Gardening time here.. updated for 2026

[brewmaster15]

A well placed .22 ends the problem.

I live on an acre lot and my neighbors house is probably 60 feet from the squash patch.. Guns are out ... But there are other counter measures that I can use. In the last 25 years here I have dealt with lot of woodchucks. They always come from. The same side of the yard there. It's a natural wildlife trail.The coyotes,bobcat,weasels,foxes, and occasionally deer all use a narrow corridor of woods between mine and my neighbors... This gets the to a stream and tract of town open space. Basically the woodchuck has been living there... I tracked by it's grazing. It visits my yard,my neighbors and one other yard.Basically spends a day at each from what I can tell.

I'm on a tight schedule with dealing with it.Next 3 weeks I will have little time to be watching for it .

[pitdogg2]

A well placed .22 ends the problem.

[jwcarlson]

Woodchucks are tough and fairly smart. My dad had an issue with them when he was growing giant pumpkins. I won't get into details, but he watched them actively use holes that had traps. They'd examine the trap and then worm their body around the trap.

[Second Hand Pat]

It did do a number to your garden Al.
Pat

[brewmaster15]

That is one determined woodchuck Al.
Pat

I guess I should take it as a compliment that he wants my veggies so bad but these guys are like weed whackers...



the big leaves in the front of the image nearest me are how the whole patch looked yesterday.

[Second Hand Pat]

That is one determined woodchuck Al.
Pat

[brewmaster15]

Gardening is a lot of work! You fight weather, bugs, pathogens , and weeds. It gives you an incredible view of our food production and what can go into providing healthy food for a family. I choose to take a no pesticide ,no funicide approach here. I would not say I am organic though as I am not opposed to fertilizers like miracle grow though I prefer just using my chickens manure. I wish more people gardened as I think it's a good life lesson for kids growing up and It's an eye opener for adults to be sure .

This year has been challenging for sure. My latest crop threat is a voracious woodchuck. He clearcut my squash about a month ago and I responded with cayenne pepper which chased him off for several weeks. in the meantime I had my homemade box trap set out in case it returns. Well, it did return and ate through my squash patch again, chopping up everything that has grown back. Then he got himself caught in my box trap. .. and promptly chewed through galvanized hardware cloth to escape. That trap has caught all manner of critters over the years and never had one chew through.




I ended up buying a heavy duty havaheart trap on Amazon. But it won't be here until tomorrow. In the meantime I hope it doesn't make it to my other gardens. I have other control options as well here too. I found it's burrow but don't know if it has an alternate exit. Not to offend anyone's sentimental here but this pest will be dealt with asap. There's nothing more disheartening to a gardener when their crops are decimated by a voracious woodchuck.

[brewmaster15]

Yesterday I picked the first squash flowers of the year here. There wasn't a lot, maybe 10. Today I got quite a few. .These are all male flowers, the female squash flowers you don't pick if you want squash. The look similar but you can clearly see the beginnings of squash under the flowers when female. I usually will hand pollinate the females while picking male flowers just in case,but it's usually not necessary.







These make delicious fritters.. dip in flour and egg batter and fry. They are sooooooo good!


These ones I picked are going to my Mom's this morning. She loves these fritters even more than I do. I bring her alot over the growing season. She even freezes them by laying them out on paper towels and freezing in zip lock bags.I have done that and it works really well.

Incidentally , daylily flowers are very similar and edible as well. They usually are in flower the same time here so it's not uncommon that we will do a batch of these as well.

[jwcarlson]

Jacob, first year was not bad..second year on the hardy kiwi and they really crushed a light weight trellis.They grew heavy woody vines..My trellis collapsed.

I think they were basically reset to year one this spring when all the vines were killed. The new vines this year are still very thin/small. They look the same as what the plants came with, but they're longer this year. Right now all they have is a circle fence around them to keep rabbits off of them.

[brewmaster15]

Jacob, first year was not bad..second year on the hardy kiwi and they really crushed a light weight trellis.They grew heavy woody vines..My trellis collapsed.

[jwcarlson]

Jacob I had tried growing hardy kiwis here in CT A few years back. I bought them at Lowes.One male plant and one female. They did wonderful.. almost too wonderful growing like crazy. They handled our winters fine. I was really looking forward to them producing. They finally Flowered and It was then I realized I got two males when I bought them.One was mismarked I guess. I was crushed. I ended up giving up and planting grapes instead to make wine.

Id like to try them again someday and probably will. I hope your spring back.

I think it's safe now to say that the kiwis did survive. All three of them have vines a couple feet long now. I hope they survive this summer without a trellis, because that is NOT getting done. I guess worst case I could throw a couple fence posts in the ground and throw up a cattle panel. I might do that. Then follow up with something more permanent in the spring. I'm not sure how beefy or big I need to make it. I've only seen one of these plants and I'm not sure how many of them they had planted. It was a pretty substantial structure.

[AquaticNerd]

Sorry to hear about the poor luck with the "potting soil" you've been using Al. I appreciate you sharing the images, nothing captures the differences better than those two pepper plants. I've not got a green thumb, so can't really help with potential solutions but at least I know what to avoid when the wife goes out for soil.

[brewmaster15]

Damping off....



The brown band is dead tissue.. this seedling is. As good as dead.

[brewmaster15]

hot peppers..same age..same seed trays

Just naturals..


My yard soil..

[brewmaster15]

This year is turning out to be a challenging garden year. It's been hot and dry here. With watering my squash, tomatoes, beans and basil have been doing phenomenal.

My pepper plants have been a real problem . I have lost a bunch to damping off. This is a fungus that attacks the roots and stem at ground level.Its common in seedlings that are in over water damp soil.. it's not treatable. Once s plant has it,they will and die.It usually doesn't affect adult plants unless they were infected when young and then they may last longer but still usually die. Why I'm dealing with this is probably because I got lazy and bought bags of "organic raised bed garden " soil. Anything I have planted in it either doesn't grow well or dies of damping off. These products are largely shredded forest products like bark, mixed with composted manure. In raised beds they maybe fine but regardless of being marketed as outdoor potting mix, they are not good for pots. They either are nitrogen poor or too much nitrogen. They also drain poorly and stay wet.

so I have very mixed results.. My peppers in raised beds are doing great. My peppers in pots I did not use this garbage are doing great... anything in pots with that organic raised bedding (product called "Just Naturals")
Is doing terrible. I have tried repotting with added perlite for drainage but it doesn't help.


example..

Basil ... "Just Naturals"



Same batch of seedlings in my yard dirt ..