Robin Update

On Wednesday, I went out and the "extra" strings I tied in the yard were gone and the string in the garden was left alone. Today, the garden string was also left alone! Apparently the robin's are like the mob and just needed a tribute. Putting this in Mob terms makes sence since my mother in-law, who lives in a neighborhood like that of the Soprano's in northern NJ, knew exactly how to deal with this situation. Go figure.

I am not sure how often I need to put out this string to keep the bird's happy, but I am thrilled that it worked. So to sum up, $20 owl did not work, but free extra pieces of string worked fine.

The Ineffective Owl and The Mischievous Robins

I purchased the plastic owl above hoping it would dissuade the robins from trying to steal the string from the garden. Alas, it did not. The robins pulled up several pieces of string, clipped one end of my bean brace and removed the string from my row of beets. Their knot tying is impressive, even though it is very annoying.

Trying a tact suggested by my mother-in-law, I have tied a couple of strings in the yard outside the garden. Perhaps this will draw the robins away from my beans and gives them their string "fix".

On a positive note, I did some light hilling of potatoes and added some purchased Brussels sprouts to the garden. The garden is looking pretty packed right now and with another month of TLC, the vegetables should be rolling in!

Bean Brace

Yesterday I built and today I installed a Bean Brace (instruction were in "Woodworking Projects for the Garden" by Richard Freudenberger.

I do not have 100% confidence that the brace will withstand strong winds, but I have anchored it down as much as I could. I hope it lasts long enough to support the Neapolitan beans that have begun to come up.

A bigger issue that I am having is that there is a robin trying to steal the string out of the garden. Each of the last couple of days I have seen it tugging at string and trying to fly away with the thread. All it ends up doing is tying things in knots and breaking one of my bean plants. I may need to come up with a strategy to stop this behavior.

Memorial Day Weekend

I spent time in the garden yesterday morning replacing plants that were not making it. In the tomato section of the garden I replaced 3 Roma's, 3 Sweet 100s, 1 4th of July, and 2 Red Lightnings (one of which was replaced with a 4th of July since I only started with 4 seedlings of that type). I planted a new row of lettuce, and replanted where I had initially put beets and nantes carrots. The "little fingers" (3" carrot variety) look like there are still s few seedlings there so I left them alone. The last area I replaced was the squash. I replaced 3 of the 4 Butternut squash and 2 of the 4 zucchini. The difference in the 2 groups of zucchini is amazing:

On the left is one of the healthier zucchini that I put in on May 9th that I didn't feel needed replacing yesterday. On the right is one of the zucchini I kept growing indoors until this week. I still have a small group of zucchini in the cold-frame so I may end up replacing the smaller zucchini if they don't start looking better. The lesson I learned from this year's plantings is that I can grow some very large healthy seedlings until Memorial Day. Putting out the Tomatoes and Squash early was a mistake this year.

In garden experiment news, I have begun a bit of a hanging Tomato experiment. Back in April, I read about a homemade version of the hanging planters at The Cheap Vegetable Gardener so I decided to try it out. I am trying to grow Roma's and Sweet 100's in 2-liter soda bottles:

and in 1 gallon milk bottles:

(I am not sure if there is actually enough soil in the soda bottles to get adequate fruit).

In the next few weeks I need to: come up with a container for my herbs and set up my deck herb garden, transfer peppers and celeriac to the garden (both of which are too small to transfer at this point), and do a whole lot of weeding, which I have been fairly lax about so far this year.

Heatwave and Temptation

We have gone from a frost advisory to temps in the 90's in just a few short days. Many of my plants are struggling in the sweltering heat, but I am hopeful that I will have squash and tomatoes that are hardened up to replace what I lost earlier in the week. Upon further reflection, I am curious if it was the plant covering or the fish emulsion spray that hurt my weaker plants. Two variables in a short window has me wondering which one caused the damage. I also tore out the dead row of lettuce so I will also plant a replacement row of salad greens this weekend.

With the upcoming Memorial Day Weekend I realized that I did not have enough burgers in the freezer to have an adequate holiday cookout. My solution, go back to Blood Farm! Of course, when I was there, the duck eggs were taunting me. For only $2, how could I pass up such an opportunity to sample these local curiosity? (They come from Golden Egg Farm in Hartwick). I couldn't resist the temptation.

Frost Advisory Aftermath

In spite of the warning, there was no actual frost here last night, though we were close since there was a frost about 10 miles north of here. I do not regret covering my plants, but I do regret not removing the cover until this afternoon. The covering coupled with the mid-70's temperature lead to a lot of wilted (borderline dried out) plants. My weaker tomato plants (Roma's and sweet 100's), most of my squash, and surprisingly one row of lettuce look near death. Fortunately, I have plenty of extras seedlings so I spent some time today sorting out my strongest indoor seedlings and moving some of them into larger pots. Tomorrow I will put out replacement seedlings on the deck, cold-frame them overnight, and replace the damaged plants this weekend.

FROST WARNING!

Tonight, according to the national weather service: "A FROST ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 3 AM TO 7 AM EDT TUESDAY." So I put together an impromptu garden covering to hopefully reduce the number of plants I need to replace this week. This officially confirms that I moved the tomatoes and squash out too early. Fortunately, I have extras of everything so it will not end up being a tragic mistake, even if my covering doesn't work.

After tonight, the weather is supposed to go into the 70's for the rest of the week. If my plants survive the night, this should be a great week for growing.