Monday, March 4, 2013

Harvest Monday 3.4.13

March already. It was frosty again this morning when I woke up, so it certainly doesn't seem much like March in these parts! Winter has been super strange here. It's been extremely warm with just these little blips of cold air.

Linking into Daphne's Dandelions once again for Harvest Monday. Thanks Daphne for always being such a great hostess!!!

This week the main harvest was the mulberries. The tree is doing extremely well even after I cut half of it down when I pruned it in late winter. I thought it might hurt the production some or even possibly kill the tree, but it seems to be doing wonderfully.


 
15 oz of mulberries this week. I am pretty sure that I could have harvest three times that, but the birds usually beat me to them in the mornings. I don't make it home to harvest them until the evening so by then most of them are gone.

My hens are still giving me an average of 17 eggs a week. Bless their little hearts. I feel bad for them when it gets to freezing outside after a week of 80 degrees or higher. It would be different if it was consistently cool. Their bodies would tell them to put on weight to help them deal with the lower temperatures. But, I suppose those down comforters they carry around with them will just have to be enough to keep them warm on those chilly nights. I'm not going out to keep them warm! LOL.

The peas are almost to the size where I'll need to start keeping an eye on them for flowers! I'm getting excited about that. I do love fresh peas, of ANY type!

On the bad news front I spotted a NEW stray cat in the yard yesterday. I'm not happy about that. He made himself right at home, too. Scratched in my blueberry bed,  sprayed my new box, laid down on my small tool shed and had himself a good old time. This now makes 4 cats that come and go as they please so anyone that has any ideas beyond hurting them that will keep them out of my yard, I'm all ears! I'm not against trapping them, but the only local place that will take them has a 3 day rule and I am against that. There is no need to destroy an animal because it isn't claimed in 3 days. I can't afford to get them all fixed (or I would, believe me) and just removing them? I'm not sure if they belong to anyone. So far I've not been slick enough to catch them with my camera so I'm thinking about setting up my game camera so I can hang a flier and ask around. Once I know if the cats belong to anyone in our neighborhood or not I'll remove them. After all if they belong in a different neighborhood.... well that would be THEIR problem. >:-(

OK - Rant over. Still haven't finished work on the new planter box. the wind and crazy rain and temps were too wild to do much outside this weekend. Next weekend we have to get ready to go out of town so I doubt it will get done then, either... *pout* Guess that project is on hold until Easter weekend now. That is unless I can talk my dear sweet husband into an early morning Saturday project. He's got a benefit to go to Saturday at noon so it's rather doubtful, but that doesn't mean I won't try! ;-) Ah, what we won't do for our gardens.

See you soon.

Barbie~

15 comments:

  1. Ugh...we have neighborhood cats as well that love to make our beds their litter boxes. Gross. We have sprinkled some hot pepper flakes in their favorite beds and it seems to work pretty well since they don't like it in their noses when they scratch around. Good luck!

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    1. I don't think I'd like that in my nose either. Actually, I KNOW I don't after making my own last year. LOL

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  2. Sorry about your cat problem, seems at the beginning of the season when all my beds are fresh with nothing growing yet they like to come use my boxes as litter boxes. So annoying! I just try to fence my small stuff with small fence rolls that I can move around to protect my stuff from getting dug up!

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    1. I have fencing and posts, all sorts of stuff. They just look at that things to play with I think.

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  3. I read somewhere (cannot remember where) that if you sprinkle the area with hot pepper (cayenne or hot sauce)that would discourage them.
    Do you just pop the freshly harvested mulberries in your mouth or do you do something with them?

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    1. The pepper does seem to be the consensous. I do believe I'll be trying this! As for the mulberries, we love to eat them fresh and bake with them as well. If I get enough I'll make a syrup.

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  4. Many communities have spay and release programs, where you can get vouchers to pay for the procedures. I did this for 20 barn cats over the course of two summers, back when I spent my summers working in rural New York. Of course, I did this with the farmers' blessing. I wasn't just abducting random kitties.

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    1. HEHE- I have a silly grin on my face picturing you kitty napping in a black get-up. *snicker* Oh, the visual is delightful! :-D

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  5. Sounds like the mulberries needed a hard prune to really be happy. No advice on the stray cats - I tend to cover my beds with nets if there is a problem with pets or other animals getting into them. No one get's hurt and my garden is preserved.

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  6. I wish we had only four cats that hung out in the yard. I counted 7 last year. Some I know who they belong to some I don't. I expect they all have homes. This year there is a new tabby hanging around. They are a pain. I keep the ground covered at all times. I use a variety of things from bird netting cut to the size of my beds, to chicken wire of various sizes, to tomato cages on their sides and sticks and bamboo poles. I also give them a designated box in the garden and keep it cleaned out. I have a little area that is under a chimney that sticks out from the house. So it doesn't get rain or sun (no good for gardening) and is good for them since it keeps the place dry. I think cats love gardens so much because gardens attract rodents, especially mice and voles (lots of insects to eat and easy dirt to tunnel in, not to mention the vegetable buffet). So I don't hate the neighborhood cats, but I'm not fond of them either.

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    1. I don't think it would bother me so much if they were spayed/nuetered and at least TRYING to eat the stinkin' squirrels and grasshoppers, etc. But, no they just lay around have kittens and scratch up stuff. Grrr.... think I could train them to at least chase the squirrels?

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  7. I'm assuming our solution to the cat problem won't work for you. We have dogs.

    I've never had mulberries, though I certainly remember the song! They look like blackberries. Similar, I assume?

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    1. Hey, that would work for me. Hubby might have a conniption though. Do your dogs stay outside, or do the cats stay away jsut befcause they know the dogs are around? I wonder if it would hold true for squirrel damage as well... Hmm...

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    2. My dogs are in and out. I won't say it eliminates all damage, but one of my dogs is part Blue Heeler, and she's the second Heeler we've had whose hobby is going after birds and squirrels. She catches and kills them on rare occasions, which probably should bother me more than it should, but I figure she's a creature doing what creatures do and Darwin's law weeds out those dumb enough or slow enough to get caught by her.

      As for the cats--we just don't have them come into the back yard ever. I don't know if it's because they have seen the dogs often enough and also can smell them or what.

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  8. Each year I am amazed on how much berries you can harvest.

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