Gardening Toolshed

Wabbit Season! Holding the Hares at Bay.

I had come home from work, ready to take a taste of the glorious head of broccoli that I had had grown. When I arrived, I found it chewed down to a small green nub poking out of the mulch. Apparently, a family of rabbits had taken it upon themselves to make a feast out of my work. Words cannot describe the ire that I felt toward the hideous beasts. And so, as is my Constitutional right, I took up my arms and stood guard to defend my property against the invading hare force.

My neighbor found me there, like Elmer Fudd from the Bugs Bunny cartoons, sitting in my armchair with my weapon perched readily on my lap. I had filled the hopper with paintballs, made sure the air tank was filled, and I was ready for one of those destructive creatures to show his ugly face. Any rabbit that dared to touch anything else in my garden would feel the wrath of a flurry of paintballs.

My neighbor probably should have walked away at this point, but I think curiosity got the better of him and he had to ask what I was doing. I explained my rabbit dilemma to him and he laughed. So I shot him the foot with a paintball. He began to walk away, threatening not to tell me the safer – and saner – way to get rid of the rabbit infestation. So I apologized, and he taught me what he knew about bunnies.

The rabbits ate my broccoli, but they also eat beans and other small vegetables. My neighbor told me that the best way to keep them from doing further damage was to put up a small fence. It only had to be about two feet tall to keep the rabbits out. However, he told me to be careful and make sure that I bury a few inches of it in the ground because the rabbits will burrow underneath it. They can also squeeze through openings that seem to be smaller than themselves. With openings more than two inches wide, this is a possibility.

My neighbor disapproved of my hunting rabbits with paintballs. He said there were products out there that would humanely and safely take care of the rabbits. He first suggested dried blood. I immediately had an idea on where I could find – or make – some. However, he said that many greenhouses actually stock it. He also said that fox urine – also available at greenhouses – does the same thing. The odors keep the little bunnies away since they think a predator might be near. I wondered if they could smell me and know that I was a vicious predator too.

Though I was somewhat disappointed in my hunting excursion, I saw my neighbor’s point. He gave me some safe and humane ideas to keep my food safe from the vicious predators. And no rabbits were harmed in the making of this piece.

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Tips On Pruning

Pruning, defined as the removal of dead, living, or unnecessary parts from a plant, has many specific purposes. Done properly, pruning improves the health and appearance of the plants, shrubs, and trees in your garden and improves the quality their flower or fruit production as well. To prune the plants and shrubs in your garden properly, however, you must first be familiar with the reasons for pruning. The possible reasons for pruning include training a plant, shrub, or tree to grow in a specific shape or form, maintaining the plant’s overall health, improving the quality of the fruit or flower the plant produces, and restricting plant growth.

Examples of training a plant to grow in a certain shape or form can be seen everywhere. Bushes are often cut into a special pleasing shape or design and many plants are often trained to grow on a trellis, up a wall, or around poles. The health of a plant is also promoted by pruning because pruning often involves cutting off the limbs of plants that have been damaged by severe weather, insects, or disease. Also, when done at the right time, pruning helps a plant produce larger, more appealing, fruits or flowers (although, another occasional consequence of pruning is a reduced quantity of fruits and flowers). Finally, pruning is useful when you are trying to maintain a certain landscape appearance and, in order to do this, you must restrict the growth of certain plants.

Once you know the objective of pruning your garden, you can then proceed to the actual task. Naturally, a gardening task would not be complete without some basic tips, and pruning is no exception. It also follows that different plants require different techniques. Hedges, for example, can be categorized into two types – those that are grown intentionally close together to form a windbreak or a high screen and those that take on a more formal appearance such as Boxwood or Privet. For the first type, pruning should be limited to cutting away dead, dying, or diseased limbs and for controlling density. Pruning for the later type of hedge, on the other hand, requires more persistent cutting and clearing.

Perhaps it is because no single authority completely agrees on the proper way to prune roses, but they are among the simplest of plants to prune. The one rule that everyone does agree on for pruning roses is that you should always cut back on old nonproductive canes. Just be sure that you have some good quality gardening shears and a pair of heavy gardening gloves to protect your hands from the sharp thorns found on most types of roses.

Evergreens are another type of plant or tree that you will find it necessary to prune from time to time. While there are several different types of evergreens, the general rule of thumb is not to prune any of them too severely or too frequently. Shrubs and vines are also plants that require little pruning since they are usually planted for their beautiful color or for their ability to drape or screen objects.

Fruit trees probably require the most attention when it comes to pruning since proper pruning will help you grow trees that produce reliable, annual crops of large, juicy fruit. For this, your fruit trees must be pruned as they grow as well as annually.

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The Attack of the Killer Snails

They come swooping into your garden like a stampede of mustangs, kicking up dust, trampling everything in their path! Women and children run away screaming! Grown men find their knees weaken in terror! As if they weren’t fearsome enough in singles or in pairs, these dark nightmares come in entire herds multiplying their damage exponentially. Is there no one who can stand against the mighty invasion of the snails?

Perhaps “stampede” was a little dramatic, but the rest holds close to true. Snails tend to multiply quite quickly. You may notice one on one night, then two on then next. Pretty soon the snails have taken over the garden.

However, gardeners do not have to surrender their hard work to the slimy invaders. There are a number of ways to stop the snail army. The first way is to put up a defensive wall around the garden. Fortunately, the snail army has not yet learned how mount an air strike, so they have to traverse the ground terrain. Apparently if you had a 4-foot long foot that was covered in a mucosal ooze – which had the unfortunate side effect of sticking to every piece of litter that you came across, you would seriously watch where you are going. Snails are the same way. Grainy dusts like sawdust, coffee grounds and the like tend to discourage their trespassing trails. And you thought it was inconvenient when toilet paper stuck to your shoe?

You can also bait the snails, let them think they have the offense and then carry them all away. Snails love beer and like most frat boys, will drown in it if you leave a bowl of it in the garden. If you want to be a bit more humane, lay out some food – like a slice of bread with peanut butter. After the snails have gorged themselves, come out, pick them up, and move them elsewhere.

For those who are a bit more offensive n their approach, you can send in a sneak attack in the middle of the night. When the foot of a 200 pound person is placed on the top of a soft creature weighing less than an ounce, it has just the effect that you think it would have. The snail squooshes. Alternatively, if you want to stage a reenactment of the ending to the Wizard of Oz where the Wicked Witch of the West keeps screaming, “I’m melting! I’m melting!” then you should know that snails and saltwater really do not react well to one another. The snails start screaming “I’m melting! I’m melting!” and water starts screaming, “I’m slimy! I’m slimy!”

But whether you plan on ending the snail invasion with violence or just a peaceful protest, hopefully this article gives you some good ideas on protecting the homeland garden against pesky invaders allowing you to enjoy the hard work you put into it.

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