Energy Use After New Insulation and Other Stuff

1.  Energy Usage After New Insulation:

One month does not prove anything much, but my first post-insulation project usage for October shows that my Oct 2013 usage was 1326 "some unit" and the Oct 2014 usage was only 973.  It is promising, but weather in one month can be different one year to the next.  I'll wait to see the next few bills.

But it does look good.

2.  The framed raised garden beds are progressing.  3 of 6 completed and the boards for the 4th are all cut.  Now that I have the process of building them routinely, the 4th will be easier than the first.  And I am set to buy the lumber for the 5th and( last) 6th  any day the weather is "OK".

3.  I'm continuing to accumulate a pile of donatable items in the basement.  Its not the "usual stuff".  Today I cleaned out the top shelf of the pantry.  Anyone have  a bamboo multi-layer chinese steamer?  I do, and I haven't used it in 20 years.  Onto the pile it goes.  I hope the Salvation Army knows what it is.  LOL!  I keep holding off calling Salvation Army for a pickup because I keep finding new stuff to add to the pile.  I wonder what they will do with a 4" lens refraction telescope, for example.  But that's their problem/good luck.

4.  I'm loving the new trash pickup!  I got rid of 12 bags of kitty litter last Friday and 10 today.  They say they don't accept "lumber", but I have a barrelful of scrap ends, and so far as I can tell watching them mechanically lift and dump the dedicated container they provided, they can't see what is in it.  I can keep cutting the trash lumber into 6" pieces and put them in bags all month until is is all gone.  It sure will be nice to not have to drive to the landfill this winter!  And I have a lot more junk to get rid of.  I'll fit it it into the dedicated Evergreen container even if I need a sledgehammer to break it up.  And I'm not trashing any recyclable or compostable stuff.

5.  Last night was the first hard freeze here.  I dug up 4 Basil plants to try to keep them growing inside on the south window.  Picked the last tomatoes too.  A few were at orange, so they might ripen.  For the others, I will look up "fried green tomatoes".

6.  Got out my 3 window box planters tonight.  I can get some fancy mesclun lettuce from them over the winter,  I have just enough potting soil left from last Spring to fill them.

7.  The lowering sun this time of year is now blasting my eyes through the kitchen window.  I found a tension rod to fit across the window and a valance to hang just low enough to prevent the glare as I make my lunch.  28 years and I'm finally getting around to doing that!  I had a choice of 2 valances.  One white lacey and one red.  I chose the red; white lace isn't quite my style.  Red doesn't fit the white wall and black appliance colors, but who cares.  The cats won't complain.  I've been considering having the kitchen tiled in various shades of 4" green and painting the rest of the kitchen celery.  Maybe I'll hang a little label on the red valance "annoying red dissonance".  LOL! 

Actually, I like red/green/black as a color scheme.  My living room is hunter green, the TV room (traditionally the dining room) is dark red, and all the other stuff is black except for the medium wood furniture.  Oh well, I never expected to be displayed in "House Beautiful".  I like what I like.

8.  Next indoor project is to arrange the planting area.  Everything since Spring has just been piled into the grow-light shelves.  Since growing season starts indoors here in 2 months, I better get started on that soon.  Or I'll need to do it fast the day I want to start planting.

Garden Enclosure, Again

Some projects just go WRONG.  And you don't realize until you are about half done.  I thought the major work would be to build the enclosure and tearing apart the old rotting frame beds would be easy.

I'm an idiot!  PPPPPPPTTTTT..............

I wish it was April again and I was just starting this.  I would do it SO differently! But I wanted to save all the good soil by moving it from the old beds to the new beds as I built them.  Seemed logical at the time, but Bad Decision.  Happens a lot.

I had a friend who decided to almost double the size of his house by having half of it demolished and then added to.  It went horribly!  He could have had the whole house demolished and rebuilt so much easier and at about the same cost faster.  Ruined a year of his life and cost me our friendship (I mentioned the renovator who built my toolshed and did some additions elsewhere). 

Don't EVER make major recommendations to friends...  He blamed me for the disaster and I wasn't sympathetic enough but that's another story (which I will tell someday soon).

But back to the garden.  I SHOULD have just busted out all the old framed beds from end to end last April, disposed of all the old wood, and spread the soil and used my rototiller to level the whole *#%@ area.  I didn't and I regret it now. 

Part of the problem is that my lot slopes from back to front and from the center to the sides.  Nothing is level here.  It isn't obvious by just looking, but even an 8' long bed is 4" higher at one end than the other.

I have 2 of the 6 beds built.  It was hard work.  I had the original beds because the soil in the last sunny areas is all rock and clay.  I should have remembered that when I planned to replace them. 

If I was starting the project again today, I would just take out all the existing rotting boards at the same time and roto-till the entire area to level it all at once.  Why not do that now?...

Because of a silly piece of twine.  It outlines the whole new enclosure area.  Silly, but I didn't want to undo the careful twine outline of the new bed.  I can be very talented and very stupid at the same time.  No laws prevent it..

But clearly, the way to go is to disassemble the 2 beds I built already (which in spite of my digging are unlevel and unsquare.  Save the wood.  Rototill the entire area and rake it flat as a pancake, THEN easily build the new framed beds on the leveled ground and add new soil.  

And THEN build the squirrel and groundhog proof chicken wire enclosure.  

My tomatoes MAY only cost me $10 each for several years...

I'm doing this because it is basically my "Last Hurrah" of gardening.  In a few years (I'm 64) I won't be able to take on this kind of project.  The new garden beds will basically last me my future years until I can't garden any more.  So it is to rebuild them now or never.

And I will do it myself, or there is no point to it.

Next Project

I haven't forgotten about the chicken wire garden enclosure, but I'm trying to find a rentable trencher machine to do the hard work.  Now rush now; its late in the garden season, so anything I built will be for next year.  And I've adjusted so  that I have some veggies growing in the flowerbed areas usually reserved for flowers. 

I'm calling it a semi-lost season.  I do have some nice tomatoes growing.

And I dug out an old flowerbed where nothing much was growing to plant cukes and flat italian beans.  I've stuck 4 bell peppers around too.  I'll get by this year.

But since I have to wait a week for the quote of the house air leakage job, I'm on to a new project that I can do fast.

The sunken patio has walls (duh, "sunken") but the lawn slopes sideways to it.  And the new deck posts are 3' beyond the patio walls.  Looks like a great place to plant shade-loving plants if I frame it so that it is leveled.

That's one reason I took pieces of "junk" deck wood aside.  There are 3' pieces of 2"x12" boards which can frame the lowest end and 2"x6" boards that will work the long ways.  Don't worry about the details, just accept it means I can box a sloped area with free leftovers.

And since the deer have discovered my front yard hostas (after almost 10 years) and eaten all the leaves, it is time to change them out for deer-resistant plants (and I have a perfect one - more below).  So where do the front yard hostas go?  Well, in the new framed area I am making, shaded by the deck of course!  Every problem has an elegant solution waiting to be discovered.

The front yard box will become Snow On The Mountain (a variegated 12" tall foliage groundcover that loves shade) and daffodils (neither of which deer eat).  The hostas will be moved to the back yard which has a 6' fence the local deer have never jumped over.

Pictures later as I assemble the framed bed and move the hostas.

Always try to do something useful every day...

Grafted Tomatoes Report

Complete Failure!  The idea I had read about was to graft heirloom tomato tops to hardier disease-resistant hybrid bottoms.  You cut a top and a bottom at an angle and use a flexible silicon tube/clip to hold them together while they join.  You keep them in a humidity container for a week or so to keep the tops hydrated until they are getting water and nutrients from the roots.

After a week, more than half the grafted tops had died.  After 2 weeks, I removed some of the clips, but the seemingly-healthy tops just fell off.  I had 5 left.  After 3 weeks, I went to transplant them and THOSE tops fell off.

Well, I'm sure most of that was my fault.  It is commonly done commercially and by home gardeners.  I know I waited too long to do the initial grafts.  The instruction said to do it "when there were 4 leaves" (the seedlings would be about 4" high).  Mine were 8" high with 8 leaves.

So I had to use the clips "wrong".  Think of an "8" (with a fatter bottom) with a slit cut through the top.  The top makes the clip part.  Squeeze the fat bottom of the "8" and it opens the top and you attach the 2 angle-cut tomato parts together.

Well, the clip part was too small by then but the fat round part was the right size, so I tried just putting the round part down over the rooted stem and then placing the cut heirloom top down in that.  I got them matched in size very well, put it didn't work.

I assume the seedling halves were too old to grow together properly.  Or the uncut round part constricted growth. 

I'll try again next year following the "4 leaves" instruction more carefully.  There are pictures of the initial grafting process HERE.

Fortunately, I made sure to plant enough seeds so that I had regular ungrafted heirlooms to plant out.  They are growing well and I have at least a dozen fruits among the 6 plants so far.  But the disease problems usually start in August, so we'll see if I get many ripe tomatoes.

Garden Renovation

Wow, it's been a week since I last posted...

I started renovating the garden area in April and found really hard work there.  I had put down various layers of weed-blocking material over the years, and they got covered with dirt.  LOTS of dirt!  Vining weeds grew among them and tree roots from the neighbor's' trees got in there too.

Pulling and cutting them all up was HORRIBLE!  It all falls into the "I can't believe I thought that was a good idea at the time" category!  I pulled the stuff up by brute strength mere inches at a time.  I shoved a 6' breaker bar under it all and pried it loose.  I cut it into manageable chunks with a curved rug-cutting knife and a razor knife.

I estimate it took 40 hours of hard frustrating work.  And it's not complete YET.  But is IS cut and removed for the area I want to rebuild framed beds with a chicken wire enclosure to keep the evil squirrels out.

I'm 64.  I can't do the hard work like I could when I was 35.  I had to do all of it 1 hour work, 1 hour rest inside and drinking gatorade to replenish.

But I finished it...

A few days ago, I hooked up a small yard cart (about 2.5 feet by 4 feet) to my riding lawn mower and started heaving the heavy sodden pieces of underlays into the trailer.  Then I drove my mower to the front yard and heaved those pieces into the 5'x8' hauling trailer.  It damn near killed me.  Then I drove the hauling trailer to the landfill, along with other junk and regular trash I have collected.  And hauled it all off again.  That means I had to handle each damn piece of underlay 4 times. 

Fortunately, I designed my hauling trailer so that I can remove the back and just drag all the junk off the back end.  And pulling the junk DOWN is going to be  LOT easier than lifting it UP.

The rest of the work is moving good garden soil from the existing (falling-apart) beds, breaking the old frames apart (and removing the old wood), leveling the new surface, building new beds, and moving the good garden soil to the new beds.

And even THAT won't be straight-forward work.  Since I'm rebuilding where the existing beds are (only place in my yard with half-decent sunlight), I have to do it in stages.  My old beds were small 8'x3' framed beds; the new ones will be 16'x4' (more space efficient because there is less wasteful path-space between them).  I will more than double my planting area in the same overall space.

I've moved enough existing soil and old frames to built the first new 16'x3' bed.  Then I will empty the existing beds soil into that.  Then I can tear THAT old wood apart and level THAT space and built the 2nd new framed 16'x3' bed. And THEN finally tear the old frames apart for the 3rd new framed bed...

WHEW!  And because the new beds will require more soil than the old ones, I'll only be filling each 1/2 way with existing soil.  So I'll be hauling in compost to mix in and fill the new ones. 

The good news is that the soil I've already dug up and piled onto other beds is now loose and easy to move.  The old soil had vine and tree roots in it and was Hard-As-Hell to dig into and move and I also had to spend time pulling the roots out of the soil lest they grow new Evil Plants.

My main gardening is not going to happen this year.  By the time I finish this rebuilding project, it will be too late to even plant crops for Fall harvest.  Fortunately, I took some space from my annual flowerbed to plant heirloom tomatoes, flat italian beans, and seedless cucumbers.  And I have bicolor corn, fingerling potatoes, and leeks growing in large containers.  Those are my favorite crops, as they are either expensive or difficult to find in local grocery stores.

Some pictures...

Prying up the old carpet.  Note the black plastic below that.  And there was synthetic (unrottable) "burlap" below that.

Had to pry it loose from below and the sides.

One of MANY piles of heavy pieces of cut carpet.  The pieces are deceptively heavy.

The lost herb bed.  I finally just dug it all up.  I'll start a new herb bed,

A 4" diameter tree trunk I had to dig out.  With axe, shovel, and pry-bar.

The first area cleared of soil, vines, unwanted tree saplings, and old frame wood.

A corn-planting container.  I have 3.  It's a month-old picture.  The 8 corns are 6" high, and I've planted leeks in between the corn .

I won't have a "normal" garden this year, but I'll get by.  Next year, I'll have a fine new enclosed garden the damn squirrels, rabbits, and groundhogs can't get into!

Grafting Tomatoes

I'd been hesitating about trying this grafting of heirloom tomato tops onto hybrid roots.  The benefits seem genuine (vigorous and disease-resistant roots growing complexly-flavorful heirloom tomatoes).  But it seemed complicated.  Growing rootstock and heirloom tomatoes so the stem sizes matched, cutting both the stems so that the cuts matched, fastening a small soft silicon clip to hold the pieces together, creating an enclosed humidified recovery, etc.

I knew I wanted to try it, but I don't have "soft steady hands" and some of the humidifying arrangements I saw on the internet seemed elaborate, but I thought about it all for a while.

Well, it was certainly easy enough to plant enough hybrid and heirloom tomatoes for both grafting AND backups in case all the grafts failed.  I found the silicon clips at several sites and ordered some a month ago. I had stumbled across a 4-shelf plant stand with a zippered plastic enclosure for keeping plants warm outside and I realized that it was a fine humidifier device if I filled the lower 3 shelves with pans of water (later).

I had a razor Exacto knife) for cutting the stems.  I even had a 4" piece of wood cut at a 45 degree angle left over from the trailer work!  My goodness, I had everything I needed!

So with the trailer work complete and it being a rainy day, I collected everything on the basement workbench (and after some thought through the procedures, brought a few things upstairs to a table with good light).

It seemed to me the pattern was to transplant the hybrid rootstocks from little 6-packs to individual 3" pots to allow root growth, bring them all upstairs with the silicon clips and razor blade, fill the lower plant stand shelves with pans of water, and then make sure I had enough labels for all the new grafted heirloom tops.

That's when I realized I had made a serious mistake.  I hadn't examined the silicon clips carefully when the y arrived.  They are an "8" shape, but with one"o" larger than the other (like a snowman bottom and a snowman head).  I had assumed the larger "o" was for the tomato stems.  NOPE!  The clipping part was the small "o", and about as thin as pencil lead.  I should have done the grafting when the tomato seedlings were about 3" high, not 9"!

So I tried something creative and resourceful.  I used the larger "O" part!  I eyeballed the spot on the rootstocks where the stem size matched the "O" and cut a 45 degree angle above that.

Then fit the silicon clip ofer the cut stem and slid it down to where it was snug.  Made a new cut just above that.  Then I eyeballed the heirloom tops ("scions") and cut below that to be careful.

Testing the fit, I cut the scion stem narrower until it "just" fit into the "O" and matched the angles snugly.

I hope that all makes sense.  I used the silicon clips to measure the matching stem diameter and set them together at the matching angled cuts.

To make sure I didn't confuse the heirloom tops, I only brought one variety upstairs at a time , and made sure I had enough (and only enough) variety labels for each.  Because when you cut off the tops of the rootstock tomatoes and the tops of the heirloom tomatoes, they sure look a lot the same!

The other surprise was how FAST the grafted heirloom tops just wilted!

I did not realize how FAST plants transpire.  In just 15 minutes, the first grafted tops had wilted right over like cooked lettuce!  The enclosed humidity and darkness of the recovery chamber is supposed to help with that.  I I think I will also spray the tops several times per day.  The tomato grafting sites say the grafts need about a week of darkness along with the humidity, so after I zippered the plastic cover, I tossed a sheet over the whole stand.

Wish me luck!

And the first concern is resolved.  The enclosed stand with the pans of water on the other shelves caused the plastic cover to fog up within just 2 hours.  So the humidity is high.  And below the stand is a thick towel on a sheet of plastic so the drip won't damage the wood floor.  I may not think of everything in a new project, but I sure try!

I'll have some idea about the success in a few days.  If the grafted tops  are more erect in a few days, it means they are receiving moisture from the roots and the graft is healing.  If I recall enough from high school botany, the zylem and floem (one sends nutrients up and the other down) will be working and the connection between rootstock and scion top will be solid.

And if they fail?  Well, I have enough heirloom seedling and 2 Big Beef hybrids for the standard plantings of past years.  I'm no worse off.

But my big surprise is that it seems a lot easier that I feared.   It just took trying it to do it.

Gardening 2

Well, it was my favorite weekend of the years last weekend.  Its the day I start seeds of some of my favorite crops.  8 weeks before average last frost day...

It was TOMATO DAY!  And bell pepper, broccoli, cabbage, radicchio, celery, and "some other stuff" day.

I love fresh heirloom tomatoes above all individual foods.  Right from vine to mouth, sides on the dinnerplate, in salads, as snacks.

But the last few years, my heirloom tomatoes have not produced well (even for heirloom tomatoes) in spite of good care.  So when I read about grafting heirloom tomato stalks on disease-resistant hybrid roots, I got interested.  Well, almost all grapes grown for wine are grafted on disease-resistant roots, s why not tomatoes?

I planted 2x my normal number of heirlooms (Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Prudens Purple, Aunt Gertie's Gold, and Striped German) and as many of the hybrid Big Beef to use as hybrid roots (plus 4 to grow for themselves as backups).

The idea is that you cut the tops off the heirlooms and the hybrids and attach the heirloom tops to the hybrid roots.  I bought small silicon clips to hold the 2 together.  It may be tricky to do (I have shakey hands from teenage DDT exposure), but I will give it my best try.  And I've planted enough of the heirlooms so that, if the grafts fail, I will have enough regular heirloom plants for the garden.

I will take LOTS of pictures so that I can look back on the points of success or failure.

There is good news on the previous weekend flower plantings.  There are SEEDLINGS showing!  That is encouraging, because the seed packets said "germination in 7-21 days" and I'm seeing some at 7 days.

I bought a mini greenhouse today.  And I mean "mini-mini".  Its a steel frame with metal mesh shelves and a vinyl cover with zippers that allow you to adjust how closed/open the cover is.  Its for hardening off plants outside before permanent planting, a transition I have always had difficulties with.  It's kind of simplistic, but at $30, worth a try.  I found it at Lowes.

The other gandenng project I keep working on is an enclosed garden surrounded by chicken wire to keep the squirrels from tearing up the seedlings and eating the ripe veggies. I made a fast and crude attempt last year and it "sort of worked".  But not well enough and it was a real effort to harvest anything through the barriers.

I looked up "enclosed gardens", and found a decent design.  But it was small and had flaws.  I've been thinking of improvements.  Thinking of improvements even in my dreams at night...

I think I have something easier to construct, easier to build larger, and sturdier.  I won't give out all the details right now (they are changing daily), but basically, its a 20'x20' grid of 1/2" metal pipe built of 10' pipes and connectors, covered all around with chicken wire and chicken wire extended out from the bottom at ground level about 3' to discourage animals from tunneling under.

I'll show pictures when I settle on the design.

I will have a busy early Spring to deconstruct my existing framed beds in early April (falling apart after 25 years) before the planting season starts in late April.  But it is either then or not and I want to have a garden free of the evil squirrels.

First Seeds Of The New Gardening Season

I am glad to say the new gardening season is underway.  Well, I suppose you could say it started when I ordered new seeds, but it doesn't really count until a seed meets dirt!  I started on Sunday.

Does it seem a bit early?  Yes.  But many annual flowers can be planted indoors 10-12 weeks before the average last frost because they are slow to germinate (7-21 days) and grow slowly at first.  And in fact, Sunday was 9 weeks before average last frost, so I am late.  So I planted impatiens, salvia, dusty miller, butterfly weed, forget-me-not, and wave petunia.  I also planted a dozen leeks, so the veggies are started too.

I love the lighting stand I made from a storage shelf.  It originally had five 2'x4' thin plastic-coated wood shelves on a steel frame.  I added 1/2" plywood under the top 4 shelves and attached 4' fluorescent fixtures under each plywood shelf (4 tubes per shelf).  I can fit four 11"x22" planting trays on each shelf if I want, but I start the trays 2 to a shelf lengthwise to get the maximum light at the start.

It felt SO GOOD to get into the potting soil and fill the cell-packs, read the planting requirements for each seed, and PLANT THEM!  The earliest seeds to plant are usually the trickiest.  Those are the ones that are tiny, need light to germinate, and are fussy about moisture.  

Things will  be more traditional this next weekend.  -8 weeks before last average frost is the time to start the major veggies.  Tomatoes, bell peppers, broccoli, lettuces, will get planted.  The tomatoes are always my favorites.

I'm trying something new with the tomatoes this year.  In past years, I've grown mostly heirlooms (Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Prudens Purple, Aunt Gertie's Gold, and Tennessee Britches) with a couple hybrids like Big Beef for backup if the heirlooms do poorly.  Over the Winter, I read about tomato-grafting.  It's just like grafting grapevines; you put a good fruiting top on a healthier rootstock.

With the tomatoes, you put an heirloom top on a hybrid root. 


The plants are more productive because the hybrid rootstock is larger, and the plants avoid many soilborne diseases because the hybrid rootstocks are resistant to them.  I've seen comparison pictures of heirlooms alone grown along side of grafted heirlooms and the apparent production differences are impressive.  And I mean pictures from agricultural sites, not scammy commercial advertisements.

You can buy the grafted plants from catalogs at high prices, but I am going to try doing the grafting myself.  I bought some small soft clips designed for attaching the heirloom tops to the hybrid roots.  I just hope I'm adept enough for the effort.  I don't have the steadiest of hands (DDT exposure in my youth), so my efforts may not work out.

That's why I will have 2 full sets of tomato seedlings!  One set will be let to develop naturally, as if there was no grafting intended.  The other set will be for the grafting experiment.  I usually plant 2-3 of each type of tomato outside but start 6 seedlings inside of each type anyway, so I don't even have to plant more than usual.

If this works I may be the happiest gardener in the county (just guessing I'm the only person trying to graft tomato seedlings in the county the first time this year). 

Busy Day

I got the 6th Evil Squirrel today.  I thought there were 5, but I saw signs from a 6th and I caught it.

I feel sorry for the poor things.  I know they just want to eat and live.  Drowning them seems cruel (but takes only 20 seconds and they are mostly just confused)..  So I considered the options in their lives.  It's not like squirrels often die of old age:

1.  Grabbed by hawk talons for several minutes and then get ripped apart while still alive.
2.  Same with owls...
3.  Hit by cars and die of injuries slowly on the side of the road.
4.  Starve to death slowly.
5.  Freeze to death in very cold winters.
6.  Grabbed by dogs and shaken into oblivion after terrible bites.
7.  Poisoned or snap-trapped by liscenced people getting them out of attics.
8.  Pecked to death by crows.

There are probably others I can't think of but it doesn't really matter.  There is (was) this group of squirrels that destroyed most of my garden and I think I got the last one (the trap will remain set until no squirrels attack my vegetable plants).

After reducing (hopefully eliminating) the East Grove Gang who had, as a group, learned to attack gardens, I have had 12 heirloom tomatoes harvested ripe and there are 12 more getting there.  Last year, with the East Grove Gang undisturbed, I got 2 tomatoes the whole year. 

It is good to be at the top of the food chain.

On the gaming front, I had stayed away from Risk for a week.  But tonight I joined a game of 5 players, 2 outpointing me by WAY LOTS.  I won.  I was shocked because I don't generally do well in multiplayer games and especially I don't do well against VERY more experienced players.  But some games just go well.  I played carefully.  I played well.  I attacked when it was best to attack and I defended my borders well. 

And Oh my goodness, Ayla has been playin fetch with the old worn-out "softy-mouse" she loves so much.  She has brought it back to me a dozen times as I type.  Its SO old.  There is nothing of the nip in it and it is nothing but the original cloth body.  But she loves it so much.

I think I will just spend the next couple hours tossing it to her until she gets tired of it.  Ayla doesn't love many toys, mostly plastic milk rings.  But as long as she wants to grab softy-mouse, I will toss it to her.

It was a Good Day!

Evil Squirrels

I caught the 4th of maybe 5 squirrels who had learned to steal from the garden.  If there is a 5th, I'll get it in a week.  My tomatoes are just ripening.  I hope there is only 4.  I don't ENJOY this.

OK Squirrels, Game ON!

I've had it with the squirrels pulling up my romano bean seeds, cucumbers, and corn.  I LOVE those flat Italian beans and they are harder to find fresh than Giraffes at the North Pole.  So after the squirrels pulled up most of the bean seeds again a 3rd time, I decided, as Bugs Bunny used to say "This Means War".

I went to the local hardware store and bought 50' of 3' wide chicken wire (aka "poultry netting").  I cut two pieces of it 20' long.  It loves the way it is rolled up so I manually bent it flat and that took some effort.  Then I made a tent of the two pieces along the trellis to shield my seedlings and the newly-planted new seeds.

"But", I hear you say, "they will find a way in".  I'm EXPECTING that!  Where they find a way in, THAT'S where I will cut a small opening and set the live-trap to just fit.   And then I'll drop the live-trap in a trash can of water and drown the little %$@*#s ...  And then I'll feed them to the cats!

Bwa-ha-ha-ha...

But seriously, for 20 years the squirrels and I mostly lived in peace.  I put 2 baffles on the pole where I put sunflowers seeds for the birds and they can't get at the feeder.  They were welcome to the seeds that the birds spill on the ground. 

A few years ago, some squirrels in one tree grove started taking all the apples.  I didn't mind that much because I never sprayed the apples and insects ruined them.  Besides, it was funny watching them running along the top of the fence with apples in their mouths. 

But then 2 years ago they started taking my tomatoes.  I don't grow heirloom tomatoes for squirrrels...  There are few enough fruits on an heirloom tomato as it is.  Last year, I only got 2 ripe tomatoes from 8 plants.

This year they started pulling up the corn and bean seedlings for the tiny remnant of the planted seeds.  I WILL have a garden.  If I have to completely redesign the garden so that it can be enclosed with 1" mesh chicken wire and I have to pollinate the plants manually, I will do that!  But killing those few squirrels who have learned to take my fruits and seedlings will (I hope) be easier.  And I will not stay up nights unsleeping worrying about a few drowned squirrels...

Planting Tomatoes

For years, I have pushed the tomato-planting season using  things to keep them warm in mid April.  The past several years I've gotten a poor harvest.  So this year, I decided to wait until the nighttime low temps were above 50F.  Tomatoes don't like temps under 50F and can die at 45F.  So I watched the 10 day forecast after the average last frost date of April 21 (around here).  There was one night at the end of April under 50F so I waitedMay 1st, the 10 day forecast said none under 50F, so I planted 4 next to the house (well, its warmer there).

Then the 10 day forecast said there would be 1 night below 50F so I waited until after that to plant the tomatoes in the far garden.  Just a couple days, may as well wait.  When that cool night was passed, I looked at the 10 day forecast again, and AGAIN there was a 40's F night in 2 days.  So I waited again.

Now there are 41/42F nights forecast for Sunday and Monday night!  So now I have to wait til Tuesday to plant the rest of the tomatoes (and peppers and cucumbers and other warm weather crops).  This is really setting the season back a bit.

It has not been this low in the nights that I can recall at this late date.  It's global warming.  Yes, you read that right.  Global warming means that, as the Earth heats up, weather becomes more unsettled and random.  Eath heat sends the weather off in more random extremes.  So don't listen to some ideological or scientifically-illiterate politician tell you that global warming isn't true just becuae YOUR local weather has been cooler.  Global warming does not mean "local warming all the time every day". 

Speaking of good forecasting, yesterday, The Weather Channel website hourly forecast said "local thinderstorms about 9:15 pm tonight.  At 9:15 pm I heard a first distant thunder! 

I'll wait 2 more days to plant the rest of the tomatoes, but I will sure check the forecast to decide if I need to cover them for a little more warmth!!!

This year, I really want to try the "wait til its warm" planting idea. 

I DID get a lot of weeding around the flowerbeds done today. A third.  If that doesn't sound like much, it was a space 25' x 8 feet, among existing flowers.  You have to walk very carefully among them to weed.