Note – “plantmanity” is like humanity but with plants.

May and June have been tough on my gardening nerves.  May gave us several frosty low temperature nights (including a hard freeze on 5/24/2013).  The pots and leaf mulch came out to cover tomatoes, potatoes, and eggplants.  Unfortunately, the coverings weren’t enough for some and those plants didn’t make it (cue the violin music).  I lost 5 or 6 tomato plants plus 3 eggplants.  A few of my potatoes also got frozen but they have grown back since.  Fortunately, I hadn’t planted my peppers yet, since they seem to do better when planted after the weather has warmed up (think June).  Also, the Snarky Gardener has been overzealous this season with plant starts, so replacements have readily available.  All in all, not a complete disaster but I will consider this next spring when starting and planting my tender little friends.

On May 31st, my dog River and I discovered some furry friends in the garden.  I had this issue last year, but it took me a week or two before figuring out that I had a groundhog.  Half my corn crop, not to mention my spinach, my carrots, my cucumber vines, and various other tasty treats were lost before trapping the little basta . . . .  critter (aka Woody).  This year, I noticed some of my carrots had been nibbled down (both inside and outside my fence), but I really knew I had a problem when I saw the tiniest little guy scurrying from the garden into the stacked up logs behind the garden.  Bucky (yes, I named him Bucky) was so small he could run straight through my 2″ X 4″ fencing without skipping a beat.  A few days later, we noticed a second, much bigger groundhog (I named her Mamma), who had dug under the fence to get in for the free buffet.  I currently have a trap set up inside the fence near that opening with delicious apples and corn as bait.  So far I’ve lost a little spinach, all my broccoli, all my Tuscan kale, some carrot tops, and lots of peas plants.  On 6/4/2013, I picked all the spinach just to be safe.  It was starting to bolt anyways, so I’d rather eat it then have fuzzy little creatures make a salad with it.