Groundhog day

I have been overconfident the last few years about issues with groundhogs because they seemed to avoid my garden while visiting my neighbours. I had seen the little bugger in the yard and chased him out a couple of times, but it seems that he decided that the buffet was for his personal use, and ignored the olfactory warnings of a large predator. I ordered my coyote pee two years back, and used the last bit of the bottle to fill my dispensers late in May. It smelled pretty potent to me, but what do I know? I just ordered a new batch today, in hopes that fresher piss will help, but I am not hopeful. While I was out of town, Mr. Groundhog decided that walking around the fence to one of the three gaps in my back yard was too much of a bother, and dug an express tunnel from the back alley under my fence and lilacs, directly in front of the area where I planted broccoli, basil and lettuce. The groundhog seems less fond of basil, and didn't go for any of the basil in the pots. He also is ignoring my strawberries (not complaining!) but I am told they like tomatoes which is bad news as mine are flowering and I have not found a way to dissuade him from nashing on my garden.

I noticed him popping up through the tunnel just before heading out for an evening downtown with friends at the Montreal Jazz festival, and took a moment to put one of my tomato cage chicken wire frames over the tunnel, weighed down with 2 bags of earth (the easiest thing I found for the job on short notice). I doubt it will hold him back much, but it was a quick fix.

So after a month of serious neglect of the garden, I found that only two of the carrot seeds I had planted had sprouted, none of the lettuce I planted from seed, all of the sunflowers were destroyed, the romaine lettuce I bought to supplement the ones which did not grow from seed were devoured, the broccoli was decimated. So much for variety. The groundhog did not touch the basil and cucumbers which were growing in pots, and the peas and beans which I planted sparsely after last year's legume overload are doing okay, though not too many of the peas came up. The garlic is doing gangbusters and the tomatoes are flowering nicely.  The weeds also have been flourishing. It seems the groundhog has no interest in even the tastiest of the weeds, so plenty of wood sorrel and lamb's quarters in my cooking and salads, though I miss freshly picked lettuce. So I put a call out for some help with getting my garden back in shape, and had the pleasure of Moishe and Elan work with me to get the tomato cages up while I yanked out weeds and dug up the root networks of the creeping bellflowers, which seem to be  thriving, though some patches I worked on last year appear to be mostly clear. A few days later, just before I went out of town for a trip to Portland, Maine for a week, in desperation, I ripped out all the stems with flower buds just to do some damage control. I don't see how I can dig out all the roots and still have time for anything else, garden or otherwise. Anyhow, the groundhog seems to have become the bigger threat. Very frustrating!

Another issue has been the lack of hay. I still have the remaining core of the huge round bale which Jack procured and delivered in spring of 2015, but I have been very sparing about using it to cover the garden, in order to have enough for my compost (I do layered composting, and use hay for the dry layers). The hay bale has finally decomposed enough that it is not sprouting grass all over the place, but the hay that I put down last fall on the ground stayed fresher and has been growing timothy grass and whatever else was in the hay all over the garden. I have not had this problem in the past to this degree because I have generally used old, rotten hay, and that is what I have been looking for. My usual rural contacts have not had any luck, so my friend Elan took on finding hay sources as a project, and I have some interesting leads, so hoping to be covered soon. Literally.

The black raspberries are ripe, and so are the alpine strawberries, but not much exciting to report yet. I have started cooking the weeds as I pull them, and made a hot and sour soup with lamb's quarters and wood sorrel, and plan to make pasta shells with lamb's quarters instead of spinach. I am open to any suggestions on the gentle removal of groundhogs, or surefire ways to keep them looking for another buffet!

Fortunately, the groundhog has no interest in eating my flowers and my early July fireworks are in their full glory. I had a big expansion of my milkweed patch, which I am very pleased about, hoping to attract some monarchs. The irises are done, and the roses are finishing up, but the lilies are at their peak. So beautiful!