The little squirrels that could

I'll be selling gardeners' gift baskets at the farmer's market in West Newton, MA 10-2 on June 23, June 30, and every other Saturday thereafter until October 6. Stop by and say hello if you're in the neighborhood! The market is on Elm Street between Washington Street and Webster Street. 
 
Baby needs acorns—that seems to be the imperative for squirrels in my yard at this time of year. Local squirrels are in high gear, digging everywhere. 

Squirrels are persistent in their search for food. They've got all day.

I wake in the morning to find holes dug every six inches in the wood chip paths. There are few edible seeds or nuts around at this season. Squirrels are digging for food wherever soil is loose.

Wood chip paths make for easy digging

    Whatever I plant in the ground is in danger of being thrown back out by foraging squirrels. This year’s plan to grow vegetables and berries in containers on the deck is in serious jeopardy unless I can keep squirrels out of the pots until the plants are firmly rooted.

      Checking Google, I learn that other people are having the same problem. 

Can you see where squirrels dug a hole in the bottom right corner of this pot?

Writers promoting “natural” gardening recommend non-toxic repellents: human hair or dog hair, cayenne pepper, or bone meal spread on the soil surface. Folk remedies like these get passed on from gardener to gardener, but I’ve never found they had much effect on wildlife.

    Instead, I’m opting for mechanical barriers. One recommendation that recurred in my Internet search was to lay down chicken wire or wire mesh fencing and plant through it. Cutting a hole with wire clippers every time you plant a seedling sounds to me like a recipe for frustration and laceration. 

    I prefer to cover rows of seeds with row cover, a spun-bonded synthetic textile. I keep the fabric off the ground with rectangles of wire fencing with 2-inch openings. These are held down with small stakes. 

Peas under row cover

 I take the row cover off when the seeds sprout. I can remove the fencing when the seedlings have several leaves or let it remain to deter digging all summer. 

    I have to admit that this approach adds extra time and work to the job of starting the vegetable garden in spring. It does increase the chance that squirrels will leave the seedlings in peace.

    Protecting young plants in pots is even more complicated. This spring I’ve potted strawberry plants, a blueberry bush, a patio tomato, a bush cucumber, and two eggplant seedlings. I’ve planted radish and lettuce seeds in shallow containers. The question is how to keep these plants safe, short of standing guard all day. Past experience warns that they have little chance of surviving or producing without a barrier to keep squirrels out.

    I covered the little blueberry bush with a chicken wire cloche I bought from Gardeners Supply. 

Chicken wire cloche: adorable but pricey

Glass cloches were originally invented as mini-greenhouses, providing a warm, moist environment to encourage individual plants to grow. This one is just a barrier to keep marauders out. It’s not cheap at $25 plus shipping, otherwise I’d purchase a fleet of them. 
   
    After squirrels started digging in the other containers, I covered the pots with window screen or wire mesh or laid cut pieces of these around the plants on the soil surface, holding them down with small stakes or tomato cages. Still the squirrels find ways around my barriers. They never give up!

A squirrel found a way past the protective screening and threw mulch out of this tomato's pot

Woman versus squirrel

Wildlife—can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em. This month it’s squirrels. I’ve been driven to elaborate measures to keep them from digging up my young seedlings.

Squirrel at work--photo by pelican

     A fair percentage of the seeds I planted indoors this spring succeeded in growing into little plants around four inches tall. I hardened them off, moving them outdoors for lengthening periods over a couple of weeks to make sure they were ready for this season’s wildly oscillating temperatures. 

Toughening up to live outdoors

Then there were delays during days of heavy rain that kept me out of the garden for fear of trampling the soil into concrete.

    In the last three weeks I used whatever dry days there were for planting the seedlings out. Most were headed for the fenced, rabbit-proof vegetable plot.

The vegetable garden fence reaches 12 inches underground to keep rabbits out

Basil and dill seedlings landed in a corner dedicated to herbs. Nearby I also planted seeds of peas, cucumbers, and beans directly in the ground.

     Opposite the herbs is a section that stays dry and partially shaded because of a neighbor’s tall red oak. The tree’s branches extend above the vegetable plot, and its roots efficiently draw up whatever irrigation I provide. This area can’t sustain vegetables, so it has become an insectary garden offering food and shelter for native insects.

      This month I added some seedlings of common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) and cockscomb (Celosia species) to it and edged the path that bisects the vegetable bed with sweet alyssum (Lobularia maritima).

Sweet alyssum attracts pollinators and has a honey scent

     Near the insectary bed, I’m hoping to produce flowers for cutting. In that section I planted the zinnias, bachelor’s buttons, and cosmos I started indoors with hopes of enjoying summer bouquets. Some spider flower (Cleome hassleriana) that had popped up in the homemade potting mix came along too. The flowers of these easy annuals are popular with pollinators.

Exuberant zinnias at Locust Grove in Poughkeepsie, NY

     So far the sustainable-enough approach was working. I’d managed to procure most of the annuals I wanted without resorting to seeds or plants treated with neonicotinoid insecticides. I’d gotten the young plants safely into the garden. That’s when squirrels became a menace. 

     When I dig, squirrels follow after me, digging in the same spot and throwing the young seedlings I’ve planted out of the ground. If I don’t notice and replant them, the exposed roots dry up and the little plants die. Squirrels don’t seem to want to eat the seedlings (except sunflowers, which must have delicious sprouts). Maybe they suspect I’ve buried nuts. Whatever the reason for this behavior, it’s very frustrating.

     To foil this sabotage, wherever I dug in the vegetable garden, I had to cover the loosened soil with wire fencing and then anchor row cover fabric on top of it. 

Row cover fabric lets water and light through and keeps squirrels out

That gave the vegetable seeds and the young seedlings a chance to take root. Yesterday, after the row cover had been in place for two weeks, I lifted it off. I left the fencing in place.

Lettuce and greens growing through the wire fencing

 I covered the bare soil with leaf mulch. Here’s hoping I’ve outsmarted the squirrels, and they’ll dig somewhere else.

 Are these pea plants old enough to be squirrel-proof?

Seeds of change

Now is the time for what Steve calls the “hot stove league.” In baseball, that’s sharing happy visions of your team’s coming season. In gardening, it’s paging through seed catalogs full of beautiful pictures of vegetables and flowers. The photographers and graphic designers for these alluring publications can make even a humble cabbage or carrot look like a must-buy.

    This year I’m planning a new direction for seed buying. I’m going organic. I’d never thought it was important to start with organically produced seeds. I was not going to apply pesticides to my seedlings, so why did it matter? 

     Now I’m aware that commercial seeds may be treated with neonicotinoid pesticides that could be stored in plant tissues and kill pollinators all summer long. That’s motivated me to put aside my favorite catalog purveyors in favor of seed houses that use organic methods.

For the pollinators' sake I'll plant organic seeds

    For my insectary garden, I’m going to start cosmos, celosia, monkey flower, sunflowers, and black-eyed susans from seed. For cutting, I’ll add zinnias. For growing in containers, I usually buy coleus, torenia, browallia, impatiens, and other long-blooming annuals that catch my fancy. I’m less familiar with starting these at home, but if I begin early and give the seedlings reliable attention, I’m hopeful that I can do it.

Monkey plant (Mimulus guttatus) offers bees early browsing

   
     This year I’ll also have time for succession planting. That’s planting new rounds of favorite vegetables every couple of weeks, avoiding the usual boom and bust pattern of my vegetable garden. By frequently planting very short rows of lettuce, sugar snap peas, and green beans, I hope to enjoy these vegetables over longer periods and avoid wasting produce that’s too plentiful for our household of two to eat. 

Can I spread out my basil crop by planting a little at a time?

     After all, what’s sustainable about ordering seeds that are shipped from afar, starting them under lights, and watering them with purified drinking water, only to leave them un-harvested and then throw them on the compost pile? I’m sorry to say that’s been my pattern in past years.

    To get a jump on the growing season, I’ll plant seeds indoors using Organic Mechanics peat-free seed-starting mix or my own non-peat potting blend, both containing coir (coconut fiber). I mix four parts potting mix with one part warm water and fill the cells of seedling six-packs I’ve saved from last year’s purchases. 

Waste not, want not--reusing six-packs from last year

I poke a hole in the mix with a pencil and plant three seeds in each cell. The labeled packs fit into trays filled with capillary matting—that’s spongy synthetic material that holds water to keep the potting mix moist from below.

     I wrap the trays in clear plastic (old dry-cleaning bags) and set them under grow lights.

African violets under the grow lights

     Until they germinate, the most desirable seeds may get bottom heat from a thermostatically controlled mat that fits in the bottom of the tray. 

Capillary matting lies on top of the heating mat

This gives them their start. Most of the seeds do germinate, especially if they’re new, not saved from previous years. Then it’s up to me to help the little plants grow bigger until planting time.

Home-grown cucumbers are worth the effort