@Bower last fall it was the beets and chard, we got absolutely nothing because the critters would devour the plants as they were coming up. They weren’t interested in peas, although that could be because last year I was growing them in bags and from transplants vs direct seeding. This year they have so far not discovered the beets and chard, maybe because they are too busy working on the peas!

Yeah you're right, there's an autumn thing too, where the animals start thinking about fattening themselves up for winter and also stashing stuff away. There's a window in the middle where I can harvest peas (as long as there's no moose!), and then closer to season's end it's a free for all, birds squirrels, rodents, moose, all getting in on the action with whatever is still in the garden.
Early spring in the woods here, I sometimes put out a few potted things I'm done with, and they are quickly chowed down. Mercy treats. That's when it's too early for grass to be greened up etc, and there's really not much, okay there's nothing-at-all to really feed an animal coming out of winter scarcity. I don't dare put anything out that I want for myself, unless it's totally row covered and kept that way until the grass is green and tall! Once the perennials have greened up, I can put out old bolted brassicas and such for the bees to enjoy, and they are mostly safe.

Haven’t posted in a while, but the difference between last year and this year is astounding. The plants are big and lush, diseases and pests haven’t set in yet and fruit is setting like crazy! It’s such a joy to be in the garden right now.

Everything is flourishing beautifully. Are you doing anything this year differently than last year that can explain this change or is it just growing conditions?

[attachment=0]IMG_2292.jpeg[/attachment
This is what my community garden site is producing.

I am so glad there aren't any rabbits around here! There are enough problems with deer munching on stuff in the fall and especially in the spring before their usual browse in the woods and fields greens up. I have to cover all the brassicas and legumes. They think the garden is one big buffet!

@MissS thank you! I think the biggest difference is that last year our plants were basically drowning in wet clay. Over the winter I built new 12” tall beds, and as part of that I actually dug a lot of leaves into the ground under the spots where the beds would go. I think the organic matter is really helping with drainage - last year we basically didn’t ever have to water our plants because the soil would never dry out, this spring we actually have to water. Also last year we didn’t fertilize in the beginning while this year I’m using TTF weekly.

I also noticed that this year we have so many more beneficial insects. Last year aphids were a big problem, this year between the tiny wasps and ladybug larvae I haven’t even needed to get the soap spray out for those.

@Nanooknorth those are both adorable and a bundle of little menaces aren’t they? We have a lot of bunnies in the garden, but I went a little crazy with chicken wire and seem to have closed off all their entry ways… so now it’s just squirrels and chipmunks digging around.

@GoDawgs you should see the city deer we have here, they literally have no fear! They’ll jump over people’s fences and be standing there chewing tomatoes and just kind of blankly stare at you if you try to shoo them away. I went a little overboard with raising our fence to about 7’ to keep them out. But still, I’ll take any kind of animal damage over humans, that’s the one that really gets to me because it feels so intrusive and personal.

Cranraspberry wrote: ↑Sun Jun 11, 2023 11:12 am @GoDawgs you should see the city deer we have here, they literally have no fear! They’ll jump over people’s fences and be standing there chewing tomatoes and just kind of blankly stare at you if you try to shoo them away. I went a little overboard with raising our fence to about 7’ to keep them out. But still, I’ll take any kind of animal damage over humans, that’s the one that really gets to me because it feels so intrusive and personal.

I can understand your dilemma with the damage. I too used to have a community garden plot and grew 32 tomato plants there. One evening someone came in and helped themselves to everyone's crops and took carts and equipment too. I used the gardens because at home we have a huge deer herd that makes growing things a major challenge. I have now given up my community garden plot and am trying at home again.

@MissS we’ve had one break in so far, but I’m trying to mentally prepare for more. Unfortunately since we live in a condo the community garden is our only option. When animals do damage it’s frustrating, but at least it doesn’t feel nearly as personal and violating as when a human is responsible. I did try to reinforce our “perimeter” as much as possible (my husband jokes it’s like Fort Knox), but if someone really wants to get in they will.

A quick update on the growing season so far:
- tomatoes are doing fairly well, with two notable exceptions: the Marzano Fire in a 10 gallon grow bag is the single ugliest tomato plant I have ever seen in my life - wispy, droopy, lots of fungal issues, but has quite a few fruit on him and so far only one with BER; and the Jaune Flammee which is 6’+ tall and setting fruit like a champ, but at least 60% of those are affected by BER which is quite frustrating.

SOTW has slowed down fruit set drastically once we hit 90 degree temps and had 1-2 BER affected fruit. Surprisingly the Big Beef is pretty small (both plant size and fruit size), has quite a bit of fungus and not a ton of fruit, plus a few came off because of BER - I expected that one to be bullet proof for some reason.

Knock on wood no BER so far on any of the other varieties. The real standout so far has been Cherokee Carbon which is LOADED with enormous beautiful fruit and just keeps setting more. Also the Moreton that was slow to start has really caught up and has an enormous amount of fruit. Brandy Boy is a huge, beautiful plant but like Stump slowed down a bit once it got hot. Sun Gold, Jet Star, Momotaro and the replacement Pineapple are doing well, not much to note here.
It was a fairly dry June, but I’m seeing a lot of fungus in the gardens. Last year at this point I was already regularly spraying hydrogen peroxide, this year I’ve been on a weekly Revitalize + aspirin regimen and so far so good. A few leaves removed here and there, but nothing like last year.

A huge standout this year has been the Asian Delite eggplant. Both my Listada de Gandia and Mitoyo are still flowering and thinking about it, but we’ve harvested several Asian Delites and have five more ripening as we speak. Super early, very prolific and absolutely delicious.

The pepper forest is doing well, had a snack of blistered shishitos a couple of weeks ago and they were so much better than store bought! I have two cubanelles, and of the two Biscayne is performing much better and is really good.

Had to yank out a summer squash because of mosaic - seeing a ton of affected plants in the garden this year, don’t remember nearly as much last year. Need to start injecting with BT soon. Pantheon is a delicious striped bush zucchini from Johnny’s that has been our earliest performer.

I went a little crazy with cucumbers this year and planted too many too close, but our earliest producer has been County Fair. Last year the cucumber beetles were horrible so I picked up some pheromone traps, but sad to say those things killed four precious honey bees and multiple other beneficials, but did not catch a single cucumber beetle, so never doing that again.

Harvested our garlic, and even though everything went in far too late the Chesnok Red really surprised us with much bigger bulb size than I was expecting. Onions have been going gangbusters, and the Monastrell red onions were surprisingly sharp (I expected homegrown to be extremely sweet for some reason) till I learned you could put a cut onion in ice water to take care of that.