It shouldn’t take constant surveillance to bring in a moderate, suburban harvest on less than a fifth of an acre — not all of which is even under cultivation. We have no frost, no deer or woodchucks or gofers, which I hear can be particularly menacing. We just have plain pests that happen to exploit opportunities with gusto.
And this past week, I took my eye off the yard.
We celebrated the birth of our daughter, Charlotte James Williams, on May 25 at 2:05 p.m., and after two days at the hospital, we’ve spent the past week acclimating to life as a family with a newborn. She’s a darling, exceedingly enjoyable, and no more difficult than one might anticipate. Nothing but sleepy joy around here. That being said, I’ve had little time or inclination to upkeep the property.
While I focused my attention elsewhere, the struggling warm-season crop suffered several blows.
We lost nearly all of the Black Coco and Tiger’s Eye beans that I had recently transplanted after growing them to a reasonable size in starter pots. I raised these replacements to stand-in for the original crop that had been direct-sown in early March and subsequently devoured by woodlice as the seeds sprouted. Initially, these larger plants seemed to hold their own, but in the past week it looks as if the pill bugs worked in packs to gnaw the pencil-thick stalks (which should have proven resilient), and like little beavers brought these foot-high bean plants down. Once collapsed, the pill bugs swarmed the now accessible leaves, flowers, and immature pods. They pulled a similar maneuver with a pair of lemon cucumbers.
At this point in the season, the rabbits and squirrels have risen fully from their winter naps, and with nothing to deter them — and the summer crop not nearly as established as I’d hoped — have rooted around in pots and beds all the way to the house, biting through un-bloomed squash flowers and young fruit, snipping wheat stalks at their base, nibbling still short corn, and in one case climbing a four-foot sunflower, snapping it at the center.
To boot, the grasshoppers are still keeping the winter and summer squash clipped and stunted.
As Charlotte settles, the coming week will call for rebuilding.
Welcome to little Charlotte. At least you’re providing 15% of food for the local pests!
Sorry to hear about the invasions.
Congratulations Jason!!! We need to unleash some serious beneficials to deter these jerks.