to grow. Well, I can't.

The kale was quickly eaten by bugs as was the pok choi. The lettuce, however, is perfectly untouched by pests. Normally slugs and leaf eaters like lettuce but not one sneaky bite! The only reason I can come up with is the kale is more attractive to them and they are leaving my lettuce alone! I was disappointed at first, but now I think if that's what it takes, that is what I will do from now on. Feed the pests so they leave the lettuce alone!

Meanwhile, in the hoop house, which should be fairly impervious to a lot of pests, my bush bean seedlings almost didn't make it after they were gobbled up by slugs (I think). Most years I do very little to ward off pests other than pick them off. Once things are bigger they can handle a few nibbles and still produce but these little beans had just sprouted and their very first leaves were nibbled  to a nub. I looked and couldn't find any bugs nearby other than ants. I looked late at night and found a few baby slugs.


I ran to the shed remembering a long rope of copper netting that someone gave to me years ago and ran that all of the way around the bean side of the hoop house to deter the slugs. Slugs do not like copper. I couldn't think what to do if it was ants or some other pest and I wanted to deal with this right away, so remembering ants and many pests don't like mint, I grabbed fist fulls of the stuff from the giant mint grove I have, pulled, tore and sprinkled the leaves among the beans, camouflaging them.

The next night, baby slugs were found on the opposite side of the small hoop house away from the beans hiding under the tomato plant leaves which normally they do not like in my experience, the tomatoes having tiny, pest deterring hairs on their leaves and stems. They hadn't snacked on them. Nothing has bothered my beans since and all but the most ravaged little bean plants have recovered and are growing just fine. I have since set out a couple of beer traps near the tomatoes just in case but there doesn't seem to be any sign of slugs or anything else. I am hoping the hoop house at least, is slug free for the rest of the season.







One morning before school my son looked out to the East and said "mom, a deer!" My first thought was "wow, what a majestic sight". My second though was "crap, it is eating my apple tree blossoms" and this is the first year it looked like it may produce more than a few apples. I took a few pictures and then my mind turned to my gardens and I thought "no way am I waiting for this young deer's next foray onto my property".

We bought some deer fencing and will be fencing all along the property. It costs only $25 for 100 feet so is quite economical. I would be heartbroken if my garden was trampled or eaten by deer, cute or not. I could also wait until deer hunting season (we are overrun in this province) and have some lovely venison for the year in my freezer except that I have never killed an animal with anything but a hatchet or knife and as my knife throwing skills are not that great, I would have to buy a rifle.

Hopefully I can stick to mint and fencing for awhile yet.