Deer Are Cute...Until They're Not

This was the sight that greeted me when I checked on my vegetable garden this morning. That plant with one leaf at the bottom of the picture is a cauliflower plant. Those empty blocks behind it used to contain cauliflower plants. Beautiful, lush cauliflower plants that I had babied and coddled for the last month. Apparently I didn't coddle them enough.

This is what my cauliflower looked like
last week. Now they're gone.

I can only assume that the deer took my cauliflower from me in the cover of night. What else would eat a whole plant, thick stem and all, right down to the ground? I used to love watching the deer. From my living room, I could see them grazing on the weeds in our back lawn when I worked at home. I felt like Snow White living among the cute, fuzzy animals. Other than losing one bean plant in the spring, they hadn't touched the vegetable garden in months. Now, I have one cauliflower plant left. It's really kind of heartbreaking. If I'm lucky, I might get one crown of cauliflower for all my work. Clearly, Snow White never had a vegetable garden.

You better believe I'm caging my garden now. I built the cage in the spring originally to keep the deer out and to keep the squirrels from digging among my seedlings and disturbing them. When the plants grew too large for the cage, I left it off, and the deer really left my garden alone. When the freeze came last week, I put up a PVC frame with plastic sheeting to protect the cauliflower from frost, and when the plastic came off, I left the frame up for ease of covering when the next freeze hits this weekend. Apparently, I need to remove the frame and replace it with the cage in between freezes. That last cauliflower plant will stay covered at all times.

For now, my last cauliflower plant lives safely under a cage.

The moral of the story: if you have deer in your neighborhood, don't ever let your guard down, especially in the winter time when their natural food supply is more scarce. My cage works fine for my little garden, but I'm not sure what people with larger gardens do. I never had these issues growing up in suburban south Florida. Do you have any suggestions?

Lessons from My Vegetable Garden

I can't believe it's been almost a month since I last posted! Between working non-stop and fighting a cold, I could barely get in the garden long enough to water my plants. When I finally recovered, my little vegetable garden was a sad sight. My broccoli seeds had never sprouted. ALL my carrot seedlings had shriveled up and died because I missed a few days of watering them. My block of lettuce seeds looked like they had either been dug up, washed away, or both. The cabbageworms, which I thought I had under control, had multiplied and skeletonized my newest cauliflower transplant. To make matters worse, the cabbageworms managed to do that much damage while still being so tiny that I could barely see them with the naked eye.

New additions to my fall garden:
radishes and spinach

After my mourning period was over, I got to work. I broke out my environmentally-friendly pesticides and killed all the cabbageworms. I realized I still had plenty of time to replant the veggies that didn't make it (and plenty of seeds left in the packets), so I replanted my block of carrots and added to my sad little block of salad greens. While I was at it, I pulled out the okra (it only produced one single, solitary okra in the last 6 months) and planted radishes. Where the broccoli didn't sprout, I sowed spinach. The broccoli was kind of an experiment anyway: I had read it grows better from transplants than directly from seed. I'll try sowing some indoors in the next week and transplanting it outside later on.

Butterflies and moths love my hot pink zinnias.

One thing in my vegetable garden that seems quite happy right now is my zinnia. I planted it so I could enjoy the cut flowers inside, but it's also been a welcome bright spot among the veggies. I particularly enjoyed watching the butterflies on it while I worked in the garden this week.

Gardening is filled with life lessons. I admit it: when I first saw my dead carrots, disappearing lettuce, and chewed-up cauliflower plants, I wanted to give up altogether on my fall vegetable garden. I don't take failure well, and sometimes it's easier to give up than to try again. But life is full of setbacks. Things don't always go like I plan. Sometimes the pests are determined to destroy all my hard work. But in life, as in gardening, sometimes the best way to learn is through trial and error. After all, I started this blog one year ago just for that purpose: so I could keep track of what I did in my garden and learn from my successes AND failures. If I hadn't tried planting my first fall vegetable garden, I wouldn't have learned the dangers of cabbageworms, the necessity of daily watering in the fall, or that broccoli seeds need to be started inside. And if I hadn't tried again, I wouldn't have sat beside my vegetable garden long enough to watch the butterflies dance among the zinnias. Maybe God lets us experience setbacks so we will learn and grow, or maybe just so we'll slow down long enough to appreciate the little things.

So, if you think you have a "brown thumb," just remember: 1) even experienced gardeners lose a crop sometimes, 2) gardening and life are all about trial and error, and 3) celebrate the little moments of beauty that make it all worth it.

Happy gardening!

Know Your Pest: Cross-Striped Cabbageworm

It's been such a busy week between work and catching up on projects around the house, I haven't been able to do as much gardening as I would have liked. Even when I have been in the garden, most of the time has been spent watering. (The nice breezes and lack of rain dry plants out fast.) I did spend some time removing ivy and weeds from the hosta bed next to my patio, and even discovered a couple of surprises in the process.

My little garden friend can stay and eat all the
bugs he wants.

This little toad wasn't too happy with me cleaning out some of his great hiding spots, but there were still plenty of hostas for him to hide among when I was done.

Surprise camellia seedlings

I also discovered that some seeds dropped by the large camellia shrub nearby had sprouted in the hosta bed. I carefully extracted three of them and potted them up. I'm curious to see if they look like the parent, or if they come out a little different. Either way, I'll be happy; they have a great parent plant. I've never grown camellia seedlings before, so I'll be happy if two out of three live. Then I can keep one, and give one to a friend.

I've been spoiled by my garden being relatively pest-free all summer, but this week I encountered a nasty pest on my young cauliflower plants: the cross-striped cabbageworm. There are a few kinds of cabbage moths, and even though their name says "cabbage," they all affect various members of the cabbage family: broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, collard greens, kale, and, of course, cabbage. This little guy really likes the mild fall and winter of the South, but can be found throughout the U.S. For being so small, the caterpillars can really do a lot of damage fast.

My young cauliflower plant defoliated by cabbageworms

I planted my cauliflower seedlings just two weeks ago, and when I went out to water this morning, I saw the damage. I had seen a couple of holes before, but didn't really think I had a problem until I saw half my plant was gone. Closer inspection revealed the tiny, hungry culprits hiding in the very center of the plant and on the undersides of leaves.

Here's a very close-up shot of the cross-striped
cabbageworms.

Unlike the tomato hornworms that get big and fat, these guys never get bigger than an inch long. If you don't look carefully, they can go through a whole life cycle before you ever see them. In warm weather like we've been having, they can go from egg to moth in 18 days, devouring your vegetables in the process.

Since I only have a few plants in the cabbage family right now, and the plants are small, it was easy to find all the worms and pick them off with my hands (wearing gloves, of course). Now that I know they're an issue, I'll inspect every couple of days while I'm watering the garden and remove them as I see them. If they continue to be a problem, especially as I get closer to having little baby heads of cauliflower, I might spray with an insecticidal soap as an extra measure. Any insecticide product that's labeled for caterpillars can handle these.

What's growing in your garden this week?

The Cottage Garden Begins

Well, it's been quite a week in the garden. Two of my roses started blooming, I've planted a bunch of new things, and two young deer (an unexpected garden "pest") seem to have taken up residence in the neighborhood. Fortunately, they've mostly stuck to eating the weeds in our backyard. They did start nibbling on the beans, though, so we'll be building a cage for the vegetable garden this weekend.

'Knock Out' Rose, and a climbing rose I can't identify.

Yes, that's a deer frolicking in my backyard.

When we bought our home last summer, I decided our quirky little Tudor Revival cottage needed a cottage garden in the front to match.  At the time, Indian Hawthorne shrubs were planted across the front of the house. Indian Hawthorne is the kind of shrub that's planted on roadsides and around apartment complexes because it's hard to kill. It gets nice flowers, but I get so tired of seeing it everywhere--it had to go. I decided to start with the area to the east side of my front door, probably because it was the biggest challenge. It gets shade most of the day, and most beautiful flowering perennials and annuals like a lot of sunshine. But I would find a way.

Front of house, summer 2012

So I started doing my research. I researched what makes a cottage garden. I poured through my plant books, cross-referenced my findings online, and made a list of cottage-garden-style plants that would tolerate shade. From there, I narrowed it down to a few that I liked the best and would look good together, and I drew a loose diagram of my bed to figure out spacing and how many plants I needed.

Then came the real work. We tore out the shrubs and prepared the beds last October. I planted a few things my friends had given me--hostas, irises, and bugleweed. I divided up my lemon balm and planted part of it in the new bed. I found a good deal on a hydrangea that needed some TLC. I added some pansies for a splash of color. I fertilized everything to help it get established.

And then I waited. Most of the plants on my list wouldn't be available until spring, and even the plants I had wouldn't really fill in for a while. Most everything went dormant.

Spring came, everything has flushed out with new growth, and I found the plants I was looking for...and then some. I just finished planting everything this week, and mulched it to keep in moisture and prevent weeds. Here's the final product:

Of course, it's not really final. The hostas and bugleweed will spread more. One of my hydrangeas is only six inches tall right now--it was from one of the cuttings I took last fall. It will eventually grow to about four feet tall and wide. My spindly little climbing hydrangea will eventually cover that trellis and then some. Some things will start blooming, some things will stop blooming. After the summer I will assess what died (if anything), or what just needs to be moved to a different spot, and I might try some new plants. It will always be a work in progress.

For reference, here's my plant list (roughly left to right):

Hosta spp.

Foxglove (Digitalis purpurea)

Iris spp. (I have no idea what kind--my friend dug it out of her garden for me, and I haven't seen it bloom yet)

Columbine (Aquilegia caerulea 'Origami Mix')

Endless Summer Twist n' Shout Bigleaf Hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla 'PIIHM-I')

Climbing hydrangea (Hydrangea anomola petiolaris)

Coleus (Solenostemon hybrid--I don't know which one)

Hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla)

Wishbone flower (Torenia hybrid)

Bugleweed (Ajuga reptans 'Purpurea')

Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis)

Happy gardening!