Moose Battles

It's after midnight and Matt and I are cuddled up on the couch when we hear a flowerpot crash to the ground.  I jump up and run to the window and there is a huge cow moose in the middle of my garden with a big leaf of kale in its mouth.  I run outside and I'm yelling at her, but she doesn't want to leave... there are too many tasty treats in the garden.  I pick up some wood chips from the path and throw them at her, but instead of scaring here away, it looks like she wants to charge me.  Matt comes out and the two of us convince her to move on.  But she runs around the house and comes back into the garden behind the house!  She really wants our goods!  I put a ladder across the back to keep her from going in that way, and pull out the fencing we had up over the winter to keep them away from the fruit trees.  Matt is trying to help me but he is quite sleepy and the whole thing is starting to feel a bit like a bad dream.  

The moose seems to be gone, so we go off to bed.  I toss and turn, thinking about my precious vegetables and all the hard work we have put into them.  Just after we drift off to sleep, we are woken up by a loud CRASH... the ladder in the back, the moose had returned!  She is scared off  by the crash and she runs off, so I go out and put the ladder back up.  I see that she has eaten all the cabbage in the back, unfenced garden.  What was I thinking, planting it there?  We just have not seen any moose this year or last, and we are letting our guard down.  

I go back to bed but I sleep with one ear open, listening for any sound of the moose returning.  In the morning we get up and with sleepy, disbelieving eyes, we see that she got through our shoddy late-night fence.  She had a gourmet late-night buffet of beet greens, chard, kale, cabbage, broccoli, lettuce, and even young birch leaves.  I wimper and Matt hugs me.  I pick up the tiny young beets she so carelessly left on the ground.  I right the garlic she trampled on her way to the cabbage.  What about our sauerkraut we were so looking forward to making this year?  What will Matt eat for breakfast?  I feel sick to my stomach.  How could we let this happen?  

Only in Alaska do we have to deal with the world's largest herbivore.  One that can wipe out an entire garden in a late-night snack.  It takes an eight foot high fence, minimum to keep these guys out.  And it has to be strong, as we found out.  We did discover what moose don't like to eat, however.  Mustard greens, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, squash plants, herbs, and parsnips.  And we were very lucky she didn't find the fruit trees.  Today, construction of the fence continues, and this time, she is not getting through!  

the garden lifestyle

You can't procrastinate in a garden.  Especially not an Alaskan garden.  A long, leisurely summer compressed into three months, accelerated by the long days and moderate temperatures.  You can practically see the grapevines climbing, the strawberries ripening, the zucchini popping out of nowhere.  The life-cycle of the seed popping from the earth, blossoming, rushing to set seeds before winter gets here.  Like the maddening tick-tock of the clock, the garden grows and grows.  Weed today because tomorrow it will be out of control.  Miss the spinach at its prime in the morning and by the afternoon it has bolted.  Seeds won't grow if they aren't planted.  You said you meant to pick the strawberries?  Too late!  The birds beat you to it!

Like all of the best things in life, a daily dose of gardening keeps me and the garden healthy.  Eating, drinking, exercising, journaling cannot be crammed into one day of the week.  They all have to be a part of my lifestyle.  It is a great way to live, connected to the rhythms of the earth and the cycles of the seasons.  I begin and end each day with a walk through the garden, checking on the progress of everything.  I harvest what is ready, pull some weeds and make notes of longer projects that need to be done.  I eat from the garden, I read about the garden, I even dream about the garden.  And tomorrow I'll do it all again.

On rain and tomatoes

It's been raining for two days but this morning it suddenly stopped and the sun came out.  It has been a very dry summer and the plants are thankful for the rain.  No amount of chlorinated city water can take the place of mother nature.  The sun beckoned me away from my desk to check out the garden.  I found some snap peas happily climbing on the fava beans near the hazelbert.  For some reason the soil is richer around that tree and the guild is all working together as it should be.  If I could replicate that to the other trees, I would be pretty happy.  The pumpkin vines are out of control and I should have a bumper crop if the start making pumpkins soon!  The other squash in the hugelkultur bed are faring not so well... they seem to be a bit nitrogen-starved because their leaves are pale and yellowish.  I will try using fish fertilizer to give them a boost, although I fear it may be too late.  

I am doing an experiment to find a way to grow tomatoes outside.  I made two cylinders out of chicken wire and planted tomato plants around them.  I filled one with unfinished compost and left the other one empty, but draped row cover over it to provide more heat.  The one with the compost is doing way better, even though the compost registers only 80 degrees.  I think where it really helps is retaining heat through the night.  We only have 6 weeks left of summer, so we will see how many tomatoes we get.  I also planted tomato plants through special black plastic which lets air and water in but does not let weeds grow.  I then stuck huge jugs filled with water between the plants.  It worked like a charm and we are already getting red tomatoes off of those plants.  

I wander over to the strawberries and marvel at how there can already be huge red ones when I just picked yesterday.  They are so sweet and juicy.  I can't believe that everyone doesn't have giant strawberry patches in their yard.  How simple and rewarding they are!  A few red raspberries call me over to eat them.  Heavenly!  And here are some snow peas that I forgot I planted in among them, going gangbusters!  What a sweet surprise!  Just another amazing day in the garden!