We have had plenty of rain .... I have watered one time other than the first week I put in the tomatoes. We had a shower two days ago with more T-storms in the forecast, plus a cool, wet weekend ahead. My raised beds are in a field and the grass around them is getting pretty tall (mower is broken AGAIN as of last week, dagnabbit), plus I put down Milorganite to keep the deer away & now the grass that is growing is REALLY growing & green!
This morning, I was up at 6 & at the garden by 6:20. The darn crows eat my tomatoes when they are still green so I have draped netting over the bed, but with tomatoes growing through it, that was a temporary situation. Yesterday I bought 6 4’ metal posts & I got lucky .... found a 50’ roll of 4’ all-purpose netting in the shed about a week ago. It took me two and a half hours to set posts & work out a way to get the netting up. I set it 18” away from the bed which hopefully does not give the crows enough room to fly in/land, but gives me enough room to weed/harvest. I can take the whole fence down except off of one anchor post to help mow/trim the grass. I think it’s a pretty clever arrangement ... used 4’ bamboo stakes woven through the netting to give me a solid edge to use as gates. Anyway, it took me ‘til after 9:00 to get it all up, stake up the tomato cages that are falling down in the other raised bed & weed it, then pick up all my trash (zip tie ends, wrapping off the netting, trimmed netting, etc.). I was so hot and dirty, the shower was the first stop when I hit the house and I am not going out again the rest of the day.
On a happy note, the crows usually visit the garden very early ..... by 6:30, they came by and were very upset to find me out there. They sat in the trees around the field and fussed me out for a good 30 minutes and I could hear them in the area for at least an hour. My SIL came by to see what I was up to when she saw me in the field and commented on the crows being so vocal so she even noticed how P.O.’d they were. I have some nice tomatoes on the vine so now I’m looking forward to them having the opportunity to ripen!
Very good effort for the day, I’d say. I’ll be taking a tour later when it cools down a bit. We are expecting rain tonight and tomorrow again. Yikes.