Garden Update Mid July

We have been fortunate to get so much rain in our area, and I didn’t have to water as much the last 2 months.

The Asian string beans cover the fence trellis,

I like to make spicy green bean salad. I didn’t take a new photo and the one below was taken several years back of Lao String Beans Spicy Salad.

Lots of leaves for the Chayote squash, so far no fruit yet. This is my first year planting it and not sure what to expect.

The peppers are doing well, it’s getting to be top heavy and I will need to get some wooden stakes for support.

The tomatoes ripe about the same time and I have plenty right now. I thought my tomatoes look odd, I went to the farmer’s market on Sunday and those tomatoes looked strange also. They are not round like the tomatoes you see in the supermarket. It might be that the sun, wind, and rains shape the tomatoes. I’m not too concern about the shape since they taste delicious.

I get at least a dozen okras every other day.

My marigolds planted from seeds finally bloom. They are exceptionally tall, late bloomer but well worth the wait.

Raccoon Captured!

Even though the chicken/ducks cage is secured but we still fear that the raccoon will try to find a way to go inside. I set a trap last week with marshmallows and cat food but since he had live ducks to feast he didn’t even touch the bait. The last 2 nights he ate the marshmallows around the trap. Bo set a Wildgame camera last night to see if he would come back. The Wildgame camera is really neat, and we’ll need to buy one, this one we borrowed from our neighbor. It captures movement and last night/early this morning it took many photos of the ducks and raccoon in action.

The cat food and marshmallows work wonder for raccoon bait. I set the cat food and a few pieces of marshmallows inside the trap then make a trail of marshmallows around the trap.

These are the photos from the Wildgame camera last night/early this morning.

Notice that you can see the ducks in this image.

Then they all disappeared when the raccoon came around.

He’s looking for a way to get inside the cage.

We knew that he would eventually go inside the trap since he was hungry, notice you don’t see the ducks in this image below or the one above.

Then they all came out when the raccoon was inside the trap, I guess they knew it’s safe now.

He didn’t move when I took his photos this morning.

He’s a beauty and after I took his pictures I went to work. I wasn’t sure what Bo plan to do with him, and if it were me I would have released him far away. Bo took the raccoon to his friend’s land and released him in the wood. As soon as Bo opened the trap door he took off into the wood. I’m just glad that he didn’t kill him.

Safe Zone

I woke up Friday morning to find 2 more killed, one young chick was in a small cage and the raccoon was able to kill it but not get to it to eat, then he killed another duck to eat. At this point I was hopeless, I looked at all the area that I secured at the bottom, and couldn’t find any area that he could get in and out.

I went back to the back area where he normally killed and ate the ducks/chickens and saw his foot trail outside the fence. I looked at the bottom of the fence and it was secured.

I looked up and saw the bent fence, sure enough he got in through the top. When we put up the net, we zip tied the net to the fence but did it 6 to 12 inches apart and it looked tight and secured. I spent 4 hours yesterday zip tied the net to the fence, the top of the fence is now secured.

The photos were taken with the iPhone and it’s not as clear as my camera.  The camera is still on vacation.

I used all 800 cable ties, and this morning I was happy to see that he wasn’t able to get in. It’s such a relief to know that the ducks and chickens are safe at night.