Animal proofing a veggie garden!!!

I think i had mentioned that I am having problems with squirrels eating my veggies fruits for the last 2 years. Last yea rI hired someone to put netting on the whole garden but somehow the squirrels managed to get in and ate most of the fruits. this year i did it myself with out help from DH but every time he sees me working on it early in the morning he just shook his head and he never made any comment. The project took almost a month and lots of thought went into the construction.I did this before i play golf!!! I had never done anything like this, I am a retired nurse so I might have been a carpenter on my previous life LOL!!! I learned terminologies like rebars, furring wood and and cables.I have 3 types of tomatoes . oriental eggplants, large purple eggplants, sweet peppers, okra and shallots The hot peppers are outside in pots.Yesterday I saw a squirrels going around on top trying to check if he can go in.I hope he does not chew the plastic chicken heavy duty netting. I also used chicken wires. Please let me know how you like it. Belle

This message was edited Mar 27, 2011 2:46 PM

I have very limited space and I also mentioned that it is weed free.this picture is the oriental eggplant. I have good recipes for them

more pix, sweet peppers

Looks good Belle... I sure hope it keeps the critters out!

I'd be interested in your eggplant recipes! Besides the old eggplant parmesan and grilling them, I'm eggplant challenged. And I have a lot of them in my garden...

Kelly

locakelly, I like to make a tower with grilled/ roasted eggplant and bell pepper slices (grill the pepper then put it in a ziploc bag for 5-10mins and then the skin will peel off) and goats cheese slices (layer eggplant slice, pepper slice, goats cheese slice 2 or 3 times). Have with some salad and drizzle some balsamic over the top.

Moussaka is also eggplant-based, I don't have a recipe but I'm sure google will...

I also like to put eggplant in a veggie lasagne, or in a roast veggies dish (various veggies, some olive oil, herbs and roast in the oven).

Thanks gmum - those sound delicious!!

Belle, If they ever decide to build a new maximum security prison in Rhode Island I want you to engineer it.

Where there's a will, there's a way! Squirrels will find a way into anything! I have had squirrels chew on the metal parts of a bird feeder until it was soft enough for them to bend it out of the way.

It took several trys, but I have found a couple of spots under my porch where they can't jump or climb onto the feeders - except one squirrel that actually crawled upside down along the support. I yelled, he/she jumped - I think it hurt itself, because it didn't try the upsidedown trick again.

It was a lot of work to build it but I know that it will stay for years. I am very proud and ready to show it to my friends. I think I spent over $200.00 but it is worth it.O know I will have lots of veggies this year.

Recipes for eggplant

The easiest and fastest way is splitting it in half

sprinkle with little salt and let it stand for 5 minutes. Pat dry
microwave till done and press with fork
dip in egg and fry in a little bit of olive oil

I also create stuffing for it like sweet onions, sweet peppers, basil, fresh garlic
brown garlic and add all above
scramble eggs in a separate bowl add sauteed veg and stuff on microwaved eggplant
brown in olive oil

Other recipes next time.

Those sound good Belle! Thanks for sharing!

I am salivating and can wait to harvest the oriental eggplants.

Who loves 'yah, baby?

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1038133/

Gymgirl,
i looked at the recipes and will try them thanks for the link!! belle

Cool - thanks Linda!

I have peace of mind about squirrels not eating my produce but now I have questions. Cukes, beans and tomatoes are very slow?? Do you need bees or butterflies to pollinate them so they bear fruits?? What do you all think!!!garden. Belle

This message was edited Jul 8, 2010 5:54 AM

If you want to do construction, then come over my house, I have a lot of work for you.

Squirrels go good with tomatoes.

If you want to solve your squirrel problem may I suggest turning the tables on him with this link.

(squirrel recipes)
http://www.bowhunting.net/susieq/squirrel.html

On a more serious note, it looks like you did a lot of work and did a good job.

igno,
I just edited my post about my plants. Too hot and busy right now to do contracting!!! LOL!!! It is golf season and I am mandated to play with the girls at the club. Belle

Have you tried Plantskoid (sp?)? We have had pretty good luck with it, but we don't have a squirrel problem (only know of one in neighborhood). It works great with moose and rabbits.

Bellieg - tomatoes are wind pollinated. Cucumbers need bees for pollination. Beans I'm not sure about, but mine always have lots of bumble bees poking their heads in the flowers.

Honeybee NC,
I had been gardening for years and had always had good produce but the last 2 years the squirrels had eaten a lot of the fruits that is why I animal proof the whole garden. It took a long time to build it!!! No bees/butterfly can get inside.
this year had been very slow, I have tons of cucumber flowers but no fruit so if bees is needed to pollinate the cukes then i am not going to get cukes.My eggplants are also very slow.Can I buy bees to pollinate my garden ??? Belle

You should go on one of those TV shows Bell, you could show those so called handy men a thing or two eh, Well done to you.
Pollination: Why dont you go out with a jar and top Lid, catch as many bee's, Flies etc that you can, take them into your cage and let them go to pollinate all your plants, you would have to do this regularly as more flowers are produced, another way is to tickle each flower with a fine bristle brush, like make up brush, take you forever and a day or get doubting Thomas Husband to do it for you ha, ha, ha.

I have to admire your guts, our last garden was much the same as you as regards wild life so, I decided to go hunt for the frames of old tents folks had stuffed away in attics etc, I built the frames, covered them with wire netting and hey presto a cage that was wild life proof, everyone laughed when I told them why I wanted the unused frame tents, but they laughed on the other side of their faces when they saw the results, JEEEEEEES us girls can be so smart at times eh Bell.
Good luck and happy gardening, Bee hunting and flower tickling, he, he, he. WeeNel.

Wee Nel,

If you have a cage like mine, do you get a lot of produce? This is puzzling because I will not have enough for us not to mention friends and neighbors? Is there a female and male cuke flowers like squash.?Okay about the dubbing I will try . How about beans?

I am not going to remove the netting because I spent a lot of time and money making it!!!

Belle

Do you know what variety cucumber you planted? Some are Monoecious which means that some plants have all female flowers and you have to plant a male cucumber as a pollinator. If you plant theses from seed many of the seed companies dye the male seed green so you know if you have indeed planted both males and females. Some are Gynoecious which have both male and female flowers on the same plant I once purchased cucumber plants not checking the variety and they came in a 4 pak 1 plant per cell and had the same problem you are experiencing all females no males no pollination. That was the first and only time I purchased cucumber plants. I also had a much smaller garden back then with only 1 hill of cukes. Now I have 8 hills growing on a trellis and plant them from seed i purchase.

These are armenian cukes which I plant every year and they are very prolific. I think I need bees to pollinate most of my plants. Thank you for your reply. belle

bellieg - unless you have very fine netting, the bees will find their way inside. I have "bird netting" over my cantaloupes and the bumble bees are still working the blossoms.

Don't worry about butterflies getting inside - they are more likely to lay eggs which will hatch into vegetable-eating caterpillars.

Ants do some pollinating, but they are not as good at it as bees.

If you want to catch some bees, make it bumble bees, they don't mind hanging out overnight and going to work again the next day. Honeybees will want to return to their hive and will kill themselves trying to escape.

If you really want to have bees within your structure, purchase some Mason Bees and a Mason Bee nest. They are very tiny bees that are not agressive.

Honey bee,
The plastic netting are the stiff chicken netting. They are sturdy and maybe 1/4 inch holes. If you tell me the bees will find the flower then it is encouraging however I had not seen any insect. NADA!!!! LOL!!! I tell you I did a good job!!!

I have few tomatoes but not plenty. Belle

Bumping for texas girl.

Not a lot of produce this year!! Perhaps not bees got in to pollinate!!!

It will stay enclosed because of the squirrels. Belle

Nice enclosure, Belle. I sure know what you went thru with squirrels. Last year I think they got more of my tomatoes than I did (and I grow several hundred tomato plants)!

Regarding the plants you have listed, tomatoes, eggplant, okra and beans won't require pollination from bees/insects, they'll easily self-pollinize. As Honeybee mentioned above the cukes require bees/etc to pollinate them. However, next year you should grow "Little Leaf" cucumber. Being parthenocarpic it won't require outside pollination and would be perfect for your enclosure.

Lastly, I think you'd do well to sow your beans outside the enclosure next year since that seems to be one of the few crops the squirrels show absolutely no interest in.

Again, congrats on a job well done!
Shoe

my harvests are very disappointing this year, the tomatoes which are normally plentiful to share did not have enough for dH and me. What do you mean with little leaf cukes.I planted aremenians and nada.

The eggplants are pathetic!!!

My enclosure is here to stay.

Thank you for reading the thread. Belle

Well, it's certainly been a weird growing season, from having an "early summertime" then back to spring-like weather, then finally real summer complete with excessively high temps, then periods of no rain followed by too much rain. Lots of folks I know are witnessing garden production unlike years past. Some of us just write it off knowing it'll change!

I also wonder what kind of soil you put in your raised beds. If it is too heavy that will certainly contribute to lack of production. High temps will play a big role in lack of production for tomatoes and eggplant; even many kinds of beans that can handle high day temps will still prefer cooler night temps for best production.

Hang in there, we still have fall coming up, one of my favorite times of the year and a time of a productive garden. Be thinking of setting out broccoli, cabbages, kale, collards, Swiss chard, onion sets, various greens, garlic, etc. Those leafy crops you'll be able to eat nearly all fall/winter, the alliums will give you nice-sized early onions.

"Little Leaf" cuke is a variety name. "Parthenocarpic" just means it'll produce w/out pollination (no bees needed!).

Your armenian cukes are really a squash more-so than a cucumber. Their flowers are also much bigger than a standard cuke and you could more easily hand-pollinate them. I bet if we get some cooler days soon you could do that and end up with armenian "cukes" before first frost.

Shoe (who is gonna stay in the AC for a while and chill, literally!) *grin

Bumping for Texasgirl

eggplant cassorole


one large eggplant cut up into 1"x1: cubes
4 pieces of bread crumbled or a sm package bread crumbs
container of parm cheese or simular
2 eggs
1 cup milk

Mix all together.
put in a greased oven safe bowl
sprinkle top with a little parm cheese

back 350 until brown on top.

This is a recipe that my mom used to make so I don't have exact measurments.

Bumping it for someone!!

Here is my project last year which costs me f fortune. Belle

Very cool. I don't think I have the kind of time or patience with tools needed to build something that nice.

I thought about using chicken wire and the house, itself, to enclose the veggies, but I have to have some easy way of opening and closing it. The south exposure is no problem because it's a garage door. The nursery nearby suggested mesh netting when the veggies started ripening, but will the squirrels chew through it? I figure bird netting would be OK for blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries... unless squirrels eat them, too?

If I were going to do a free-standing garden, I'd probably get a dog kennel with the chain link fencing top, line it wih chicken wire, use long 2 X 4 across the top to hang veggies, and put the earth boxes inside. The good kennels have the poles along the bottom, as well as on the "seams," and halfway up, so they're sturdy and the squirrels can't go through the bottom unless they dig... do squirrels dig? Bunnies? Aw heck, I guess I'd put chicken wire on the "floor," too. The good thing about a kennel is that it has a door and is lockable!

Hey, I could even cover it with plastic in the winter and have a greenhouse before the garden next year!

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

GrayThumb - My neighbor has wild pecan trees and squirrels love our soft dirt in raised beds to bury the nuts.

Your kennel idea is a good one. The only thought I had was leaves growing through the sides of the kennel being eaten by rabbits. Also, rabbits are great diggers - they live in burrows after all.

Gray thumb,
I tried bird netting but it was flimsy and had birds tangled in them.The squirrels must have big brains for being smart and managed to get into the fruits. LOL!!!
What works best I think is a cat or a dog to chase them during the day. belle

i will update you on what happened to my enclosed veggie garden when i get home from vacation. Belle

Japanese/Chinese Steamed Eggplant (so easy your daughter-in-law could do it)

Japanese Soysauce
Toasted Sesame Oil
Chopped Garlic
Chopped Ginger
Hot pepper (optional, but I'd die without it)
Eggplant chopped coarsely (aisian eggplant best but young european work)
Chopped green onions

Measurements are by eye and/or taste. I never learned to do Oriental cooking by measurements unfortunately, I learned standing next to home cooks or watching the chef at the restaurant. My husband says my cooking tastes like his grandmother's so....

Mix everything together and let marinate while the steamer heats up. Put bowl of eggplant in steamer, steam 15-20 minutes til tender and the smell is rounded. Done. Great with rice or I eat it just by itself.

We had an unusually heavy snow this year so the roof/ top slightly caved in and I was so scared that it might topple. DH did not offer to help and I was not going to ask him because it is the start of golf season!!!

All i thought is how much I spent and the time I put in and so I hired help. We worked for 5 hours but we could not raise the roof so she called her husband and he was able to do it in 30 minutes. He also helped putting a heavy water fountain together.

i am still on a 5 week golf and tomorrow will be golf game # 16. I think of my garden everyday .

Happy gardening!!! Bellie