Bear vs Strawberries & International Fairy Day

Bear just outside our fence

International Fairy Day, June 24, was exactly the day I expected to be in the peak of strawberry season.

Last summer, all our strawberry beds were on their last legs…but there was one vigorous plant that was shooting out runners like crazy. Hoping to create home-grown berry crowns, I set the runners into pots—and ended up with a couple of dozen!

Last fall, I transplanted the crowns, and ended up with four new strawberry beds, filled with robust plants. And as this month rolled around, I anticipated a veritable berry feast.

Then along came the scourge of our summer: a bear.

This young black bear has snuck through our fences numerous times, hitting all four berry beds. The first time, it tore into the earliest-fruiting bed that I had netted early, ate all the ripe ones, whomping one plant right out of the ground, and mangling the fencing around the bed.

It hit the other three beds, swiping at barely-pink strawberries. While John and I double-fenced and re-netted the one seriously invaded bed, the other, larger beds would be far more difficult to protect.

Well, I could see the writing on the wall.

With a heavy heart, I cut all the berry clusters from the plants in those three beds. The bear has trampled all over our garden, so I didn’t want to risk further damage--and I was sure it would attack my strawberries again.

A couple of days ago, the bear tried to get back into that now double-reinforced bed—but didn’t get any berries. Instead, it mangled the outer fence, and gotten the netting seriously awry.

Viewing the limited damage, I breathed a sigh of relief. Which only lasted until I heard a distressed, “Cheep, cheep.”

“There’s a bird in the net,” John said, low.

I looked on the other side of the bed and there was a female towhee, entwined in the net. Towhees are cheeky birds, and have often gone where other, wiser birds have feared to tread: they’ll try to get into even heavily-netted berry beds.

This bird had managed to worm its way through the disarrayed netting, and actually ate two of the biggest, reddest berries. As soon as we came over, it had tried to escape, and gotten tangled up in the nets.

John is our bird rescuer around here, and he gently lifted up the bird in the net, and tried to extricate it, as its cheep, cheeps intensified.

I ran to get the garden scissors, and though it took him about ten minutes, he was able to cut the little bird out. He set it carefully on the ground, then this plucky little girl crawled over to a protected spot among some stones, tucked herself up in a little roll, and just sat there. Barely breathing by the looks of it.

The next day, John and I found the bird a little ways from its hidey-hole, dead. I imagine it died from a combination of a broken wing, and shock.

 With this casualty of a little innocent bird, this young bear has been even more destructive than simply wreaking havoc in the garden.

Our nearest neighbors are having their share of problems from the bear too—earlier this week, it destroyed their bird feeder. Like, killed the feeder. We four are having a confab this weekend to see if we can figure out a solution.

The marionberries will be ready soon, and then the blueberries—without more preventative measures, I shudder to think of what the bear could do to all our fruit and infrastructure! 

On a happier note: Happy International Fairy Day! The day is loosely connected to the June 23 tradition of St. John’s Eve, the celebration of midsummer, celebrated in many Scandinavian countries and Ireland too.

Now, if you’ve been following this blog, you’ll know I’m big on fairies—especially Irish fairies—and International Fairy Day always lightens my heart. If you have a whimsical side too, and haven’t completely discounted the idea that there may be more mysteries in nature than we will ever understand, maybe you’ll be celebrating fairies tomorrow too!

The fairies in our house!

A quick note: I’ve been posting weekly here at the Little Farm in the Foothills blog the last couple of years, with only a few misses—and one of them was last week. This bear has increased out workload in so many ways, and this summer, John and I have to re-do as well as rebuild a number of sections of our fencing all over the property.

We've already started redoing our north orchard fencing--a portion of destroyed fence that another, bigger bear did getting to our apple trees last year.

And trying to keep up with the rest of our garden is going to be a challenge! I’m still planning to post here each week, generally Thursday or Friday, if I can. But if I'm not able to post weekly, I'll aim to share my Little Farm news every other week. 

There’s lots more about our bear invasion in my June newsletter—it’s free, and you don't have to subscribe to read it! I’ll be sharing this continuing bear saga in the next monthly newsletter, out July 10.

Maybe tomorrow, on International Fairy Day, I can fit in communing with our Little Farm fairies for a little positive energy. Which I think I'll need, to keep dealing with our bear invader! 

’Coon Confusion: Raccoon…or Something Bigger?

You’d think after 17 years in the Foothills, I would have the quirks of the local wildlife all figured out.

But no—I still get flummoxed by critters around here, and a lot more often than I’d like!

One month ago, in “Garden Explosion,” I wrote about our recent raccoon incursion. I mean, I was sure it had to be a raccoon. This animal had climbed our blueberry patch fence, and torn apart a small, decomposing stump between 2 large berry shrubs to get at the ants living inside. 

While this critter had bent the fence a bit, both blueberry plants were completely unharmed. Not a branch was bent, not a leaf fell to the ground, and nary a twig was tweaked. 

At the time, what I didn’t take into account was a big stripe of bark torn off a nearby apple trees.

Anyway, the other day, when my husband John and I found this animal in my spinach patch, the raccoon theory flew out the window:

Black bear in our yard!

Bears are the critters who love ants. And bears commonly tear bark off fruit trees to get at the sap! 

It had to be this small black bear that wrecked the stump, and damaged the apple tree a couple of weeks ago. I was sure of it, when I saw how this critter had also stomped all over my strawberry bed, and how well it knew its way around the yard!

There’s a lot more to this bear story, and you’ll find it in my June newsletter! It’s free to read and open to all, so I hope you’ll take a look.

In any event, this is not the first time I’ve mistaken wildlife, and I’m sure it won’t be the last!

Rhubarb Comeback

When it comes to food gardening, whether you’re a newbie or have been doing it forever, I like to call rhubarb the perfect crop!

It’s super easy to grow: Spread a little compost around the crown once or twice a year, keep it reasonably well watered and weeded, and you’re rewarded with loads of rosy-pink stalks. 

Rhubarb will continue to grow being potted up for a while, and also tolerates transplanting fairly well.

Although voles will eat the roots, it doesn’t have much in the way of other pests. Plus raising your own rhubarb saves you money! At our local co-op, organic rhubarb is $4.99/lb. Ouch!

It’s easy to process too, and can be used in both sweet and savory recipes. So as a staple food crop, you really can’t go wrong with rhubarb…

Only you actually can.

I’ve gone wrong the last few years with my four crowns. With lots of outside family commitments, I fell down on the job with weeding. A few seasons with weed overwhelm, and the crowns’ production declined significantly. 

I figured my rhubarb, now over 15 years old, was at the end of its life span. I would clearly need to buy brand new crowns from the nursery and start over.

Last summer, one looked especially bad, pretty much near death’s door. So I said a regretful “Sayonara” and tore out all the roots, which I talked about in my previous “Garden Explosion” post. I even mulched the whole area with some scraps of lumber, to kill the surrounding weeds. 

I made sure that crown would be a goner.

However…despite the advanced age of my three remaining crowns of rhubarb, last fall I finally took on the horsetail and buttercup invasion around them, and spread some compost to cover the drip line. And what do you know…

This spring’s crop is the best I’ve had in years! 

Processing rhubarb—all you need is a sharp knife!

From my three producing crowns, I picked 52 stalks. Cut into cubes courtesy of my husband John, the processed crop produced four and a half quarts. 

The little crown that could—the fourth rhubarb crown I tore out and is now coming along nicely—won’t produce any kind of crop this year and very likely not next year either. But I’m going to treat it right this summer!

Rhubarb rising from the dead and now chugging along

I’m heading out to the garden shortly, to give this baby restarted crown lots of compost. After I weed the three other harvested ones, they’ll get some top-dressing as well. 

So when life gets crazy and you’ve had to neglect your perennial food crops—with a little TLC, you may find they can bounce back!

Asparagus Beetles, Part 2 —Tips to Prevent an Infestation

Photo credit: U of M Extension Service

I recently discovered asparagus beetles in my garden…and a great website from the University of Minnesota Extension that shares what you can do about them.

If you do find these unmistakable spotted buggers in your home garden, you can hand-pick them. Since I’m an old hand at bug-picking, I had no problem with hand-to-hand asparagus beetle combat. 

(More in my April newsletter, the Little Farm Horror Movie, including my free mini-ebook about tent caterpillars.)

Keep in mind, however, that capturing the beetles is not a one-and-done operation. Like with tent caterpillars, you may need to pick the beetles all through the insects’ life cycle. 

For asparagus beetles, that could be the length of the growing season.

The U of M Extension people recommended tossing the beetles into soapy water, but I’m allergic to almost all soaps and detergents. So as soon as I went outside, I poured a small amount of apple cider vinegar into an empty yogurt container, added an equal amount of water.

Prepared for the long haul—i.e., all summer—I clambered over the rabbit fencing into the asparagus patch started in.

There were a LOT of beetles. Although they’re small, I wondered how could I have missed them before. And worse, these beetles can fly!

Which complicates your capture; you’d reach for a beetle and off they’d go. It reminded me of days of yore, when wily caterpillars would wiggle away just as you tried to grab them, and they’d fall into the grass where you couldn’t see them.

But on the plus side, these beetles aren’t in the least bit squishy, so a win.

The website said to pick in the afternoon, while the bugs are most active. So I spent about 20 minutes picking in the middle of the day, make another turn around the patch in the early evening, then one last pick shortly before sunset.

I probably got 30 or 40 bugs that first picking, and put a lid on the container before I quit for the night. The next day, upon fetching my container, I discovered the beetles were still swimming!

Okay. These guys were tough. Stronger measures were required. I got another container, poured in a measure of full strength white vinegar, and went at them.

Asparagus beetles chewing on my veggies!

With all the stalks they’d damaged, many shriveled and inedible, I found a strange satisfaction in picking these bugs. I felt even better when I got a two-fer: grabbing two beetles as a time when they’re engaged in…um, making beetle babies.

So for four days, I picked three times a day. Then the next four days, I picked twice a day. I think by now I’ve caught a couple hundred of them.

And you know what? It works! After my intensive picking, I've been finding only one or two in the patch, then after that, nothing!

However, I’m keeping in mind that I might have just picked the first generation of beetles, and their life cycle could be starting all over again. But here’s the beauty of keeping an organic garden:

Helpful pests!

I’m not crazy about all the ants we have everywhere--in the garden, in the  yard, and in the woods. But when I found lots of beetles on an asparagus stalk, I also would find loads of ants busily working over the stalk too! My guess is, the ants were feasting on the beetle eggs.

With the beetles gone (for now, and fingers crossed for the rest of the summer), the spears look healthy and robust again. New tips are pushing out of the soil every day, just as they should. Because of the earlier damage, I’ve only harvested about half or even a third of the number of spears I normally would. I want to make sure the crowns keep their vigor.

Healthy spears again!

So the asparagus patch will be thick with ferns this summer. It’ll be more difficult to weed, that that’s a trade-off I can live with!

I’ll keep inspecting the beds—as I indicated above, I wouldn’t put it past these beetles to create at least one or more generations over the summer. I didn’t exactly need yet one more garden job, but there you are.

I did learn one more crucial beetle management tip: Maintain your asparagus bed in the off season.

Over the winter, you must clear all the dead foliage and other debris. Leaving it in the bed provides shelter for overwintering pupa.

So as it turns out, my bad. This past winter, the foliage stayed vigorous, right up until the first of a series of severe Northeasters here in the Foothills. So I didn’t clear the asparagus bed until March.

Still, after all this bug-picking this summer, you can bet the entire area will be clean as a whistle next winter!

If you enjoyed this post, you can find more about homestead-style gardening and “homesteady” living in my monthly Susan Colleen Browne newsletter—it's free and open to all, so there's no need to subscribe to read it…

The latest issue: "Homestead Diary & A Tale of Two Irish Movies." I hope you’ll take a look!

~Susan

Trouble with Asparagus, Part 1

Asparagus is super easy to grow for the home gardener. Once the crowns are established, keep your bed weeded, give it lots of compost in the fall, and mulch it well for the winter. By mid-spring, you’ll be rewarded with a bountiful harvest!

But while very hardy, asparagus can be vulnerable to pests. In my garden, I just discovered a very destructive one. The good news is, the remedy can be simple! 

Read on for more about raising asparagus…

Ten days ago, my asparagus crop looked terrible. And it seemed to look worse with each passing day.

The first spears of the season are normally very robust. Starting around the first of May, the smooth asparagus tips are vigorously pushing out of the soil, greenish white and purple-pink around the edges, the spears a healthy dull green.

Not this year. The tips were curled over, and looked like they’d been chewed on, exposing the tiny buds that should turn into ferns. The stalks seemed to have tiny bites taken out of them. And whole spears were turning yellow and shriveling. 

Slugs?

Slugs are the usual culprit at our place when it comes to damaged asparagus. Only there were two problems with my slug theory: first, this month has been so dry I’ve seen exactly one slug in the yard instead of hundreds. And second, slug damage will affect individual spears, one at a time.

Slugs eating spears here and there doesn’t affect the vigor of new tips emerging. And at the beginning of a normal harvesting season, sometimes I’ll be picking 20 spears each day. And more on hot days.

What was odd about this May’s crop was that the entire crop seemed slowed down. There would be maybe seven or eight spears of harvestable size each day, all of them damaged.

It didn’t look like slugs, but I sprinkled some suitable-for-organic-gardens iron sulfate around the bed anyway, like a moat.

The next day, I was in the bed for more discouraging harvesting, when I saw two black and red spotted bugs about 1/8 of an inch long, parked on a small leaf next to a spear.

I’d read about pests that attack asparagus, but didn’t pay much attention. I’d never had a problem all our years raising asparagus. But now, I had to do something; my formerly vigorous crop was shriveling right before my eyes!

As soon as I was inside, I Googled asparagus beetles.

The first prompt was “Asparagus beetles in home gardens.” I clicked on it, and pulled up the University of Minnesota Extension site. I was raised in Minnesota, so this was my lucky link...

Photo: University of Minnesota Extension

Well, BINGO. The U of M Extension photo showed beetles that looked exactly like the pair I’d just seen.

On the site I discovered pretty much everything a home gardener would need to know about asparagus beetles. I’d already seen the beetles can wreak a lot of havoc. But I learned the damaged spears won’t develop properly into the fern stage, when the crown is rebuilding over the summer and fall months. As a result, your crowns can be permanently damaged.

Still, an organic remedy for an asparagus beetle infestation is simple...I'll be back next week for more about how to manage this pest!

Until then, have a wonderful week, and I hope you get to spend lots of time in your garden!

~Susan

Homestead Diary and other fun stuff!

Looking east from our place

Ever wonder what a day in the life of a boonie-living, food-growing writer is like?

Well, you can find out in my May Substack  Newsletter! “Homestead Diary, or, Why I’m Always Behind in the Garden” is free to read for everyone. 

And for you Ireland fans, you’ll also find “A Tale of Two Irish Movies,” including a review of the recent drama, “The Banshees of Inisherin.” 

And if you like your movies on the light side, a fun Hallmark Irish rom-com!

My monthly newsletter includes lots about homestead-style gardening and country living...it's free and open to all, and you don't need to subscribe to read it. I hope you’ll take a look...

See you next week, when I talk about a new garden pest that just invaded our yard!

Garden Explosion!

You never know how fast Mother Nature can work until you leave her to her own devices…

When I left home for a few days in early May, the woods hadn’t yet leafed out, the perennial crops were just barely emerging from the soil, and the raised beds were free of weeds. Upon my return this past weekend, I almost didn’t recognize my own garden! 

In my absence, the yard had burst into a sea of green… And finally, all the trees had actual leaves!

But the downside…

Horsetail was everywhere. Most of the invasive, narrow shoots were at least eight inches high, some were as tall as a foot: filling the vegetable beds, the paths, and any spot of soil that didn’t have a plant in it. 

And while I’ve made my peace with dandelions (well, almost, I’m pretty sure) because they’re so pollinator-friendly, I couldn’t help feeling a bit a dismay to see the wall-to-wall yellow blossoms around the yard. 

But the upside of Spring being sprung…

Rhubarb ready to harvest

The saucer-sized rhubarb leaves were now as big as dinner plates, the tall stalks ready for harvest! (By the way, I priced organic rhubarb yesterday…$5.99/lb.!) 

The week before

And I found a rhubarb bonus:last fall, I had a crown that had given  up the ghost. Producing only tiny leaves all summer, the plant was surely a goner. I put it out of its misery by digging out the roots, covering the area with mulch and said a regretful bye-bye.

I came home to find a leaf sticking out from the cardboard mulch covering the crown. I pulled away the cardboard, and…Voila! Alive!

Rhubarb rising from the dead!

Then there’s the asparagus…I’d left a bed with four little spears. I returned to a harvest-ready crop—and now I’m picking about 15-20 spears each day.

And strawberries. I was concerned for my first-year beds after the last Northeaster front heaved the crowns right out of the soil. But while I was gone…they grew six inches! 

Strawberries putting on growth!

Finally, a different kind of explosion…

Two days ago, I looked across the yard at my blueberry patch and noticed something odd about the old cedar stump in between a couple of shrubs. 

Back when my husband John and I created our blueberry patch, the stump had resisted every effort to dig it out. 

And we knew very well that cedar takes forever to break down. That’s why we still have gigantic slabs of cedar logs littering out woods from a clear cut decades ago.

Anyway, we ended up just leaving the stump right where it was—and it’s been impervious to being removed ever since.

Then Nature took a hand. Yesterday, I went into the patch to check out the strange-looking stump. The short piece of hardware cloth at the entry to the patch (for rabbit protection) was bent over.

As for the stump…It was like a mini-bomb had been planted in its center.

Chunks of stump, large and small, lay in a circle around it. Red “sawdust” from it’s center was everywhere. Yet small holes punctuated the whole inside of the stump.

Well, it didn’t take a genius! There had to have been ants or grubs in that stump, that some enterprising critter snacked on by pulling apart the stump.

The question was, what animal could have been strong enough to destroy the stump?

We’ve had bears get into our orchards and the last time, one did a number on the biggest stump in our yard…but that was an easy guess. The bear had also climbed our crabapple tree and broke it in half. 

Plus it did another kind of number…that is, left an unmistakable calling card!

As for this stump…there was absolutely no damage to the two blueberry shrubs surrounding it. It was like the animal meticulously dug into the stump, had a nice meal, then politely exited.

John and I are guessing a raccoon did the deed—although I’ve never seen one in the neighborhood, much less our yard.

Still, there’s always a first time. So you can bet I’ll be keeping watch for those guys from here on out!