A History of Garden Theft



My subdivision is no different that most parts of the Ottawa Valley in that wild life is very abundant and includes deer, wild turkeys, rabbits, coyotes, etc.  Although garden predators make frequent appearances in the back yard, Homer and Cosmo successfully keep them just far enough away so they don’t do any damage to our garden; but our neighbours do get hit from time to time.



Turkeys.



Turkeys























A young deer looking for some pine needles.



"Just open the door already!"



That being said, historically our garden has still been subject to garden raiders.  Pillagers who take every opportunity to snatch tomatoes and peppers, ravage the peas, munch on beans, chomp on the tender tops of lettuce and asparagus.  This breach of trust is not perpetrated by disgruntled neighbours but by two, very guilty gate keepers…

Now wait!  Before you get swayed by innocent-looking photographs and jump to their defense, please read their list of offences:

• I used to grow strawberries…but didn`t see the point of growing a nice crop of berries and maybe eating a couple;
• Homer only eats ripe tomatoes…Cosmo will also eat green ones;
• Last year Homer did not get the first ripe tomato of the season….yay for us;
• Tomato plants leave very distinct green smudges on blond fur, especially on the face;
• If the pea pods don’t come off easy, just rip out the entire plant;
• Although Cosmo loves beans, Homer doesn`t…funny that!
• Cosmo eats all varieties of peppers, even hot cherry-bombs;
• One day while harvesting some veggies I put the basket down and turned by back for a nano-second.  When I looked back, Homer was lying down with a large carrot between his paws looking at me with absolutely no remorse.  With good manners he calmly took a bite, chewed and swallowed before taking the next bite.  The first carrots of the season are just awesome.
• Homer will eat asparagus...trust me, he is NOT eye-balling my gloves... bugger got one just after the picture was taken.

A couple of years ago the true cost of their garden raiding ran up to about $1000.  You see, grapes were growing low on the grape vine but both boys basically ignored them so I never thought anything about it.  But that changed when, in the fall, I removed all of the tomato plants from the garden.  I suppose it was only natural for Homer to find something else to eat as he polished off all the grapes that were low enough to reach, causing his stomach to bleed (grapes are toxic to doggies).  A night in hospital, a huge bill and a lot of stress later, he was ok.  The grapevine has been pruned to 4’ above the ground ever since.

Although I haven’t needed to erect a tall fence to protect against deer like many gardeners in the area, I do put up a light-gauge plastic fence around each bed which keeps the thievery down to a minimum.  We do have a wireless invisible fence to ensure the boys stay on the property but the best-fit setting permits about 50% access to the garden.  So, the small fences will just have to do.

But after all my complaining the fact is the boys do a great job preventing the deer and other animals from destroying our garden so I guess we can afford a few veggies as a reward from time to time....I just wish they wouldn't think of it as a buffet.

Asparagus

About five years ago I picked up The Victory Garden from a used book store.  It is full of great and simple gardening ideas, many of which I have adopted or inspired me to add/change things in my garden.  Growing asparagus was one of those ideas.

I chose to plant the asparagus in front of the screened porch because it is actually out of the way and permitted me to dig the bed fairly deep.  I excavated a trench about 8’ x 16” x 12” (deep).  I lined the sides of the trench using scrap, untreated spruce 2 x 4’s in order to keep the asparagus contained in the bed.  I then mixed the ‘natural’ soil with garden soil, compost and a bit of fertilizer.  I purchased 8 asparagus roots from Lindenberg Seeds in Manitoba who sent them by regular mail with no issues.  Each root set was planted in the bed about 6” deep and 10” apart.  Planting root sets instead of seeds saves about 2 years of plant development.

Each year in late April the asparagus begin to pop up.  As you can see from the photos, the thickness and size of my sprouts differs greatly.

Harvesting is simple.  With a sharp knife I simply cut them at or just below ground level.  I will make sure that I leave 1 or 2 sprouts from each root set and allow them to mature into the large ferns so that the plant can continue to grow.  The ferns can grow 5’ tall….check back in late summer for photos of the ferns.  You have to be careful when harvesting because the sprouts are rather fragile.  In the photo on the right you will notice two thick but very short sprouts….I accidentally broke these off while cutting the others.  We get about ½ dozen bunches like this each season.

We simply rinse them, brush with olive oil, season with salt and pepper (sometimes oregano), and throw them on the barbeque for about 10 minutes.  If you think that the thick shoots would be tough and woody … you would be wrong.  Cooking them like this even makes the thick ones tender.  As far as taste goes, I have not eaten store-bought asparagus with as much taste as these….yum.