I'm in a war with chipmunks. And white flies, lantern flies and Japanese beetles. There's blight on everything and it's only getting worse thanks to the pests. It's a losing battle.
The chipmunks are so voracious this year. In years past we've had them but they tend to forage for fallen tomatoes and a few strawberries were lost, but we were able to co-exist. This year? All the strawberries were eaten green. We didn't get any. The tomatoes are being consumed in record numbers. Big ones, little ones, dragged off and only the skin left behind. Cucumbers are eaten small before they are ready to be picked. They are even eating the purple sunflowers! They chew the stalk until it falls down and then eat every single bloom. The deterrents (sprays and granules) don't work. Rubber snakes don't work. I blocked every weak point in the rodent deterrent type of netting with packing tape and rocks, and then the chipmunks just started chewing through the netting, which they aren't supposed to do! They are also strong enough to move baseball sized rocks which is a bit alarming. One of my gardener neighbors is having similar problems, we both resorted to buying juicy fruit gum, which worked in years past (it's supposed to clog their intestines when they eat it). Not these chipmunks! These chipmunks have super powers (probably the evolutionary decedents of the previous Juicy Fruit survivors)- they can eat the gum just fine, chew through the netting they aren't supposed to be able to chew through, move heavy baseball sized rocks, and can happily ignore deterrents!
I'm at my wit's end.
I didn't put all this effort into a garden to feed a family of chipmunks. They are getting 99% of it all. We have a few peas they can't reach and hot peppers. These little monsters even enter the garden when I'm in there and my best efforts to scare them off do nothing. Spray them with the hose? Back in 5! We're replacing the repellent netting with chicken wire this week, something they can't chew through and we are going to bury it so they can't tunnel under easily. We tried to do it last week but it was 100 degrees out for days and days, not exactly ideal weather for manual labor.
Tomato Bed
The tomato plants are huge. Full of tomatoes. Before they even ripen though, their numbers are rapidly dwindling. Entire rows of cherry tomatoes. Big fat tomatoes. I see the remains left on the ground taunting me. There are plenty of tomatoes left... for now. It's why we feel such an urgency to try to save the rest by putting in metal mesh in hopes of saving some.
The companion plants, borage (one on each side) and marigolds (one in each corner) are alive and flowering. The bees really love the borage, as do butterflies. I even see the hummingbird occasionally taking a sip from the blue flowers!
Vines Bed
The cucumbers have lots of flowers, the vines are growing. But. The chipmunks are eating the little cucumbers (how they are climbing up without pulling the plant down, I have no idea). The leaves have a serious white fly infestation and they are immune to the organic dish soap remedy. It's not ideal.
The peas are actually good. It's weird that we still have pea vines in late July - normally they die off by now. But it's a weird year and they are still producing. The chipmunks haven't figured out how to get these so it's one of the only things we can harvest. The carrots and swiss chard are growing, but I feel like their days are numbered before they are "discovered" by the chipmunks.
Mixed Flower Bed
Things are better in the mixed flower bed. The white flies like the zinnias way too much and the cosmos are starting to show the browning from blight... but there is still a ton of happy green growth and a lot of flowers. The snapdragons are the best they've ever been and I'm so glad I gave them half a bed this year. You don't know what color they will be when you plant them but I have white, pale yellow, bright yellow, pale pink, mauve pink, bright pink, magenta, dark red, and a coral orange. It's a full rainbow that coordinates with the pale pink-yellow cosmos and all the dahlias.
There is a row of mixed color zinnias, a row of salmon cactus zinnias and a row of classic shaped salmon zinnias. I haven't seen too many color-mix zinnias yet, it's been mostly the salmon/coral ones blooming. They are a lovely compliment to all the coral flowers I've planted, especially the coral dahlias!
Dahlia Bed
The dahlias started strong, but they are fragile in a summer of extremes. I'm babying them with good fertilizer, careful ground watering, safe organic antifungal methods. The Japanese beetles LOVE to eat the blossoms which makes me crazy.
Fairway spur wasn't growing, so it was swapped out for a new one - Felida Solar Flare, and is now elsewhere in the yard (it started to grow very late so I suspect it will bloom late). Felida Solar Flare is much more yellow than I expected, the pictures showed it with a yellow center and lots of coral and orange, and it's really mostly yellow with pinkish tips. The cactus bloom shape is also much more classic and feathery than I thought it would be, more like Preference (medium peach blooms) than a classic cactus shape. Since I already have a yellow-orange Apricot Desire back here, one of them will have to be moved out next year. Apricot Desire is struggling with blight but hopefully I've caught it in time.
Labyrinth, Daisy Duke, American Dawn, Belle of Barmera, Wynn's Moonlight Sonata and Cornel Bronze are all doing well. They are blooming and I'm trying to pamper them the best I can.
Elsewhere in the yard some of my dahlias are really struggling with blight - there's something nasty on the Thomas Edison dahlias, which have always been hardy and easy to ignore in years past! One of my Waltzing Matildas is half dead. Preference has yellow leaves. I have some better disease control flower spray to use outside of the organic garden zone so hopefully I can save them!
Herb and Strawberry Bed
The herbs are growing beautifully. I had the largest harvest of dill I've ever had and it's coming back. Plenty of chamomile and calendula flowers too. The borage back here is as happy as the ones in the tomato bed. Rosemary, lavender, thyme, sage, oregano are lal happily growing.
While the chipmunks ate the purple sunflowers, my big ones are still standing tall! The potted lemon balm apparently jumped the pot and spread everywhere, I'm fighting to weed it out - it wants to take over. The potted fig tree is losing a few leaves. I can't tell if it's the heat, the blight, bugs or just the fact that it thought spring started in late February.
Potted Herbs
I'm keeping the potted rosemary, lemon verbena and pineapple sage alive another year! The basil is thriving. The potted peppers look terrible but they have grown a few that ripened. The chipmunks digging them up hasn't helped them grow for sure. The morning glory vine was looking great but now it's looking quite sad. Hopefully I'll get a few blooms in September, but I'm not convinced it will make it that long. I said last year I was going to try a new vine and I didn't. I probably should next year if this doesn't make it.
Elsewhere
It should be blackberry season, but we've had a heatwave this week that could melt your eyebrows off. It dried up and shriveled half of one of the bushes, much to my frustration. Hopefully we have better luck with the remaining fruit as the weather is cooler this week.
The Chicago Hardy fig tree has lots of little green figs so I'm hoping for another good harvest this year. I have little fruits on the citrus trees as well (fingers crossed the monsters don't eat them off). The raspberries were decent - it wasn't our best or worst year for them. We didn't get any blueberries, the birds ate them all when green. Next year we'll get those blueberry boxes done.
The elderberry bushes bloomed in two places but I harvested the blossoms. Both bushes have to bloom for cross-pollination, so we wouldn't have had berries anyway. Elderflowers are just as nice.
The yard is beautiful. The flowers are beautiful (though some are struggling with blight). We're enjoying the summer - it's been wonderful and busy and hectic. We see friends and family, go to camp, play in the garden, swim in the pool, make trips to the town pool, go on fun outings. There are so many wonderful things! And I have so many posts to write and photograph and no time to do it. I have even more things on my to-do list. But we'll get there eventually. I'll hopefully find a minute for updates soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment