Thoughts on vegetable gardens during these crazy times.

[CAJUNLAWYER]

If you ask you can pick all the grapefruit and oranges you want! I can't eat them all.
Try to steal one and I will make Clint Eastwood look like Jimmy Stewart!

 

[Mule Packer]

Ok, ok, just how far in miles is "just 1 1/2 hours away?"

Oh....his place is only 108 miles from mine. Not too bad. It takes me about 20 minutes to hit a major highway, then it's practically smooth sailin' all the way to Matt's house.

 

[Ole Joe Clark]

Oh....his place is only 108 miles from mine. Not too bad. It takes me about 20 minutes to hit a major highway, then it's practically smooth sailin' all the way to Matt's house.

Sounds about right for here also, except if you get on the big road, (interstate), you hit a large town in either direction, and the traffic is horrible. If you stay on the farm to market and state highways the drive is much more pleasant, but you can't make good time.

Have a blessed day,

Leon

 

[tops]

I put out apples last fall a month before deer season. The second night and every night after that coyotes would come in and eat apples. I don't know how many were in the group but several times I saw four at one time on the camera. When the apples were gone I used shelled corn and didn't see any more coyotes. Larry

 

[BearBio]

Don't get me started. My MS Thesis was how bears adapted to living on the edge of urban areas, including diet!

 

[Stevens]

Coyotes around here love to pull corn ears off the stalk and eat it, not to mention snatching small dogs.
Steve W

 

[carpriver]

we grow a small raised garden, mostly herb and veggie, we are doing battle with a chip monk, he planted sun flower seeds last fall, the seeds are now sprouting and he likes to dig up the sprouts and disturbs the other chops, I am about to bring the air blaster to bring and end to his negative behavior. I grew up on or near a farm, there was always a truck garden, raised food for the winter and to take to the farmers market, along with fresh butter and eggs. My family gave a lot to folk they knew that were having a hard time. Dad and grandpa did truck with those that helped themselves during the night.

 

[memtb]

We're about 3 weeks late getting ours planted! I wanted to finish the 8' chain link fence around, and redo the sprinkler system. So many other projects partially completed, they interfered with the garden completion. Hope to get the 50'x100' planted tomorrow! With our location, not worried about human issues. And the fence eliminated animal issues! memtb

 

[steelslaver]

Ok, ok, just how far in miles is "just 1 1/2 hours away?" In Alabama, (where we live and both of us were born and raised), we have 67 counties. They are approximately 30 miles from one side to the other.

Have a blessed day,
Leon

Montana only has 56 counties. It is almost 3 times the size of Alabama. 52,400sq miles vs 147,000sq miles and a bunch of mountains. Beaverhead county has 5,572 square miles. !7 of them have 3,000sq miles or more. The smallest has 718 sq miles (about 27x27) We mostly talk in miles not hours. But, most people move along at over 70 unless they are on the interstate where the limit is 80 and most are doing well over. It was a sad day when we got a speed limit.

The nearest actual city to me is 107 miles west and like mtgianni says, I figure it will take me an hour and a half to get there all on 2 lane roads, no stop signs. Billings, the largest city in the state with a bit over 100,00 is 125 miles to the SE and It don't take me 2 hours to get there, Once again all 2 lane roads. I set my cruise on about 75 and steer. Have to stop for the sign and turn at Grass range (pop 150) then I have to slow down again and make a right in the middle of Roundup (less than 2,000) Saturday I went to a BBQ 30 miles the other side of Billings, came home that evening. Sunday I went 107 miles to Great Falls and came home that afternoon. Most people around here think of 150 miles one way as a "short trip"

Our garden has a 6' high mesh fence around it with another 2 wires above the 6' mesh. Our garden raiders have hooves. We just got done putting plants outside last week. I have a 10x 12 green house to start stuff in. Raiding a garden around here might be hazardous to ones health. Most places go a shotgun, 22 and/or rifle by the back door ready for most any "varmit"

 

[two-bit cowboy]

I've been a flower gardener since Mom taught me how to raise beautiful plants and keep the weeds out when I was a kid. Still use the 64-year-old shovel and rake Mom bought back then.

This year my Lady taught me about veggie gardening. Luckily we've had a gorgeous May so everything has been in the ground for two weeks. We normally wouldn't be able to plant the tender stuff for another week, I hear.

It's been great fun watching all the seeds come up, and we should get our first peppers and tomatoes by the Fourth of July. I built a 6'6" deer fence so we get the stuff -- hoping it works.

For perspective, five New England states would fit in my county.

We'll take a 75-mile drive today for lunch in the mountain town of Dubois.

 

[jag312]

I put out apples last fall a month before deer season. The second night and every night after that coyotes would come in and eat apples. I don't know how many were in the group but several times I saw four at one time on the camera. When the apples were gone I used shelled corn and didn't see any more coyotes. Larry

I planted some apple trees just a few months ago. Gala, Fuji, and Honey Crisp. I sure hope the coyotes don't come for my apples in the future. I have been told that bears like peaches. In the Western foothills of the Carson Valley I have heard that bears will climb up peach trees to get the peaches.


I did see pieces of a rabbit in my horse's corral. I doubt that my horse has turned rabbit killer. I think a coyote was in the corral and caught the rabbit.

All this is a minor annoyance compared to living in a city.

 

[flagman1776]

The wife always starts seeds in the living room on a table in front of the big glass sliders. She's been gardening like crazy this year with all the time at home.

My grandfather, then uncle, now cousins always planted the silage corn along the road. The sweet corn for the table and farm stand was always "in the middle" somewhere, and somewhere different every year. Couldn't keep the dern vermits out.

 

[woodsltc]

Going back to the original post (before all the drift)......there is a big difference in asking permission to pick some veggies and stealing the veggies. IMO, I would gladly provide the excess from my garden to someone asking...but I would also deny someone stealing the same produce .... with prejudice if necessary. JMO!!

Don

 

[steelslaver]

My wife started a bunch of tomatoes, cauliflower, egg plant etc in the green house. Once we had everything transplanted the way she wanted it all the extras got sit on top of the row of mail boxes in front of our place labeling them and say please help yourself. They all disappeared. She had already gave away quite a few plants. If we have an abundance we will give it away. Just going into my garden or hen house and taking things would be viewed the same as just walking in my house and helping yourself. You best be a relative that I gave the OK to. If not you best smile for the cameras, so the sheriff knows just who to arrest. Hard to miss the NO Trespassing signs.

 

[tops]

All this is a minor annoyance compared to living in a city.

Correct! I can handle rural varmints but I'm told it's illegal to handle urban varmints. Larry

 

[MRB1]

I did the garden thing for a few years, and then discovered the roadside markets - bye bye gardening for me. Can't justify killing myself to feed the grasshoppers and birds.

For many years a local farmer planted a three acre plot of watermelons, free to anybody that wished to pick one. Great man. Then, as a thank you from a visitor, they filled his tractor fuel tank with sand and cut the tires. Needless to say, that ended his community service. City boys for sure.

 

[Old Arkansawyer]

I can verify that coyotes will eat melons. Also they seem to know which
ones are ripe, never found where they had eaten into a green one.
I have also gone to picking my peaches a few days before fully ripe as
the deer will visit and eat every ripe one.

 

[old tanker]

A lady friend had troubles with a midnight raider in her raised bed vegetable garden.At two feet tall, she figured it too high for rabbits. The game camera caught a house cat with a penchant for kale and kohlrabi.

 

[duane_wade]

While we've had our fair share of critters raid the garden the most unusual I've seen was a groundhog climbing a neighbor's peach tree and eating the peaches it could reach. I've been a country boy most of my life and had never heard of then climbing trees. Since the neighbor's fruit incident I have looked at trees more and have seen a groundhog in trees on more than one occasion.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

 

[soFlaNative]

While we've had our fair share of critters raid the garden the most unusual I've seen was a groundhog climbing a neighbor's peach tree and eating the peaches it could reach. I've been a country boy most of my life and had never heard of then climbing trees. Since the neighbor's fruit incident I have looked at trees more and have seen a groundhog in trees on more than one occasion.

Think of the times we all found ourselves out on a limb while chasing the sweet stuff