Monday, September 8, 2008

Who Has Been Digging in My Garden?

Last week I planted two more tomatoes. I hope these little plants will grow fast and give me a good fall crop. This may be another year where I am dealing with green tomatoes in November. That’s okay we will make pickled green tomatoes and fried green tomatoes. When I planted these I really amended the soil with a ton of compost, blood meal, and bone meal. After the plants were in the ground, I watered them with compost/bunny poo tea. The tomatoes were planted sideways, so roots can grow along the buried stem. They turned their little crowns up nicely and seem to be growing about half an inch a day. So far so good.
This morning I went out to give them some water and discovered that something had dug a hole about six inches deep beside the biggest of the tomatoes. It was too big a hole for one of the cats to have dug. The gate was closed, so I don’t think a dog could have gotten in. Hmmmm. I am going to go out and heavily mulch them this afternoon and hopefully the hole digging critter will be deterred.
The mystery digger reminds me of another digging situation we had a few years ago. We have a tiny St. Augustine lawn. It is usually in pretty good shape, but we don’t baby it with tons of water or fertilizer. During the year in question all sorts of little cone-shaped holes were being dug in this little green lawn. I accused the Monkeys and they denied involvement. I threatened exotic punishments if they did not quit digging up the lawn. They pled their innocence. This went on for about two weeks. Everyday there were more little cone-shaped holes in the lawn. My husband came home one morning after working a nightshift and called me out into the front yard. There was an armadillo digging up the lawn. That was the only time I have ever seen one alive rather than dead on the side of the road. Stupid armadillo.
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