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VEGETABLE GARDENING:
I will post any useful gardening tips here. Please feel free to contact us if want to add any of your favorite tips. Thank you.
Oh deer me
After purchasing their new home, this certain couple were excited to add
a touch of color to the backyard area. She worked hard all day, moving
rocks, adding soil and manure to the ground, preparing everything for
the flowers she had planned to buy, finally when she was finished she
went to the nearest greenhouse and bought a couple of hundred dollars
worth of bedding plants. The colorful variety would surely spruce up the
place, after all, with snapdragons, daisies, cosmos, petunias, pansies,
and several others, how could it not be just grand? After a hard days
work and watering the newly planted flowers, she retired for the
evening.
Early the next morning she awoke with the sun, eager to water the flower
garden, but when she went outside and turned on the hose, to her
dismay, her flowers were all gone!
The deer and rabbits had eaten every single flower to the ground. Not a
one survived the flowercide, and over $200.00 US dollars disappeared
overnight. But a lesson was learned here. If you move to an area where
there is wildlife, you moved into an area where they have been living
for who knows how long and animals eat - they eat anything they can find
that tastes good. Thereupon lies the key. You have to find out what
doesn't tasted good to the animals in your area.
Ask, ask, ask, all of your neighbors and do some research before you
spend any money on plants. The couple mentioned above gradually learned
the deer and rabbits don't touch the iris' nor the chives, nor the
echinacea. Sometimes the tulips and daffodils survive to bloom as well.
The lemon balm does just grand, for greenery and so does the mint.
Apparently these flowers and herbs are just a tad too pungent for the
palates of the wildlife that frequently visit the area.
Many a poor folk want to plant a flower garden, but find the deer like
the plants as much as we do. If this is the case in your neck of the
woods, what to do?
Also after much research, the above mentioned couple discovered the
common ingredient in the products on the market to repel deer, egg. Yes,
egg. Try this if you are spending money on deer repellant. Use about a
half dozen eggs and separate the yolks from the whites. Put the whites
in the blender and fill with warm water and give it a whirl. After
blending, strain through cheese cloth and pour mixture into a sprayer.
Make sure the sprayer does not have any residue from anything toxic. But
of course if you are a concerned grower, you wouldn't use anything
toxic anyway. Spray your flower garden and vegetable garden, if you
still have one, with this egg water. The smell of the egg for deer and
rabbit is very unattractive and supposedly they will leave your garden
alone. This has to be reapplied after a rain, and occasionally
throughout the growing season to be effective.
You don't have to give up growing things, you just have to be smarter than the deer. Happy growing season!
Read more of Marilyn's great ideas at her different webpages, and be
sure to order her new book, True Tales of a Cowboy - The Life and Times
of Dale Sims, from http://search.barnesandnoble.com/True-Tales-of-a-Cowboy/Marilyn-Magee/e/9780983227090/?itm=1&USRI=marilyn+magee
Subscribe to Marilyn's Frugal Living page at:http://www.examiner.com/frugal-living-in-national/marilyn-magee
For further information look into the blog archives: http://mare-frugalliving.blogspot.com/
and for more gardening and household tips: http://frugalliving-denver.com/default.aspx
For great photography go to: http://www.redbubble.com/people/maremagee
I am currently writing for www.organicgardeningfarming.com
If you are interested in a useful gardening magazine then this is the one for you. Tell them I sent you.
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