Garden 2015: WooHoo! Tomatoes & Spinach

This has definitely been the worst garden I've ever had. My green beans were torn apart by rodents, and I only harvested about 1.5 gallon bags of beans compared to probably 10 gallons in past years. We set traps out and caught 3 RATS! I never thought I'd have rats in the garden. I'm guessing they must've gotten relocated during our 2 week rain spell when the storm sewers were overflowing. The traps haven't been set off in nearly a week, so I'm hopeful they're all gone.

Something, probably a raccoon, started to eat my tomatoes. I was hesitant to hook up my electric fence because I didn't want my new dog to get zapped. I know it's a small static electricity shock, but still, I didn't want to freak him out. BUT once I had 4 of my Black Krim tomatoes gnawed on, I decided to give my electric fence another go and hope for the best.

I had poor results with the electric fence in the past. In all fairness, the problem could be that the location of my garden is next to trees and fences where critters can just hop on down into it. One thing I know that the fence works on is poor little doggies. Tuna Fish Joe got shocked twice and freaked out, so I decided to switch it off again because he seemed afraid to even go out into the back yard.

The good news is that I'm at least getting a few tomatoes. Some of the plants are browning, so I don't know that I'll get many more. The Black Krim tomatoes that I've picked are perfect and beautiful. I've always had good success with this variety and also the Amish Paste.

Black Krim Tomato 

Black Krim Tomato looks interesting when sliced.

Black Krim and Amish Paste Tomatoes 

The ornamental spinach is called Malabar Spinach. I believe it's supposed to flower at some point. Since the leaves get thicker, it's best to eat them raw when they're small and young. I've been tearing up the larger leaves and sautéing them in bacon grease and frying them with eggs most mornings. I'm kinda healthy like that.

Ornamental & edible climbing spinach. 

Tuna Fish Joe was a fan of the green beans and carrots in my garden,
but not the electric fence!

Uh oh, my garden is out of control. And that wasn't a zucchini plant. My bad.

OK, so this year's garden doesn't look anything like I've ever had before. It's a chaotic jungle. I've never seen so much green before...at least not in my garden bed. Things often start out green, but they don't tend to get all big & bushy...and live. I definitely have luck with some veggies. Lettuce, no problem. Green beans, yep, I can do those. Why doesn't everything else do as well as beans? Tomatoes...sometimes I do alright. Green Peppers, Corn, Zucchini? Forget about it. I stopped planting zucchini years ago because it's always a big dud for me. My zucchini plants have never gotten larger than a dinner plate before they start to rot at the stems and die.

So imagine my excitement when I had 3 volunteer plants that I thought for sure were zucchinis? I was elated. I was already planning on making bread, cooking veggie soup, breading & baking it. The plants kept getting bigger & bigger & bigger. My mom & grandmother-in-law often have enormous zucchini plants that come up to your waist and travel 8 feet or more. So I had no reason to believe that what I had wasn't zucchini. Until they kept growing, started vining, and developed little round balls under the blossoms. Crud, this isn't zucchini. It's either pumpkins or those little decorative gourds. I would prefer pumpkins since we carve them at work every year, so they'd be useful. But I'm betting they're little gourds. Dangit.

And all the volunteer tomatoes that I didn't pull up appear to be cherry tomato plants. yea. We like cherry tomatoes, but one plant is always sufficient.

The worst part about my garden is that it's incredibly difficult to get in & out of it with these crazy vining plants because of my electric fence. The vines are going around the fence, so it probably isn't working, and I have to step over the enormous plants which come up to my waist in some areas. They're currently maneuvering their way in & out of my slotted wooden fence too, so I'm sure my neighbors are going to love this.

Mr. McGregor's Fence: EPIC FAIL

In a previous blog post I posted in detail the arduous task of installing a small electric fence around my garden. I really bought into the marketing for Mr. McGregor's Fence Kits. Unfortunately, it appears to have been a huge waste of my time & money. I thought it was making a difference at first, but that was before my tomatoes started to come on. I guess carrots, beans, & swiss chard aren't desirable to groundhogs, at least those have been left untouched by the wildlife. It's confusing that tomatoes suit the groundhog's palette considering that they tend to take one bite of the largest, nearly ripe tomato before moving on to something else :( 

Don't get me wrong, the electric fence technically works... it does seem to charge up properly in the sun & give out a static charge. The manufacturer claimed this small jolt, which they compared to static electricity generated by shuffling along your carpet, would be enough to deter pests. It wouldn't harm or kill them, but stun them & make them afraid to try to go into your garden again. Maybe I have a hogzilla & that's why I still see destruction everyday when I check my garden.

The fence kit consists of several components. You first install a pretty thin & flimsy chicken wire around the perimeter of your garden, then string up the electric wires outside of it about 6". They claimed that groundhogs are wary critters & will explore the fence before trying to go over it. So they'll get zapped & go away. If they can get over the barrier, they'll come into contact with the electric wires more & go away. The chicken wire fence probably isn't much of a deterrent. From what I've seen, these varmints are pretty strong & can push in small fences fairly easily. But the electric fence in conjunction with the chicken wire was supposed to be able to stop them. My fence is installed properly, the solar battery gets plenty of sun & charges fine, & I keep weeds & debris clear of the electric wires. So in theory, it should work. But it doesn't. If it did, I would've canned a dozen quarts of tomatoes by now instead of only getting THREE tomatoes!!! He's a greedy SOB :(

I feel somewhat silly thinking this would be the end-all pest deterrent. When I went to Home Depot to buy a trap, I was told the only way to get rid of a groundhog was to shoot it. Well, I can't exactly be on guard all day long, not that I would ever shoot an animal for getting into my garden anyway. And my father-in-law chuckled when he saw my fence... he didn't say anything probably because he didn't want me to feel like a fool, but I kinda took the laughter as a sarcastic, "yeah, good luck with that."

I'm not an urban homesteader who needs to survive off of what I grow, or a farmer who needs to earn a living at the market. I'm just a girl who likes to make salsa. So I can't really justify killing an animal who's just trying to survive. We tried a trap last year with the intention of releasing animals a few miles away from our home, but they only set off the trap, they never got caught. Garlic/egg repellants didn't work either. In fact, I bought a jug of super concentrated smelly stuff last year, placed saturated cotton balls in small plastic bottles with holes around the garden, & the next day found that the groundhog had ripped 2 of the bottles off the posts & had bitten into them! So he seemed to be attracted to the smell rather than repelled.

I'm not sure what's left to try... This Motion-Activated Water Sprayer looks interesting. The video is hilarious, although I wonder if those are actual wild animals or not (I'm pretty cynical at this point). The main downside to this device for me would be the tremendous waste of water that it would use. My neighbors might hate me too since our houses are pretty close together, I imagine they may get sprayed. We have hundreds of squirrels hopping about, so I would think the sprayer would be on constantly. I do love how it sounds a bit like a machine gun when it runs though. With more searching, I'm sure I could find other motion activators, maybe something that just makes a noise that wouldn't be loud enough that my neighbors would despise me.

If anyone has had luck with any type of deterrents, other than an 8' fence, please let me know!

Solar electric fence

My First Blog Post!

Well, I have to admit, I never thought I'd be blogging! I like reading blogs, but only time will tell if I can maintain my own blog. We'll see!


I guess I'll start off by saying how excited I am about my garden this year. Last year, I had such high hopes for my tomatoes. And for the most part, I had a huge bounty... except they all had bites taken out of them. Yes, a groundhog, who we lovingly named Hermie,  had taken up residence under our porch & terrorized my tiny garden. We've had groundhogs visit our yard in the past & take a few bites here and there, but Hermie was especially ravenous. You'd think he'd remember if he liked tomatoes or not... but he just kept taste-testing anyway. 


I think groundhogs are just about the cutest creatures so I couldn't bare to call an exterminator, much to the displeasure of my husband, friends, & family. So naturally my garden became his garden last year. And, the bold critter made himself at home on our porch (see adorable photo below). Well, this is a new year. And I'm not fooling around with any more whistlepigs! Actually, my neighbors weren't willing to put up with groundhogs anymore, so they put out traps & apparently ensnared my precious Hermie. I guess it's a blessing in disguise really. But I was content on letting him live out his short life under our deck because I invested in a small solar powered electric fence this year.


Installing the fence was an arduous task. I have a small raised garden bed and a tiny backyard. So when I first put the bed in, I placed it really close to our back fence to save yard space. This made it hard to lean into because my butt would bump into the back fence. The electric fence kit required at least 3 feet around the perimeter of the garden, so that meant that I had to relocate my raised bed. I had to move the bed forward 3 feet, which required lots of digging, dismantling the raised bed, moving the frame forward, removing sod, and prepping the new soil. Then I put down weed barrier & mulch before I installed the fence. This was time-consuming, hard work to say the least. But it's all done & looks really impressive I think.


Oh, & in the process of taking these photos, I managed to get zapped about 5 times by my own electric fence. It's not brutal, just a small charge like static electricity. The funny (and embarrassing) thing was that I didn't think I would get shocked through my jeans. Well duh, isn't the point of the fence to shock furry animals? So, this fence should keep Hermie out if he ever finds his way home. And if he does come home, he'll be displeased to find that my husband filled in his hole & placed a giant rock on top of it :(

Solar powered electric fence

Wow, look at all that green!

Well, just make yourself at home on my porch Hermie!