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Four foot tall rats with horns!

They do a lot of harm to my garden and will girdle young fruit trees rubbing the felt off their antlers.

Ben
Best tasting rat I have ever ate.
As my brother would say" themes good eaten"
 
if it dont rain soon the big garden is going to be history and all my taters are done for the year.i pulled up a plant and it had a few marble size and one about 3/4 golf golf ball size.last year on july 23 i was digging giant taters. plants even look like they want to give up on it too.

drove around this morning and burnt a couple gallons of gas. we have troubles...real troubles. this is worse than 2019 now. theres not going to be second cutting hay and places are already out of pasture.
 
Second cutting around here is short. Gardens are doing ok. But late season crops are gonna be sparce if we don't get rain soon.

friends drove to where all truck farming takes places. green beans are $65 a bushel and $2.49 a pound and largest place only had 2 bushel to sale and said this might be all we get this year.
 
Update from Northern Delaware.

We have had a decent amount of rain. Still watering, but rain comes every few days. They just got the first cutting of hay in from what we see, looked good from the road.

Peas, Snap and shelling: Second planting starting to produce, delicious.

Cucumbers: No germinations for female flowers. Can’t understand why. Sunflowers are there and open and we have bees around. Been over two weeks now and not a single cuke growing.

Squash: Had several yellow but the green are not growing. Same mound. Green will drop the flowers then just not grow any larger. Six have been like that for over a week. I am thinking of just cutting them off so it produces another batch. The Yellow ones grew really fast, as expected.

Tomatoes: Slicers are big but still firm and green. Yellow and red cherries have started producing a few per day – Delicious. The Sungold yellow have a really thick skin this year, thinking since it is the first ripe ones, they just sat in the sun too long.

Carrots going well.

Put a few potato cuts in where the lettuce was, no sprouts yet. The store bought carrot I planted for seed is sprouting nicely.
 
Sunshine and showers here, more rain than normal but at least it's keeping the barrels full. The outdoor corn, peas, sunflowers and spinach are very slow, cabbage, potatoes, kale, onions and broccoli doing well. I'll be harvesting my first zucchinis this week.
In the polytunnel I lifted the onions planted in autumn, which were a trial- I've now a constant crop of white onions, haven't bought any in nearly two years. That bed now has winter cabbage in. The corn, broccoli, tomatoes, sunflowers and strawberries are doing much better undercover. I've put in another lot of peas also, and transplanted swiss chard seedlings and little tomato bushes into a new bed. I was able to source what we call 'collar ties' and they make great raised beds. The ground here isn't great so other than potatoes everything is in raised beds.
 
We were supposed to get rain last night. Our town even canceled the fireworks. No rain. Not one drop. Will be watering the garden heavily today. Green beans are starting to come on the pole and provider. Tender green is loaded with flowers. Cucumbers and butternut squash are loaded with flowers not seeing anything in the fruiting area though. Tomatoes are looking awesome and I’m happy to report no blossom end rot
 
We were supposed to get rain last night. Our town even canceled the fireworks. No rain. Not one drop. Will be watering the garden heavily today. Green beans are starting to come on the pole and provider. Tender green is loaded with flowers. Cucumbers and butternut squash are loaded with flowers not seeing anything in the fruiting area though. Tomatoes are looking awesome and I’m happy to report no blossom end rot
We didn't have them last year. Our gardens are slow due to late spring.
 
Sunshine and showers here, more rain than normal but at least it's keeping the barrels full. The outdoor corn, peas, sunflowers and spinach are very slow, cabbage, potatoes, kale, onions and broccoli doing well. I'll be harvesting my first zucchinis this week.
In the polytunnel I lifted the onions planted in autumn, which were a trial- I've now a constant crop of white onions, haven't bought any in nearly two years. That bed now has winter cabbage in. The corn, broccoli, tomatoes, sunflowers and strawberries are doing much better undercover. I've put in another lot of peas also, and transplanted swiss chard seedlings and little tomato bushes into a new bed. I was able to source what we call 'collar ties' and they make great raised beds. The ground here isn't great so other than potatoes everything is in raised beds.
I have to do a lot in raised beds, a lot of clay in my area!!
 
kale,collards,a few sideshoots off broccoli,squash,cucumber and few tomatoes.

i cant believe kale and collards still producing.i have abused them yet still producing. they try to go to seed fast and cut them back to nothing. i even used weedeater on them once .i wil take it. i was going to plow kale under but other stuff has been slow so i left them. glad i did now.

DSC00634.JPG
 
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I keep a patch of elephant kale for animal food. Last year I planted early spring and left it till winter. Didn't even care that it had wormholes. One of those things that you can strip the leaves and it keeps on growing. Don't care how it looks, the geese like it, and get it twice a day. It's hardier and thicker leafed than our Siberian Kale.
 
this was last falls patch so it really want to bolt. i keep cutting it back and it keeps growing. even in the hot weather. its surprising me to be honest. i probably going to try nursing it along rest of season if i dont need space.
 
This morning while watering the garden I noticed the little robin sitting at the top of it's nest, it chirped at me a couple of times and I got a picture, it was one of the babies as you could still see the down on it's shoulders, it has seen me a lot and it is not afraid of me, it was just hungry. I saw the first of my pole beans today, I saw something had dug up a potato plant and had dug several large holes in one of my raised beds. So now I have seen damage at my lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes, and carrots. Makes me sad.

After watering I went in and started cleaning the kitchen (the wife is feeling poor today). While standing at the sink I saw a ground hog coming from behind the shed. I got my pellet rifle, went back to the kitchen window, and watched him through the scope as he climbed into my tomato bed. I gave him a warning shot to the head. I'm not real good on this warning shot stuff.
 
This morning while watering the garden I noticed the little robin sitting at the top of it's nest, it chirped at me a couple of times and I got a picture, it was one of the babies as you could still see the down on it's shoulders, it has seen me a lot and it is not afraid of me, it was just hungry. I saw the first of my pole beans today, I saw something had dug up a potato plant and had dug several large holes in one of my raised beds. So now I have seen damage at my lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes, and carrots. Makes me sad.

After watering I went in and started cleaning the kitchen (the wife is feeling poor today). While standing at the sink I saw a ground hog coming from behind the shed. I got my pellet rifle, went back to the kitchen window, and watched him through the scope as he climbed into my tomato bed. I gave him a warning shot to the head. I'm not real good on this warning shot stuff.
Can you eat ground hog?
 
My tomatoes are growing like weeds, I have some that are over 8' tall, harvesting will be interesting this year. I have been monitoring a group of baby robins, they left the nest on Saturday, yesterday I saw them flying around the garden, today the nest is empty and there is no sign of them. I find that the speed of nature is amazing. My beets along the south wall have been producing steadily but now I am debating if I should keep planting new ones or replace with more okra. I have a busy week planed but I need to do some planting in the raised boxes I am just not sure what I want to plant....
 
My tomatoes are growing like weeds, I have some that are over 8' tall, harvesting will be interesting this year. I have been monitoring a group of baby robins, they left the nest on Saturday, yesterday I saw them flying around the garden, today the nest is empty and there is no sign of them. I find that the speed of nature is amazing. My beets along the south wall have been producing steadily but now I am debating if I should keep planting new ones or replace with more okra. I have a busy week planed but I need to do some planting in the raised boxes I am just not sure what I want to plant....
My tomatoes are growing very tall this year too. Mine are approaching 8 feet. No way wife can pick more than half way up. And the are loaded so heavy I've had to put sole old wooden fence post in at angles to brace the cow panels up.
 

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