Gardening with deer, groundhogs and other critters; Part 2: Cage in the plants to keep the pests out!

A few years ago, I'd had enough with trying to use flimsy netting and popups to keep pests from eating my strawberries.  The pest-protection set-ups I tried usually failed to protect the berries, or if they did work, did not last more than one season.   

So, I decided to instead look for cages meant to keep rodents in!  I figured anything strong enough to keep pet rodents from escaping would certainly be strong enough to keep critters (such as chipmunks, squirrels, birds, rabbits, groundhogs and deer) from eating my strawberries before I did.   

My search led me to rat playpens.  I found they were wonderful at keeping deer, groundhogs, rabbits and even birds, chipmunks and squirrels out!  The playpens provided protection against fruit-eating birds but allowed insect pollinators to come and go. The photo below shows a raised bed of strawberries protected by a rat playpen.

A cage of strawberries!

Several years later, the strawberry beds in rat playpens are still going strong.  The playpens remain pest-proof and sturdy, and not a single strawberry got away!  

Strawberries growing in the playpen.

As an added bonus, the hinged roof on the playpen makes harvesting a cinch!   

The hinged roof folds upon itself, making a convenient shelf while harvesting.

Last August, my family decided to set up some more raised beds surrounded with playpens. 

For complete pest-proofing, place a piece of hardwire cloth underneath the raised bed.  We skipped over this step and placed  empty 3' x 3' raised beds right on top of the lawn.  We did not weed or remove the grass; we just surrounded the empty raised bed with black weed-block fabric to eliminate the adjacent grass.  

Then we placed corrugated cardboard on top of the grass inside the raised beds.  The cardboard will serve as a weed/grass block for now, and over time will decompose and become part of the soil.  

We added a few wheelbarrow's full of almost-finished compost to fill in the raised beds and topped them off with finished compost.  (If we had more finished compost, we would have filled the whole raised bed with it.)  

We surrounded the raised beds with 42” x 42” playpens. (We used the large size rat playpen from Martin’s cages).  

Playpen-enclosed raised beds are ideal for low-growing edibles.  We planted a mixture of lettuce, kale, beets and chard in this August planting for a fall harvest.  

Beets and chard seedlings in the cage.

Close-up view of the seedlings growing in the cage.

 This is what they looked like in November:

Beets and chard in the cage, a couple of months later...

A basketful of Red Russian kale and rainbow chard from our playpen-protected raised beds picked in November.

We have found these playpens perfect for growing strawberries, lettuce, kale, chard, beets and spinach and keeping them safe from nibblers of all sorts.  We are even considering growing lowbush blueberries in one in the future!

Anything that can keep a rat in can keep a chipmunk out!

This post is the second in a series about gardening with deer and other wildlife.  
Read the other posts in this series:
Gardening with deer, groundhogs and other critters; Part 1: Location, location, location

(This post was shared on Green Thumb Thursdays and Healthy, Happy, Green & Natural Party Hop.)

Growing, Harvesting and Seed Collecting

The beans I planted last week have already grown their first set of true leaves.    Below is a photo of the seedlings, grown from the black beans I collected last year.  I love how they grow with the seed coat still attached!   The tendril is from the Cascadian snap peas.  

Seed coat is still attached to the bean plant!

This week we ate our final installment of asparagus, along with lots of lettuce, kale, chives, cilantro, strawberries and some peas and garlic scapes.

Peas, asparagus, strawberries, lettuce and cilantro

Peas, garlic scapes, chives, cilantro, kale and strawberries

Elsewhere in the garden:

Clematis and rose

Mock Orange (Philadelphus) in all its glory

I've started collecting columbine seed (Aquilegia canadensis L.).  Lots of columbine are still in bloom, but the early bloomers have gone to seed.

Columbine seed pods, plus one visitor.

When the seed pods turn brown, it's time to collect the seed.   The small black seeds will rattle around and fall right into your hand if you turn them upside down.  The green seed pods are not yet ready for collection.   

The columbine seed pods start out green and closed,
and then gradually turn brown and open up. 

Columbine seeds ready to be collected.

I like to toss the seeds in areas that could use some more columbine color.  I save some seeds for later, but I seem to have the best success with columbine when I  scatter the seeds now in early summer, and let them over-summer, over-fall and overwinter outside in place.

(This post was shared on Harvest Monday at Daphne's Dandelions and Green Thumb Thursday.)

Harvesting and planting more

Yesterday I went out to pick some basil leaves to have with dinner, and I discovered a handful of Cascadian snap peas were ready to be picked!  

 

Cascadian snap pea

I'm glad the peas are ready, because it's almost time to stop picking the asparagus.
Although this week we had no shortage of asparagus:

lots of asparagus this week

More lettuce, asparagus, strawberries and cilantro.

Today I harvested more peas, strawberries,
chives, cilantro, and lots of kale.

Aside from the basil which I planted from seed this spring, everything else that I harvested this week was either a perennial that I planted in a previous year (asparagus, strawberries, chives) or a volunteer that seeded itself from plants that went to seed last year (lettuce, kale, cilantro).

This week, the Reduce Footprints Change the World Wednesdays challenge (#CTWW) is to plant some food.   I decided to plant some of the bean and squash seed that I saved from last year.  

Black beans saved from last year, still in their pods.

A mixture of beans I saved including black beans and scarlet runner beans. 

Butternut squash seed saved from a particularly delicious squash.

 I planted the bean seeds along the fence where the peas are now so they'll have something to climb, and I planted two kinds of squash in small hills of compost right next to the beans - sort of a modified three sisters garden minus the corn.

compost hill

I encourage you to plant some food for the Change the World Wednesdays challenge and to check out the wonderful harvests at Daphne's Dandelions.  

 Elsewhere in the garden, the roses are in bloom along with foxglove, columbine, geraniums, irises, oxalis, forget-me-nots, bleeding heart, peonies, and more!

oxalis

geranium

columbine

foxglove

(This post was also shared on Healthy, Happy, Green & Natural Party Hop.)

Harvest Monday

This week I've been harvesting a lot of asparagus, kale and chives.  

Asparagus,  kale, and chives from the garden

To the kitchen

Straight into a frittata.  Very yummy!

Also, we had some lettuce

in a salad with chives

And, our first garden strawberries of the year!

I'm happy to have discovered Harvest Mondays at Daphne's Dandelions, where we can share what we are harvesting each week.  Some of the posts are beautiful - take a look.

This week in the Garden: (Almost) Wordless Wednesday

Dogwood tree (Cornus florida) with azaleas.
When I planted the dogwood, it was just a foot tall.

 Candystripe phlox (Phlox subulata)that I planted three years ago.
This year some of the flowers in the middle are all-pink.

Lettuce, peas and kale
I like to grow my veggies all mixed together.

Wild columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) and Jacob's ladder (Polemonium reptans).
I bought the Jacob's ladder from the Native Plant Center sale at WCC two years ago.
 Last year I scattered columbine seeds that I had collected next to the Jacob's ladder.
I love the combination! 

(This post was shared on Green Thumb Thursday.)