But My Apple Tree Is Doing Great...

Not my garden

We planned a trip to Utah for a week at the beginning of April and I was hurrying to get my garden business taken care of before we left. The first item on the list was to mulch this huge pile of wood in the backyard we had tossed willy-nilly next to my garden last summer. A raccoon had taken up residence in said pile and was using my dang garden as his own private food source.

Babe and I had gone about two weeks before to rent a mulcher from Home Depot, but after the paperwork had been signed, we realized it wouldn't fit in the back of the van. Babe wouldn't entertain my suggestions to tie it to the roof or drag it behind us, and after that I was out of ideas. We ended up getting our deposit back after fifteen full minutes of rental.

Realizing that no mulcher was likely to fit in the back of the van, and attempting to find someone with a truck and time to kill was just more aggravation than it was worth, I bought one. I'm really glad I did. It's taken me several days of mulching and I'm still not finished, though the raccoon no longer has a place to hide. It would have cost us more to rent than it did to buy. Plus, free mulch for my garden! Bonus.

Anyway, I figured once the wood pile had been disrupted, the raccoon would find somewhere else to dine, but I was sadly mistaken. I know it was a raccoon because I have a fence around the garden, and it was STILL getting in. So I decided to make a cover. I bowed PVC pipes at three foot intervals and then zip-tied black plastic chicken screen around the pipes. I planned to cover the top as well, but we just barely had time to close up the sides.

I figured the screen would be too flimsy to support the weight of an incoming raccoon, but I was wrong again. The next day it had eaten my green bean seedlings and left a peach pit in my tater box, the cheeky bugger. I ran out of time before I could finish my projects.

My Kid sister took care of my garden (and the furry dingus') for most of the time we were gone. She was rightfully more concerned about my plants than she was the dogs. It rained a couple of times while we were away, which helped her out a ton.

The ground was nice and wet when we got home. I headed out to the garden first thing the next day. The sight that greeted me. It was just...amazing. I walked through the lovely little gate, which is a fun story in itself, and I saw my cucumber box full of green...grass. There was also grass in my bell pepper box. I think the green in my corn box was corn, but at this stage it kind of looks like grass too so...

Whatever.

Meenie and I were attempting to put the screen over the top of the PVC pipe to close it in and wouldn't you know it, the screen was about three feet too short. Also, it was too narrow. Also, my corn bed had been taken over with ant piles, but I didn't know that until I stepped in one. And when I stepped backwards, I found the other ant pile. Then, when I retreated to behind the potato box, I found the third one. That's when I fled the garden.

I bought death dealing granules and gleefully salted the earth, but I'm kind of afraid to go back inside my lovely garden. I ventured in once last week to plant store bought, healthy cucumber plants that were dead two days later, and haven't been back since. So I don't know what to do. If I set a match to it I'm certain to burn down the whole neighborhood, which may upset a couple of people.

I'm ready to call time of death. It's only April, but being that this is Texas, it might as well be Hell.

But my apple tree is doing great!