We'll see if the Hooved Rats of the Forest still get in and eat my field
peas ... got one strand about 2 feet off the ground and one about 6" to try
to keep the rabbits out . But the worst culprits are apparently the 'possums
right now . They dig stuff up ... at least the deer leave the plant in the
ground so it has a chance to grow back .

--
Snag

On 7/8/2016 7:38 AM, Terry Coombs wrote:
We'll see if the Hooved Rats of the Forest still get in and eat my field
peas ... got one strand about 2 feet off the ground and one about 6" to try
to keep the rabbits out . But the worst culprits are apparently the 'possums
right now . They dig stuff up ... at least the deer leave the plant in the
ground so it has a chance to grow back .

Cross bow or just a regular bow with good arrows can take care of those
critters, quietly. Then they go into the freezer. Among gardeners it's
called "getting even." G

How's the weather Terry? We're looking at another heat index around 109F
just after noon. We get out early morning, get what can be done done,
then hide in the air conditioning. We are no longer tough pioneers. I'm
glad we added more insulation to the attic when we moved here plus the
new roof with very good attic venting helps. I'm to old for this heat,
it's worse than Saudi because we have a lot more moisture in the air.
That and I'm 30 years older than I was then. I just hope we get an air
conditioned room when we go to the old folks home. G

Picked those crowder peas, a bunch of mild chilies for relleno's, and
damned few tomatoes. Cukes are starting to die back, squash have given
up to the heat and the figs are about out. Pears and kumquats are
growing well, if we don't get a high wind we might harvest pears this fall.

George

George Shirley wrote:
On 7/8/2016 7:38 AM, Terry Coombs wrote:
We'll see if the Hooved Rats of the Forest still get in and eat my
field peas ... got one strand about 2 feet off the ground and one
about 6" to try to keep the rabbits out . But the worst culprits are
apparently the 'possums right now . They dig stuff up ... at least
the deer leave the plant in the ground so it has a chance to grow
back .
Cross bow or just a regular bow with good arrows can take care of
those critters, quietly. Then they go into the freezer. Among
gardeners it's called "getting even." G

How's the weather Terry? We're looking at another heat index around
109F just after noon. We get out early morning, get what can be done
done, then hide in the air conditioning. We are no longer tough pioneers.
I'm glad we added more insulation to the attic when we moved here
plus the new roof with very good attic venting helps. I'm to old for this
heat,
it's worse than Saudi because we have a lot more moisture in the air.
That and I'm 30 years older than I was then. I just hope we get an air
conditioned room when we go to the old folks home. G

Picked those crowder peas, a bunch of mild chilies for relleno's, and
damned few tomatoes. Cukes are starting to die back, squash have given
up to the heat and the figs are about out. Pears and kumquats are
growing well, if we don't get a high wind we might harvest pears this
fall.
George

It's 92 here with a heat index of 102 . I ain't going out much either ...
Been out in the shop making a pulley into a snatch block so I can get the
trees down necessary to continue construction , got too hot to work after I
welded some parts ...
I have a .22 and some 805 fps shorts that do a pretty good job quietly ,
bow is another option if the fence doesn't work . I've only got R-19 in the
ceilings , but have very good venting in all attic spaces , seems to work OK
.. Looks like we'll be picking some tomatoes soon , they're starting to
ripen now . Field peas need to grow some more leaves ... grrrr .
--
Snag

On Friday, July 8, 2016 at 7:38:02 AM UTC-5, Terry Coombs wrote:
We'll see if the Hooved Rats of the Forest still get in
and eat my field peas ... got one strand about 2 feet off
the ground and one about 6" to try to keep the rabbits out.

You have 2 ft tall deer?

Davej wrote:
On Friday, July 8, 2016 at 7:38:02 AM UTC-5, Terry Coombs wrote:
We'll see if the Hooved Rats of the Forest still get in
and eat my field peas ... got one strand about 2 feet off
the ground and one about 6" to try to keep the rabbits out.

You have 2 ft tall deer?

No , but that height is pretty sure to catch them in the chest/neck area .
Whitetail deer here aren't much bigger than a large dog - think Great Dane
or smaller .

--
Snag

On Friday, July 8, 2016 at 3:20:11 PM UTC-5, Terry Coombs wrote:
Davej wrote:
On Friday, July 8, 2016 at 7:38:02 AM UTC-5, Terry Coombs wrote:
We'll see if the Hooved Rats of the Forest still get in
and eat my field peas ... got one strand about 2 feet off
the ground and one about 6" to try to keep the rabbits out.

You have 2 ft tall deer?

No , but that height is pretty sure to catch them in the chest/neck area .
Whitetail deer here aren't much bigger than a large dog - think Great Dane
or smaller .


I would put the first wire at nose height.

On 7/8/2016 1:42 PM, Terry Coombs wrote:
George Shirley wrote:
On 7/8/2016 7:38 AM, Terry Coombs wrote:
We'll see if the Hooved Rats of the Forest still get in and eat my
field peas ... got one strand about 2 feet off the ground and one
about 6" to try to keep the rabbits out . But the worst culprits are
apparently the 'possums right now . They dig stuff up ... at least
the deer leave the plant in the ground so it has a chance to grow
back .
Cross bow or just a regular bow with good arrows can take care of
those critters, quietly. Then they go into the freezer. Among
gardeners it's called "getting even." G

How's the weather Terry? We're looking at another heat index around
109F just after noon. We get out early morning, get what can be done
done, then hide in the air conditioning. We are no longer tough pioneers.
I'm glad we added more insulation to the attic when we moved here
plus the new roof with very good attic venting helps. I'm to old for this
heat,
it's worse than Saudi because we have a lot more moisture in the air.
That and I'm 30 years older than I was then. I just hope we get an air
conditioned room when we go to the old folks home. G

Picked those crowder peas, a bunch of mild chilies for relleno's, and
damned few tomatoes. Cukes are starting to die back, squash have given
up to the heat and the figs are about out. Pears and kumquats are
growing well, if we don't get a high wind we might harvest pears this
fall.
George

It's 92 here with a heat index of 102 . I ain't going out much either ...
Been out in the shop making a pulley into a snatch block so I can get the
trees down necessary to continue construction , got too hot to work after I
welded some parts ...
I have a .22 and some 805 fps shorts that do a pretty good job quietly ,
I bought some CB longs awhile back and they're almost as good as a
suppressor. I do believe I could pot a cat on the back fence very
quietly if needed. Luckily the yellow demon that poops in our garden has
not been seen in many days, either it has become a house cat or got run
over.
bow is another option if the fence doesn't work . I've only got R-19 in the
ceilings , but have very good venting in all attic spaces , seems to work OK
. Looks like we'll be picking some tomatoes soon , they're starting to
ripen now . Field peas need to grow some more leaves ... grrrr .

Our crowder peas have very long runners, we've been trimming them but I
unwound one early this morning and it was 12 feet long. I may have to
run my lattice up another three or four feet.

Sometimes I miss our old house in Louisiana, built on an ancient sand
dune and about fifteen feet of detritus from probably a few million
years. Toss a seed in, jump back. Not to mention all the compost we put
into that garden for 22 years. I'm not sure we will be around 22 years
from now to see how this new garden is doing. G

In article ,
"Terry Coombs" wrote:

Looks like we'll be picking some tomatoes soon , they're starting to
ripen now

Huh. I'm up in zone 4 new england and I'm also "about
to get tomatoes" - at least off the SunGold (which was old seed, but it
sprouted, and so far for 7 varieties of plants planted the same day
(april 2) and transplanted the same day (don't recall now), it's winning
big-time.) Sometimes kinda amazing how little difference there can
be...admittedly, those did go out into "wall-o-water" tents here when
they went outside.

The garden is a screaming disaster (creeping buttercup, mostly) in
general, outside of the garlic and a few patches clawed clear for other
things, but it's been a messy year and gardening has not been the top
priority much of the time. Something, probably the overabundance of
rodents, stripped all the currants while they were too green to harvest.
Large fruit is a total bust this year, probably from poorly timed
freezes after warm weather. I've seen 2-3 plums and one crabapple. Next
year should be a doozy if things don't get froze off again.

My fence needs re-doing, and if I'm going to re-do it I'm going to annex
more lawn - in part to put more perennials in the garden - either moving
or splitting blueberries, expanding the raspberries, trying again on
asparagus, giving grapes more room. A neighbor managed to train the
local deer to jump fences (when I started this garden, a single strand
of monofilament would put them off and they'd pass by - then it took a 4
foot wire fence they could have jumped, but didn't - now I need
something unjumpable, and these are good-sized whitetails.)

It's been abnormally dry, too. Several promising storms have opened up a
rain hole just as they came through here and watered places other than
us. Outside the garden the soil is cracking.

Weather has been beastly by local standards - had two days of running
the (window) AC overnight, but tonight's feeble attempt at rain came
with enough temp and dewpoint dropping to actually open the windows and
run the fan like we do most summer nights. The AC is a bit undersized,
but it will knock 10-15 degrees off and wring out a bunch of humidity,
which helps us snowfolk to handle it. Got by for decades without any, as
it would only get hot enough to bother for a week, and that wasn't long
enough to bother to get one for - then it got worse, and earlier and
longer.

--
Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by
Please don't feed the trolls. Killfile and ignore them so they will go away.

On 7/8/2016 11:13 PM, Ecnerwal wrote:
In article ,
"Terry Coombs" wrote:

Looks like we'll be picking some tomatoes soon , they're starting to
ripen now

Huh. I'm up in zone 4 new england and I'm also "about
to get tomatoes" - at least off the SunGold (which was old seed, but it
sprouted, and so far for 7 varieties of plants planted the same day
(april 2) and transplanted the same day (don't recall now), it's winning
big-time.) Sometimes kinda amazing how little difference there can
be...admittedly, those did go out into "wall-o-water" tents here when
they went outside.

The garden is a screaming disaster (creeping buttercup, mostly) in
general, outside of the garlic and a few patches clawed clear for other
things, but it's been a messy year and gardening has not been the top
priority much of the time. Something, probably the overabundance of
rodents, stripped all the currants while they were too green to harvest.
Large fruit is a total bust this year, probably from poorly timed
freezes after warm weather. I've seen 2-3 plums and one crabapple. Next
year should be a doozy if things don't get froze off again.
I planted a crabapple in Louisiana years ago, and after about four years
it bloomed, had baby crabapples, then died. I guess heat zone 9b was to
hot for it. I've tried many fruit trees that could maybe live in our hot
area but mostly they just die sooner than later. This year we've gotten
a fairly good fig supply, enough for about a dozen pint jars of fig jam.
The Tennousi pear is loaded with fruit about the size of a baseball and
we have hopes for that. The kumquat tree is loaded with green fruit and
lots more blooms and it did well last year so there is hope there too.

My fence needs re-doing, and if I'm going to re-do it I'm going to annex
more lawn - in part to put more perennials in the garden - either moving
or splitting blueberries, expanding the raspberries, trying again on
asparagus, giving grapes more room. A neighbor managed to train the
local deer to jump fences (when I started this garden, a single strand
of monofilament would put them off and they'd pass by - then it took a 4
foot wire fence they could have jumped, but didn't - now I need
something unjumpable, and these are good-sized whitetails.)
Had a friend in Massachusetts who planted some sort of rose bush for a
fence, took a few years to get its growth but he said it worked once it
was tall enough to keep the whitetails out.

It's been abnormally dry, too. Several promising storms have opened up a
rain hole just as they came through here and watered places other than
us. Outside the garden the soil is cracking.

Weather has been beastly by local standards - had two days of running
the (window) AC overnight, but tonight's feeble attempt at rain came
with enough temp and dewpoint dropping to actually open the windows and
run the fan like we do most summer nights. The AC is a bit undersized,
but it will knock 10-15 degrees off and wring out a bunch of humidity,
which helps us snowfolk to handle it. Got by for decades without any, as
it would only get hot enough to bother for a week, and that wasn't long
enough to bother to get one for - then it got worse, and earlier and
longer.

I spent a year in Rhode Island back in my Navy days, it felt like winter
all year to this native Texan but it was at least different from a heat
index of 108F today. I don't miss the NE US as I do like my warm
weather. G

George