Reflection on the First Week of Summer – Garden Ghosts

    Within twelve hours, the Strawberry Full Moon, summer solstice, and garden ghosts came to Wells Wood–time to protect the fruit. Birds, voles, deer, and raccoons eat strawberries, apples, and blueberries before they're ripe enough to pick.

    Spence helped me stretch netting over the raised strawberry bed. Though birds land on the net and can snatch a berry close to the top, they can't reach berries under the leaves. Voles can, but they mostly eat the roots of the everbearing plants. Spence searched the Internet for ways to slow voles down. Folks suggested Juicy Fruit gum. Voles like the taste so eat it then get blocked. Spence placed cut up pieces of Juicy Fruit near the vole holes. The gum disappeared. No constipated voles moan on the raised bed walls–yet. More gum?

    Because we don't net trees, the deer ate all but one apple last year. This year Spence bought Irish Spring deodorant soap which, according to another Internet research, smells unpleasant to deer.

    “Hang a bar from each tree?” I asked.

    “No. Hang a piece beside each apple you can reach.”

    I've made fourteen little bags with pieces of an onion sack, string, and soap in chunks the size of little toes. They look like jade necklaces dangling beside grape-sized apples. Once Spence eats more onions, I can make additional stinky bags. Will they work? Will rain just dissolve the soap? Will the apples smell like Irish Spring?

    I have more confidence in our blueberry protection.

    We built tents for the bushes. After fashioning frames of half inch PVC pipe, Spence wrapped chicken wire around the bottom of the supports to give pollinating insects access. On a windy day, I stretched billowing white garden cloth over the frames by maneuvering so the wind blew the cloth in the right direction. The cloth hung down to the chicken wire. Bugs collected on the white tent, but birds couldn't get at the berries or get stuck trying. The only problem is sometimes raccoons stand on their hind legs and rip the cloth. Bears could destroy the whole tent, but haven't–not even the black bear we imagine makes those rustling sounds in the woods across the road while we work in the garden.

    In the south garden each blueberry bush, except for the one that lost its blossoms in a frost, has its own tent. Spence helped me build a big one around three bushes in the north garden.

    At dusk, a flying saucer appears to hover over the north garden and six ghosts appear to float in the south garden. Neighbors slow their vehicles and gawk. Let them wonder. I'll do whatever works to protect my fruit.