Farm life with Grandma...

[steffamarie]

So I recently posted a photo of my herb garden on Facebook and my grandma saw it. I got a text from her tonight...

“Grandpa showed me on Facebook your herb garden. That looks really nice. Have to tell you a story about my herbs. Growing cilantro, basil, and lavender on the deck. Tonight Grandpa looked out the window and there was a bunny eating my cilantro. Hence, now there is one less bunny.”

[emoji23][emoji23][emoji23] Sorry to those of you who may be bunny sympathizers, but they are a real nuisance out in the country where they live. I’m sure Thumper is in bunny heaven now...and at least the cilantro is safe!!!! Lol!!!!

 

[Mobjack Bay]

We live in the country and have the critter issue, too. About once every two years we end up with a chicken massacre when a fox, snake, or something unknown gets into the hen house. When I still had cats, raccoons the size of small children came up on my deck in search of cat food. One time when I was home alone late at night, one of them was peering in at me through the sliding door. Scared the $@#& out of me until I realized what it was. I have more issues with the River otter in the garden than I do with bunnies. The otter will pull the corn plants over and eat the ears of corn right off the plant!

 

[Mobjack Bay]

P.S. love the part about your grandparents reading FB. My parents are dangerous on FB.

 

[earlene]

My husband built me raised garden beds tall enough for me to sit on when working the bed. He thought it would keep the rabbits out of my veggies. Well not at all. They jump right up and eat whatever they want. And of course nothing keeps the squirrels and birds out.

But I love the rabbits. My husband saw one on our deck a couple of weeks ago, and said it's the first time he has ever seen one climb the stairs and come up on the deck. I wish I had seen it on deck, just because I have never seen one there.

I used to live in the Santa Cruz mountains in a house built into the side of the mountain & a lot of stairs up to our deck and the front door. We did get a raccoon now and then, but the Stellar Jays were the real cat food thieves in the neighborhood.

 

[steffamarie]

P.S. love the part about your grandparents reading FB. My parents are dangerous on FB.

It has taken them a while to get the hang of it. When I was teaching my grandpa how to use it, he asked me how to “get rid of” a post from my mom. I asked why and he said because he already saw it and didn’t want to see it again. I asked him if he cut the articles out of the newspaper after he finished reading those too...got a “Well, Stephanie!” for that one [emoji23]

They just like staying in the loop more than anything. Their oldest (my mom) lives 14 hours away now and my brothers and I don’t see them as often as we want to even though I’m only a few hours south.

Now, don’t think that just because they keep their comments to themselves on FB that they do that in real life. My grandpa is one quick-witted son of a gun!! A sharp tongue but he’s a softie inside.

 

[lsg]

I sometimes have to sprinkle Seven on my greens to keep the bunnies away. We also have cats, but the bunnies still sneak in sometimes.

 

[Lin19687]

I don't put any Chemicals on my yard, food, etc.
I do hope that they can fence in the area well and ate the rabbit... they are yummy. I have not had that for about 20 years.
Hard to kill them though They are so dam cute

 

[earlene]

My grandmother used to kill and skin rabbits and cook them. But it was not at all uncommon in her day. I thought the amount of work to get rabbit meat was hardly worth the trouble, myself. Even buying it already done for me, there was so little meat on a rabbit, I didn't particularly find it appealing. But you have to realize, even when I was growing up, meat wasn't my favorite food. So I may be an anomaly.

But my grandma did everything! I loved going to visit her and learning to weave and other skills she loved teaching. I loved watching her braid her super long hair. (Maybe that's why I wore it so long for such a long time!) She always had a fabulous garden and used just about everything she grew in her cooking. And boy could she cook! She was an excellent seamstress and did all manner of needlework. I still have two of the dresses she made for me when I was a mere babe. She raised a passel of kids and instilled the importance of education into my father. She played piano & organ and even the accordion. That huge, heavy accordion! And loved to sing. She was family loyal and dedicated to her children's well being. She was even a single mother for a lot of years after her last husband died. Until writing this I didn't realize how much we had in common and how much I got from her. She's been gone for a very long time, so I guess I've not given her a lot of thought in a long time.

You know, I am so glad you posted this thread, steffamarie. It gave me the opportunity to remember my grandmother.

 

[kasilofchrisn]

I sure miss my grandma sometimes.
Especially when I'm out picking wild raspberries. I can just barely remember picking berries withy grandma.
Guessing that's partially why I love it so much.
When I first bought my house there was no garden here.
I planted 3 cabbages in a big plastic tub.
Well I was put of town working in the early fall.
Came home in the evening to find 3 beautiful cabbages ready to harvest. So I went to town and bought all the coleslaw fixings figuring to harvest and eat the very next day.
Woke up to a cow moose and two calves in my yard and not a shred of cabbage left.
Wish I could have legally shot one of those moose to get my cabbage back in one way or another.
Now my gardens are surrounded by electrified poly tape fencing.

 

[earlene]

I sure miss my grandma sometimes.
Especially when I'm out picking wild raspberries. I can just barely remember picking berries withy grandma.
Guessing that's partially why I love it so much.
When I first bought my house there was no garden here.
I planted 3 cabbages in a big plastic tub.
Well I was put of town working in the early fall.
Came home in the evening to find 3 beautiful cabbages ready to harvest. So I went to town and bought all the coleslaw fixings figuring to harvest and eat the very next day.
Woke up to a cow moose and two calves in my yard and not a shred of cabbage left.
Wish I could have legally shot one of those moose to get my cabbage back in one way or another.
Now my gardens are surrounded by electrified poly tape fencing.

OMG! That would be so devastating! I have felt that way about squirrels sometimes. My one and only eggplant that I was waiting for was taken by a squirrel one day as I watched. He ripped it off, took one bite and tossed it aside! I ran out yelling at him, but it was obviously too late. Another time I had a huge sunflower, just one and I kept trying to grow more, but I soon learned why they never cooperated. Again, watching from the kitchen window, another (or maybe even the very same squirrel) snapped it off the stem and started munching down. Of course I ran out yelling, but alas again it was too late.

Now if it had been the birds, that would have been fine. I was growing the sunflowers for the seeds for the birds. But I learned a long time ago that squirrels love them, too, so it was pretty stupid of me to expect the squirrels to leave them alone.

I've tried everything short of electric fencing, but I don't think that would work with squirrels or rabbits anyway.

So I hope you have had many cabbages since then that you did get to eat!

 

[kasilofchrisn]

OMG! That would be so devastating! I have felt that way about squirrels sometimes. My one and only eggplant that I was waiting for was taken by a squirrel one day as I watched. He ripped it off, took one bite and tossed it aside! I ran out yelling at him, but it was obviously too late. Another time I had a huge sunflower, just one and I kept trying to grow more, but I soon learned why they never cooperated. Again, watching from the kitchen window, another (or maybe even the very same squirrel) snapped it off the stem and started munching down. Of course I ran out yelling, but alas again it was too late.

Now if it had been the birds, that would have been fine. I was growing the sunflowers for the seeds for the birds. But I learned a long time ago that squirrels love them, too, so it was pretty stupid of me to expect the squirrels to leave them alone.

I've tried everything short of electric fencing, but I don't think that would work with squirrels or rabbits anyway.

So I hope you have had many cabbages since then that you did get to eat!

Well last year all my Emiko hybrid Napa style cabbages were utterly destroyed by the slugs. I didn't even bother trying to salvage them just fed them to my chickens. They love them and gobbled up any remaining slugs that were in/on them.
But I had some other varieties of cabbage that survived so I was able to make cabbage soup, coleslaw, sauerkraut, etcetera.
I was trying not to use commercial slug killer but I realized it wasn't working without it.
After applying the slug killer the numbers of slugs diminished to a point where they were manageable and my garden wasn't being destroyed.
This year I have five different varieties of cabbage growing.
But I sprinkled slug killer around my entire raised bed gardens from the get-go this year and will keep up with it.
Being as they're raised beds I don't have to put it in the garden so it won't touch the veggies it'll just be around the outside.
The best thing for squirrels is a pellet gun or a .22 rifle.
But you could also try what my dad does if it's legal in your area and that's use a small live trap and deposit the squirrels 10 miles down the road.
At least it keeps the numbers down so you're not having so much trouble.

 

[earlene]

No, I won't kill squirrels. We have white squirrels here, which I love love love, as well as black ones, and reddish brown ones. Some grey ones now and then. I won't kill any animals except spiders, flies, ants and mic if they are in the house. 10 miles down the road wouldn't help. We live in a rural area where the squirrels, rabbits, foxes and other wildlife runs free where ever they choose. It's just something we accept. Besides if I feed the birds, the squirrels always more and I love watching the birds. So I live with the little annoyances.

I used to also kill rats when we lived in the mountains in California because I hate rats, too. They also like sunflower seeds and would climb the trees or the deck to get to the feeders in broad daylight. They were roof rats; horrible horrible horrible things. They ate through our gas line one year and the only reason we learned about it was because we had to have the propane tank refilled long before it was due to run out. They also ate through plastic storage bins to get at what was inside of them in our garage. I killed a lot of rats while we lived there. Here at least, I have never seen a single rat, only mice, and not many of them. And since I started using electronic rodent repellers, we don't get mice in the house any more.

Here is a picture of one the white squirrels at some of my feeders:

 

[lsg]

Beautiful squirrels!

 

[Nanette]

Squirrels are so smart, too...I dont have a garden here, alas, as the heat and water bill are prohibitive for me. There are a Lot of folks who do have gardens, I just dont have much luck. I am as interested in the bugs, birds, lizards, etc that arrive as I am the plants so Im not a good steward of the garden. For example, the tomato hornworms...they are the larvae of the hummingbird moths which I think are beautiful, so there I go...

 

[Deeda]

I've always had great success with putting out pans of BEER for the slugs and snails. Yummy to them, but too drunk to get back out of the pan. Seemed to like the beer better than cabbage.