“The woodchuck got to me. He ate EVERYTHING — an entire row of beans in one night. I couldn’t feed him and me, too.”
If you’re in a country place where the woodchuck and rabbit populations are high, you need a fence. Invest some time and effort to construct one that’s burrow-proof. Do it in fall, while the memory of crops unsavored (because the varmint got there first) still stings. Read the rest of this entry »
Too lazy to put in pea fences?
Prop up vines with piles of hay, a la Ruth Stout.
Plant dwarf peas, those that grow only fifteen to eighteen inches high, in rows five to six inches apart or in a six-inch wide trench. Plants will intertwine and hold each other up. Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s where the proverbial ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Once the woodchuck has chomped off your beans at ground level, the raccoon has stripped and devoured every ear of corn, and the cucumber beetles have decimated emerging seedlings, you may as well throw up your hands in surrender and hightail it to the nearest farmer’s market with wallet in hand. Read the rest of this entry »
I encourage gardeners with animal problems to put a fence around the garden. Nothing beats a secure fence for keeping out rabbits, woodchucks, raccoons, dogs, and cats. It even helps to control the traffic of neighborhood kids scooting through the yard.
Get your fence up early, before animal pests make their first forays. Once they get a taste of what’s in your garden they are determined to get back in for extra helpings.
I use fences made of 3-foot-high chicken wire (1- or 11/2-inch mesh), topped by a single strand of electric wire 1 inch above the top. An electric fence is the best way to keep raccoons out of the corn patch. The jolt a raccoon gets when he grabs the electric wire convinces him to try a garden somewhere else. The only time I hitch up the battery and energize the wire is before and during the corn harvest. I run it from late afternoon until early morning. Read the rest of this entry »
These roses are of the long-limbed, spreading variety — and can either be left to organize themselves, or can be pruned and trained to fit in with almost any garden plan. Their security value should notbe underestimated: here is the answer to truly decorative spikes.
Climbers produce longclimbing shoots and must besupported and tied to a fence or pergola. For the best display, annual shoots should not be pruned or shortened, but tied horizontally.
Ramblers have a prostrate growth habit, and if left alone, crawl along the ground. Alternatively, they can be trained over a support many metres high, to hang gracefully down again.
Spire roses grow upright to 2 to 3 m and do not produce willowy canes. Their Hybrid Tea-shaped flowers make good cut roses. They are suited to tall background displays, in corners or as hedges, planted 1,5 m apart. If necessary, top the basal-stems at a height of 1,2 m to encourage branching and flowering. Read the rest of this entry »
Fences and hedges can form either internal divisions or the external boundaries of your plot. Gates will always be the ins and outs of a garden. As with many of the other elements of the design, the range of options is enormous, but here again your choice should reflect the general style of the surrounding composition so that the development of your garden has continuity.
In many cases the choice between a fence and a hedge can be an entirely subjective one. A fence is quickly erected, offers immediate screening and has an average life of between lo and is years. Read the rest of this entry »
