Look what I found in my garden, isn't he pretty ? He or she was actually in my big garden, I did start a Butterfly Garden this year but it's to young to attract them yet.
Wow it's been a long time since I have posted on my blog I'm Sorry this summer has really kept me busy! This was the first year since we have lived here that we put in a vegetable garden along with my gourd garden. We completely moved the garden to another spot in our yard, actually we put it outside of our fenced yard in a different area which yep meant we had to rototill and work the ground then put up fencing to hopefully keep the unwanted critters out! Well we thought the fence was doing a good job NOT we started finding half eaten tomatoes, the lettuce and spinach was disappearing and yes that good looking strawberry in the picture above gone the next day when I went to go pick it never got one strawberry! When I came out to pick it I saw about 5 bunnies scattering through the garden! So off to the farm co-op and we bought some small chicken wire and wrapped the entire fence around the garden in hopes this would keep the rabbits out. It seemed to be working .
The garden was looking really good, lots of new garden growth, new buds, and the gourds were flowering like crazy .We thought we had conquered the invasion of the bunnies....WRONG even though the holes in the chicken wire were only 1inch the wire is so flexible they were able to squeeze in between it. I had read somewhere of many ways to prevent rabbits from invading your gardens like soak some corn Cobb's in vinegar and spread them in different parts of the garden or put clumps of hair around the garden. But we didn't try any of this maybe next year if needed.
Yes my dog Kaiden likes to keep a good watch of my gardens ( I think ) or maybe it's just a Good watch on those bunny rabbits ! At least when he's out in the yard the bunnies are no where to be found !
We've been really happy that the gardens did really good this summer and although they need some improvement which we learned this year, next year we hope to make some changes .I thought I would post some pictures of my garden and it's growth through out this summer.
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| Kaiden watching over the gardens ! |
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| These are just some of the harvest of vegetables from our garden this year ! |
This seems to be the way my gourds like to grow in the garden up and all over the fence ! They do grow on the ground also but the fence seems to be the way they like best !
As you can see from this picture they do grow very nicely on the fence and it makes for a great arbor and support for them.
These pictures I took a couple of weeks ago as the garden was at the end of it's growing season. The gourds are beautiful we are really happy with the way they turned out this year !
The gourds even took over our fenced storage!
Here they are hanging on the fence after all the vines started dying off which is a good thing.
There was still a little part of the gourd garden which wasn't quite ready to give up and this part decided to take up home on my husbands panel van ! They grew all over the back & top and when we took a look the gourds on this vine were of very good size, the picture below is one of the gourds that was hanging off the back bumper nice ! 
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| Here's a close up of a few more that are hanging from the back doors of the panel van, my husband wasn't to happy but it made for another GREAT growing spot for the gourds, not real good for the van ! And you can betcha next year the panel van will be moved to another spot in the yard away from the garden ! |
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| Yep Kaiden wanted another picture taken !! |
This is the gourd haul from my garden this year about 40 martins & 20 apples. So here they will sit all winter so they can dry out and cure , so next year they will be ready for me to start creating on my gourd canvas !
I hope you enjoyed looking at my summer garden! Right now I am painting and creating I have a big craft show coming up at the end of the month it's the Big Bell Buckle Show here in Middle Tennessee
Until the next time ( hopefully sooner than later )
Cheryl
