[gardeners] Big days
Margaret Lauterbach (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Tue, 06 Oct 1998 07:51:28 -0600
These are big days for me, trying to pick all of my chiles before hard
frost (they've been covered for two nights, can uncover today and resume
picking), and it's slow going. The best way to do this is to snap off
limbs as I go. I'm leaving those plants that didn't yet fruit, considering
whether I want to give up the space for them (and battle whiteflies on
them) in the greenhouse. I may yet dig and pot them. Specifically,
chocolate habs, fatalii, Willings' Barbadoes and some ajis didn't yet
fruit. The large black pequin hasn't even flowered yet.
Today is the big day, though, when we'll have to cut back on the foliage of
the sweet potatoes, pull out the black plastic they've been growing under
(leaving voles exposed to the maw of my dog and the sharp eyes of
neighborhood hawks), and see whether I've got sweet taters to dig. Sparty
(the dorg) has been quite excited since we've started dismantling the
garden. Now he thinks it's okay to poop in what had been the corn patch,
and to wade through sweet potato foliage in quest of mice and voles.
During the garden's growth and maintenance, he considerately leaves his
piles on the lawn or in waste ground. Once the garden comes apart, he
feels it's okay to even dig in quest of voles.
He's very smart in some ways, but not in all. He would not bump the dog
door open, so we had to lock it. Even food rewards would not entice him to
push it open. But he watches the windows of the house, and if he sees us
looking out, he thinks he's being summoned, and bounds toward the house.
Never had a dog look through windows before. Margaret