FishinBC's Blog

If you can't beat them, feed them
Jun 5, 2007 | 10:19 AM PST
Tags: Squirrels , Veggies , containers , Shade , Fungus , elephant ears , Bird Feeder , maters , Tomato , Bell Peppers

The battles with the bushy tailed beasties over my bird feeders and potted herbs on the deck continued until this weekend.  I had been putting feed and bird seed on the railing for them to try and deter the ravages to my herb pots.  The mess they made with the seed shells on the deck was driving hubby bonkers.  While I was out in the garden he went to work on a solution to our problem. 

 

He built them a squirrel trough!  It’s a six foot by six inch platform with a 1 inch rail all the way around.  The whole contraption is hinged so that it can be dumped out for cleaning and has a guard chain so it doesn’t flop all the way down.  The trough sits on long shelf brackets on the outside of the deck railing so any shells fall down to the ground.  There is a steep slope down to the lake on that side of the house so no harm cleaning it out there.  It works great!!  I can fill it with enough feed and seeds to keep them happy all day and out of my pots!!  The jays love it because they are too big for my bird feeders and the titmice love it because they can pick all the peanuts out of the seed.  Everyone is happy, especially Hubby who doesn’t have to go blow the shells off the deck everyday.

 

Gave the maters a feed yesterday.  I was up to 53 tomatoes but there are too many to count now. I love it!!  Yummy!  Squashes have blooms all over and the cukes are trying there best to start too.  Pulled out the last of the lettuce and spinach, it was pretty much done and our last pounding rain did them no favors.  Peppers are starting to get a little bigger.  Now that we have sun and warm maybe they will think about growing, you can see the little peppers on the plants, they just haven’t done much with all the rain we have had.  Going to put in more beans where the lettuce and spinach was, I have some starts that I will put out this weekend.

 

Got all the containers watered last night because we are up in the 90’s today.  Thank goodness it is not humid yet.  My daylilies I put in a couple of weeks ago now are doing wonderful; one that was about a three fan size is thinking about blooming, it is called “Go Figure”.  The others are all late bloomers.  I have a Masquerade Ball daylily that is getting ready to bloom, I put it in right before the freeze and it made it.  All three elephant ears are up at the back of the pond.  The leafs are huge and it really filled in that side in front of the garage.  The new willow that took the place of the Japanese maple we lost is doing great.  Lot’s of new stems and foliage.

 

And best of all my dinner plate dahlias are all about to bloom!!!  I have had to stake a few of them they were getting so tall.  But soon they will all be flowering.  I will take some photos as soon as they do.  The sunflowers have all bloomed.  I think I will plant some more of those on the hill side just for the birds.  They really are pretty.  

 

The shade bed has really filled in.  I was watering a container near there last night and notice this fungus growing on the mulch.  Looked kinda yellowish and spongy.  I gave is a squirt of the hose and the whole thing exploded in a big brown cloud!!  So great, I can just imagine the whole shade bed is going to be covered with this fungus from all the spores I released by hosing the thing down.  So how do I get rid of that????