Raised Vegetable Bed Protection Update

The wire cages I manufactured to protect my vegetable garden have worked out great!  They are very light and easy to lift off my raised beds.  I can now report with confidence that they are also effective in preventing chipmunks and gophers from ravaging your harvest.  The pvc handles on top are a must for easy removal and replacement.  See my September 2009 posts for more information on these cages and their purpose.

I added a third irrigation tube in the center of the bed to better distribute the water.  Prior to that I was hand watering my new vegetable seedlings to get complete coverage.  All of my raised beds and fiberglass barrels are now on timed irrigation and it has been working beautifully.  We have been enjoying radishes, romaine lettuce and spinach for the past two weeks. I have been picking off the larger leafs for our evening salads which seems to promote speedy growth of the remaining smaller leaves.  I did this last fall and was able to keep ourselves in salad fixings for months.    

Tomatoes are just now starting to ripen. I had 5 plants before the chipmunk invasion but am now down to one.  Still, there are plenty growing and they will liven up our salads for several more weeks.

This is my third attempt to grow snap peas in the desert.  So far, so good, but I am bracing myself for the worst.  I am hoping that consistent watering provided by my make-shift irrigation system (see prior blog posts for construction and layout) will make a difference this time.  My wife loves snap peas so I have to get this right!

Critter Protection

In my prior post I discussed the challenges of protecting a vegetable garden in the Tucson region.  I have chain link around the garden area, but small critters such as chipmunks, ground squirrels, rabbits, mice, birds etc. can easily come in and set up shop.  Mel Bartholomew, author of Square Foot Gardening (see link on side bar) recommends constructing a cage out of chicken wire that is easy to lift and place over a raised bed garden.  Materials used are chicken wire and 1"X2" select pine boards.  Mel uses less expensive chicken wire with larger 1" or 2" openings, but it won't keep smaller pests such as chipmunks from squeezing in and gobbling up your tender plantings .  I purchased a heavier wire with smaller 1/2" openings which takes more time bending to shape but is still light enough to easily lift off your bed when tending/watering the garden.

I built two 4'X4' cages to fit on top of one of my 4' X 8' beds.  I found I could cut a piece of  4' wide wire 7' long and bend, with the help of a straight edge (see photo to the right), 2 even creases 18" from each end to form 2 of the 4 sides.  That left only two 18" by 48" pieces to cut for the remaining two sides.  The base of the wire was then stapled to the 4'X4' frames and the two single sides attached with those nifty plastic awning lock ties you can get at Home Depot.  To easily lift off and replace the cages on top of the beds I created a 12" long plastic handles out of left over pvc pipe and wire and attached one to the top of each cage in the very center.  For step-by-step directions for building these cages see Mel Bartholomew's New Square Foot Gardening book.  Having completed the cages, I planted seed of lettece, bunching onions, radish, spinach and snap peas with hopes that the resulting harvest will now be protected.

For my remaining raised bed and fiberglass barrels I have removed the bird netting (effective, but awful stuff to work around and a lizard strangler).  Since these plantings are mature (tomatoes, strawberries and herbs) I am taking my chances they will survive most attacks.  If not, I plan to set out a small Havahart critter trap that will be used to humanely capture the rodents and remove them far from my property.  I've heard peanut butter works well.  Before replanting the remaining bed, I will build two more 4'X4' cages to protect it as well.  I will share the results of these endeavors to protect my garden in future posts.  

Just a side note for Amber Rose, our 9 year old grand daughter.  Your strawberries planted in the gray sink had babies!  Tendrils from your plant crawled over to the sink next to it and rooted. I'ved transplanted several of your baby plants to another barrel so there will be more strawberries to pick when you visit.