A Call to Arms

On Friday I spotted a baby groundhog in the garden. It startled me and I startled it. It ran down into the woods and got me thinking about protecting my crops from the groundhogs. I have everything protected with floating row covers, but groundhogs are crafty creatures and they’ll gnaw through anything to get at their favorite crops, in this case my peas that are just about to bloom!

I went out later in the day and spotted FOUR baby groundhogs in the garden. They are cuties, but not cute enough to let them mow down everything in the back garden. I knew then that we’d have to do something besides hope that they wouldn’t eat all of our crops. Every hour or so for the last 2 days I went out and scared them out of the garden area. Yesterday since we were at the cabin all day I couldn’t scare them away and they gnawed through my row cover in several places and ate all of the peas. This was a call to arms.

I uploaded some photos of the groundhogs to Flickr and someone asked if I knew of any “non-chemical deterrents” for goundhogs. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you know I come from a long line of hunters, I even had my hunting license in the 7th grade. So you can guess what our “non chemical deterrent” is. Yesterday I went out in the morning and spotted one of them in the peas again, I went inside to get the “deterrent” but by the time I went back out it was gone. So Mr Chiots and I headed down into the woods to look for it’s den. We’re going to put used cat liter down in the hole, which will often drive them away. Hopefully by the end of the week the groundhogs will be gone. Too late to save the peas, but at least they’ll be a good cover crop and I’ll replace them with cucumbers and zucchini.

Do you have problems with groundhogs in your garden? How have you dealt with them?

Update on the Garden Pond

Last week I told you about the new pond we were adding to the garden. We’re quite excited about it and were waiting for the right time to fill it! I didn’t want to use city water and I wasn’t about to use the water from my rain barrels until I knew some rain was on it’s way. Last Friday night was the night, we were out at midnight emptying our rain barrels into the pond since a huge rain storm was coming. On Monday I went out to plant a waterlily in the pond and I spotted two toads already enjoying our new water feature! (more on planting a waterlily later).

When you live a half hour from everything, you always plan your errands on the same day to save time. Yesterday we decided to spend the day Holden Arboretum with my parents and figured we’d stop by the pet store on the way home to buy some gold fish for our little pond.

We didn’t want to invest in expensive koi, especially since these cheap feeder goldfish often do better. They will help control mosquitoes and provide some beauty in the pond. We’re hoping at least 3-5 of them survive (we bought 10), I’ll keep you updated.


We arrived home at sunset with just enough time to float them in the water for 30 minutes before setting them free. Of course it was too dark to take photos them. I can’t wait to check on them today!

Anyone else have experience with fish in a small garden pond? Anything new and exciting going on in your garden?

The Seed Starting 101 Series will resume next Monday.

First Hummingbird of the Season

I’ve been watching for the first hummingbird for the last month. I put out the feeder on April 1, knowing that they don’t usually come back until April 15, but I wanted to be ready. I’ve been faithfully changing the nectar (homemade of course) every couple days to keep it fresh and I’ve been keeping an eye on the feeders. Every so often I catch something zooming by but haven’t officially spotted one until last night!

Mr Chiots and I were eating dinner and I saw one at the feeder by the back door. Fortunately my camera was right there and managed to get a quick photo before he zoomed off.

Do you have a hummingbird feeder?

Oh Deer

There are people that think that deer are majestic beautiful creatures and stop their cars to watch them graze peacefully in the fields. Then there are gardeners who have lost entire crops of peas, blueberries, hostas and tulips to these giant rodents.

Here at Chiot’s Run my biggest garden pest is the white tailed deer. They gnaw off my fruit trees and blueberry bushes. My hydrangeas won’t bloom if I don’t wrap them because the deer find them super tasty. Last year they ate all my peas and every single tulip on the front hillside. Unfortunately we live in a gated community and all the land surrounding the community is owned by our property owners association. Hunting is not allowed on association property, so the deer have a safe haven and we have a herd of 10-12 that beds down about 100 yards behind our house. Of course they love it here because of all the beautiful delicious organic food grown in the gardens here at Chiot’s Run. If I were a deer or groundhog I’d live here too.

Until I can do something about them (like get hunting permission from the people that own the land outside of the association property), I chase them away. Although they’re no longer scared of me. I can go out and talk to them and they just stare at me, you’d think they’d at least thank me for the nice blueberry buds. These were about 40 yards away, I took this picture through my kitchen window. I’ll continue making little forts around everything trying to keep them out, my peas are under a conestoga wagon cover over the hoops in the raised bed their planted in. And I’ll have to live with daffodils instead of tulips and crocuses.

What’s the biggest pest in your garden?

Spring Cleaning is for the Birds

We do all we can for our little feathered friends, trying to make them at home here at Chiot’s Run and that includes feeding them all winter long and putting up birdhouses all over the garden. This is the time of year when you need to clean out all those little birdhouses, and get them ready for the new chicks.

Mr Chiots is also going to be fixing up the little condemned birdhouse that the wrens just loved last summer. It needs a new floor, good thing we have a bunch of scrap wood in the garage, perhaps a nice new cedar floor.

I took all the wren houses down and cleaned them out. We also have a bluebird box in a side garden, it didn’t get used last year, but I still checked it to make sure it didn’t need cleaned. The bird houses we have attached to the back of the garage also got a good cleaning, we had some black capped chickadees nest in them last summer.

Cleaning out the birdhouses is an educational experience. You can see how different kinds of birds build different nests. The wrens build tiny little nests out of lots of twigs. They filled up the houses with extra twigs to make their nests a specific size. The chickadees used lots of moss and other soft items from around the garden, even a bunch of dryer lint and wool rug fuzz from the vaccuum cleaner that I put in the compost pile.

Look how cute this little nest is. This is just about actual size. This past summer I could hear the little wrens chirping away in this box.

Do you put up birdhouses to attract birds to your gardens?