Trying, trying again with the gardening.

[angledge]

I haven't had much luck gardening in Colorado. I've managed to grow a little bit of chard, a few tomatoes, a bare handful of strawberries. Gardening on the Front Range is tricky. Spring can bring heavy, late snows all the way through May. Hailstorms can strike any time between April & July. There is the usual muster of pests: everything from beetles to mold to marauding squirrels & birds. Another pest is Shadeaux, who in particular has a taste for strawberries, fresh off the plant. Hobbes is more ecumenical in his destruction, reveling in digging in the soft soil of the raised beds.

Last week Earlier this week (what even is Time?), I partially filled the beds with soil & purchased some plants. I didn't want to put them in the ground (see above re: snow). But the extended forecast looks pretty good, with a few scattered thunderstorms predicted in the next 10 days, but no frost or snow. So yesterday, I went back to Home Depot & bought the rest of the soil I needed to top up the beds, as well as the rest of the herbs, vegetables, & strawberries to fill them up. And then I planted everything.






I'm watering my garden with a one-gallon watering can for now. The freshly-placed soil is very dry, & soaks up a seemingly unlimited amount of irrigation. My shelter-in-place exercise now partially consists of carrying gallons of water up out of my basement apartment to the backyard several times a day. Before too much longer, I assume the landlords will turn on the outside spigot. But not yet, because -- see above re: snow/frost.

Likely future purchases: one lettuce plant, some tomato cages, & something something protection from squirrels/birds/hail/Shadeaux.

Comments

[waitingman]

I live about 200 metres from a National Park, so a lot of the animals come visiting our back yard & garden. Brush turkeys & bandicoots are the bane of the back yard gardener - both are indiscriminate diggers, but the bandicoots will also eat fresh shoots & leaves when they can't find any ants or insects with their digging... We've decided to help keep market gardeners in business by buying their herbs etc... instead of growing our own to feed the native wildlife

[angledge]

Sounds like Hobbes is a wannabe bandicoot.