little bounty from the garden

[Plymouthy Adams]

I bought a long while back a .17 HMR figuring it to be a good caliber rifle for small varmint.  Sadly I have yet to shoot the dang thing.  But yeah, ground hog is a rather tough little varmint and I prefer if you got to get rid of the little fellow, end him quick with little suffering.  I can only pull the trigger on a squirrel or armadillo right now....these guys are my most destructive yard invaders.   I have shot armadillo with .357 magnum defensive loads only to have the run some 75 feet before falling over.  Thinking I just nicked the animal, rolled him over, the entire chest cavity was missing exiting the backside....these critters are tough with just a body shot.  22 in the head, drop dead kill shot.  I do not relish shooting them nor do I like stepping into a burrow at the edge of my shrubs. 

[Dan Hiebert]

Red squirrels up here are the bane of buildings and vehicles, and they're annoying little buggers when trying to take a peaceful walk.  If they keep to themselves, I leave them alone, as soon as they point themselves at our house or shop, their days are numbered.  I've got one of those Gamo high velocity pellet rifles that works wonders, not quite a nail driver, but I think that's more me than the rifle.  So far, nothing bigger than those little red rats with fluffy tails that I've had to deal with, I've got the armaments to deal with bigger critters but haven't needed it.  Everything else just seems to sashay through, usually only leaving poop.  Previous owner of our house had a problem with porcupines munching on the shop siding, so I keep an extra sharp eye out for them, just one juvenile that wandered through many years ago...so far.  I've heard they can be pretty rugged and hard to kill, too.    

[Eneto-55]

I don't like killing animals, but will if I have to. First two groundhogs I stabbed to death. First one was a pretty quick death, but not the second, and I didn't like how it suffered.  So now I drown them. Takes about two minutes. If I had a gun that worked well, I'd shoot them in the head, but I can't fire a gun here in town anyway.  No more in the live trap for quite a long time now.  Garden is doing well again. The cucumber vines actually came back, even though the critters had eaten off ALL of the leaves. I think some of the groundhogs are still around, because no one here in the neighborhood has gotten an adult groundhog - just the young ones.  But I haven't seen any of them for quite a long time now.  We DID first try to discourage them from sticking around here in town, but that didn't work.

 

Yesterday had an old possum in the trap. He or she was really calm - let it go again. Just stay out of the trap.

[Plymouthy Adams]

If the animal is not destroying anything he is usually not disturbed.  I seem to have at least one family of bunnies on the place annually and they do no harm to plants and flowers.  I protect all my lizards and frogs from predators shooing away feral and wandering cats.  If the snakes are not rattlers or copperheads they get free reign also.  Possums come and go, get an occasional owl hunting mice/moles near the security lights.    My only real issues are the squirrels who by the way carted off tons of pears, peaches, apples and such.  I will not get the first pear this year and it was loaded with fruit.   Second the stray armadillo, filled a burrow just last week in the east orchard if they did not dig deep holes would give them free passage but they like homesteading.  Third problem is the stray cats who like to stalk the birds at the fountain.  Had a young bald eagle while back swoop a squirrel out of the west orchard, amazed at seeing this majestic bird in my yard......I would build him a tree condo if he would stick around and continue the round up.  I hate deer with a passion, but I also will not shoot them though it would benefit society at large, they are usually way from the house in the east or west orchards....the deer are/can be a destructive beast which I have no real problem on the property, but secondly, they are an accident waiting to happen on the highways and a risk to all.  The farms and fields of the smaller farmer now gone to seed and overgrown afford them coverage and they have exploded in population.  Wild pigs are everywhere but they seem to like following the streams.  

 

 

[Eneto-55]

8 hours ago, Plymouthy Adams said:

....

 Wild pigs are everywhere but they seem to like following the streams.  

 

Are they feral pigs (from formerly domesticated stock), or peccaries?  We had two species of peccaries down in our area of the Amazon - good eating, especially the Collared Peccary.  The White-lipped Peccary is a bit on the tough side. (They are nomadic, and travel in huge herds, while the Collard Peccary live in small family groups, in an established home territory.)

[Plymouthy Adams]

these are feral, domestic mixed with Russian I believe.....they are not what you really call aggressive but then I have never tried to corner one either.....perhaps some here have seen the Nat'l Geo documentary on the PIG BOMB in the Abbeville GA not that far from here.   These you can shoot night or day 24/7.  They can devastate a farm field in one night...lol  Some times when sitting out by the fire pit on the patio I can hear the hogs in the woods off from my west orchard and the coyotes to the east just across the rail road track.  

Edited August 4 by Plymouthy Adams

[Los_Control]

Here in Texas they are called wild Hogs ..... Like deer they live in the brush and come out at night to eat and destroy crops.

 

Farmers actually put up feeding stations for them ..... then thin the herd when it is time.

They do not destroy them .... they just keep a few around then shoot a few for meat .... they actually spend hundreds of $$ every year to feed them, just so they do not destroy the crops the ranchers are growing.

 

Then when the herd of deer or Hogs gets too big, they are put in the freezer.

Same time when I drive to town, the road side is filled with dead hogs or deer because they come out at night. and get hit.

 

My buddy had a newer chebby truck almost paid for .... hit a hog and blew every airbag in the truck .... they totaled the truck .... not worth fixing.

Now he has a GMC and 5 more years of payments.

 

Down here we do not ask what kind of wild hog it is .... same with deer ......  some ranchers sell hunting privileges and drive the hunters to the sight.

54 minutes ago, Eneto-55 said:

Are they feral pigs (from formerly domesticated stock), or peccaries?  We had two species of peccaries down in our area of the Amazon - good eating, especially the Collared Peccary.  The White-lipped Peccary is a bit on the tough side. (They are nomadic, and travel in huge herds, while the Collard Peccary live in small family groups, in an established home territory.)

Just saying, down here they are a nusense  and treated as such.

[Eneto-55]

I didn't go hunting down there in the Amazon, so I only saw wild peccaries once.  I was on my way back home, after walking 9 hours to give a sick man a shot.  The Indian man I was traveling back with heard them up ahead, off the side of the trail, and went on ahead & shot one.  The others just kept on feeding - didn't run off. This was so far from the village that the men never went that far to hunt.  He motioned for me to come on, and we watched them for awhile before they spooked and ran off.  If we had been closer to the village, he would have shot a second one, but it was too far to carry two, and my knees were shot from walking through the flooded trails, and climbing over fallen trees.  It took another 5 hours before we got back to the village that evening. I was walking with two sticks by then, to keep from falling. Took some days before I could walk w/o a stick, but the sick guy got well.  I wish I would have had a tracking device that would map our route, because it would have been interesting to see on a map of the area.

[Veemoney]

Despite some vegetarians invading during the night hours, I am managing to harvest some produce for human consumption.

 

 

[Plymouthy Adams]

you could have had a good chunk of venison to go with all that....keep the raccoon....they useless...!   I am not sure of the results but have replanted a few of my garden containers for what I hope may be a second harvest.  First I tried this....will see how that goes.  

[Sniper]

When I was a kid I took three shots with my BB gun at a badger before it finally saw where I was hiding and that's when I found out they were all teeth and Claws and I ran like hell. I haven't messed with a badger since.

[Eneto-55]

Number 5 today (groundhogs). Third one that "took a final bath".  Still haven't caught any of the "big ones", but the little ones are sure getting big fast!  They are raiding the tomato patch now. Nice big almost perfectly ripe tomato. Ate one side of it, and then left the rest.

[Dan Hiebert]

Our gardening is doing quite well this year, really good weather this season for growing everything.  By July I'm usually down to needing to mow once every two weeks or so, this year I'm still mowing every week.  Slightly annoying, but the yard sure looks nice.  We can hardly keep up with the cherry tomatoes and jalapenos.  For some reason we have good flavor in the jalapenos, but they aren't very spicy.  I'd say it's a soil issue, but this is the first year we've grown dull ones here.  More likely we got "bad" seeds, which is a funny notion, since they're beautiful plants, just no kick in the peppers.  A matter of perspective, I guess.  No apples this year, though.  We have 10 trees and not a one even bloomed this year, the ancient orchard on the adjoining property barely even bloomed.  The regular orchards in the State are supposed to do well, though.  I'm mildly surprised we aren't having critter issues worth noting, so far.  Even the red squirrels are minding their own business, just fussing at us when I take the dog into their turf.  

[Eneto-55]

6 hours ago, Dan Hiebert said:

Our gardening is doing quite well this year, really good weather this season for growing everything.  By July I'm usually down to needing to mow once every two weeks or so, this year I'm still mowing every week.  Slightly annoying, but the yard sure looks nice.  We can hardly keep up with the cherry tomatoes and jalapenos.  For some reason we have good flavor in the jalapenos, but they aren't very spicy.  I'd say it's a soil issue, but this is the first year we've grown dull ones here.  More likely we got "bad" seeds, which is a funny notion, since they're beautiful plants, just no kick in the peppers.  A matter of perspective, I guess.  No apples this year, though.  We have 10 trees and not a one even bloomed this year, the ancient orchard on the adjoining property barely even bloomed.  The regular orchards in the State are supposed to do well, though.  I'm mildly surprised we aren't having critter issues worth noting, so far.  Even the red squirrels are minding their own business, just fussing at us when I take the dog into their turf.  

I have noticed that onions are really hot if the weather has been really dry. (Hottest onions ever were from my grandma's farm north of Enid, OK, back in around 73. My grandpa had passed away the winter before, and I was out there helping with after-harvest farming chores. It was so dry that year that Grandma finally told me to just leave the potatoes in the ground. I was digging them with a hammer and chisel. They were all misshapen, having grown in any direction where they found a crack in the ground.) 

 

We no longer have jalapenos in our garden. I started it all years ago by planting some my wife was throwing away, then our oldest son kept it going. Still lots of pickled ones in the basement. But he got his own place a year or so back, so he's not doing gardening here anymore. I would expect that the extra rain this year in your area is the reason for the mild peppers.

[Dan Hiebert]

17 hours ago, Eneto-55 said:

I would expect that the extra rain this year in your area is the reason for the mild peppers.

Could have something to do with it, we've actually had normal rainfall this year...which may have indeed been the perfect conditions for mild peppers.  What we have also had this year are consistent temperatures, it's been in the 70's and 80's during the day and 50's and 60's at night all summer, and I think it got to 90 once, for maybe five or ten minutes.  I know the media was forecasting "unheard of" and "record temperatures" for Maine a few weeks ago, but that was all heat index, not true temps, and didn't come to pass.  Temps the last few summers were all over the place.  I'm sure there's some agricultural science to it, but it doesn't keep us up at night.  Come to think of it, my stomach is rather thankful for the mild peppers this year.  

[Eneto-55]

2 hours ago, Dan Hiebert said:

Could have something to do with it, we've actually had normal rainfall this year...which may have indeed been the perfect conditions for mild peppers.  What we have also had this year are consistent temperatures, it's been in the 70's and 80's during the day and 50's and 60's at night all summer, and I think it got to 90 once, for maybe five or ten minutes.  I know the media was forecasting "unheard of" and "record temperatures" for Maine a few weeks ago, but that was all heat index, not true temps, and didn't come to pass.  Temps the last few summers were all over the place.  I'm sure there's some agricultural science to it, but it doesn't keep us up at night.  Come to think of it, my stomach is rather thankful for the mild peppers this year.  

I've kinda' laid off of the really spicy stuff lately as well.  But I tend somewhat toward diarrhea, and nothing cures it as well as eating a few slices of pickled jalapinos. Stops it in its tracks. (If I eat too much of them, then I get constipated.)

[Plymouthy Adams]

I have been growing the larger sweet onions for a couple years now and they are sweet and no heat and grow to an decent size bulb.....you can eat them like an apple.  I have no scientific data as to why no heat but I got a good theory.  When I plant I cut in some new top soil, it is mainly composted oak chips.....if this is prime for the result I get, I cannot prove, but they do well in this mix....so will continue the process.   This year I cut in a lot of horse manure into my buckets and left to further decompose for spring planting, results were very noticeable.  I will do that again this winter.  Sad part is I get zero pollination for squash and zucchini.   My pollinators are mainly carpenter bees....big commercial farming of cotton, soy, peanuts and such the chemicals constantly used is killing our pollinators.  This year the surround fields were planted with watermelons....they rented bee supers for pollination, I benefitted from that this year.  

[Veemoney]

The very next morning after my last post an adult and young deer ran from the garden when I startled them. The trimmed the tops off the beets and pepper plants. Some of the beets were ripped out of the ground so some fence is planned for next year. There are 4 racoons in the earlier picture but you have to look hard and they like to pick and taste as they make their way through. No ground hogs this year so far, they can really do some damage.

 

I have a lot of ash from burning the last 10 years or so where I planted this year and used to till in horse of goat manure prior to that. Always seemed to help. Tomatoes seem to like the ash and are growing and producing better than I remember. Will add some manure this fall to keep it going.

 

I have an unidentified growing object (UGO) that I'm trying to figure out. I planted summer and zucchini squash along with acorn, buttercup and butternut squash. I have a plant producing zucchini type markings that are turning orange and pumpkin shaped and eventually almost all orange.  I did plant watermelon next to the squash, but they look normal. Any ideas appreciated. I guess in the end I will cut it and see what the flesh looks like.

 

 

 

 

Some of the Spring bounty I handpicked from the big water garden braving the wind and cold this year. Bounty is bounty