Sunflowers, Garden Progress and Keeping the Deer Out

Today my husband and I celebrate our 7th wedding anniversary!   It has been quite the ride so far.   He took this beach girl from a condo across the street from the ocean in South Florida  to the base of the Blue Ridge mountains in upstate South Carolina.   I miss the ocean terribly and hopefully we'll move back to it one day... ...but for now, I'm a country girl.    This country girl has been learning how to grow a garden these past few years. I started a 4'x4' raised bed container garden 5 years ago and each year since I've added more raised beds, but this year we decided to grow a traditional row garden.    

 

We changed to a row garden this year to see if it would be easier to manage

 the amount of water it received.

Last year we had 6 raised beds and a smaller row garden.

 

 

 

The row garden did great but the raised beds stayed saturated all summer and eventually most everything we planted rotted. It rained almost everyday last year and the beds just seemed to hold the water. The year before it was so dry and we couldn't water them enough and most everything withered and died.

We did keep one of the 8'x4' raised beds and moved it behind the cabin.

We are using it for herbs, tomatoes and onions.

 

The row garden currently has corn, three different varieties of white potatoes, yellow squash, zuchinni, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, carving pumpkins, two varieties of ornamental pumpkins

and a large section of sunflowers.

 

 

 

 The first harvest of corn, potatoes, tomatoes and squash should be ready very soon.

I'm hoping to learn how to freeze and possibly can this year, since it looks like we should have a plentiful harvest over the summer.

We plan to grow into the fall with cooler temp veggies too.

 

 

We have a lagre section of sunflowers planted along the outside of the corn.

Sunflowers are my favorite flower and for the past three years my husband has planted them for me.

They are just starting to bloom this summer.

 

 

 

Here is a picture of the sunflowers from two summers ago.

 

 

 

This is a picture of the sunflowers last summer.

He planted wildflowers along the edge of them,

which only added to their beauty.

 

 

Don't you just love them?

 

The deer love them too.

The deer seem to love almost everything in the garden.

We lost an entire 1/2 acre of sunflowers to the deer in 2012,

fortunately, we had another 1/2 acre planted in a separate area that they ignored.

They love to eat the leaves when the plants are small.

 

Fortunately a gardening neighbor gave us a tip and it has helped.

We placed stakes at each corner of the garden and run two rows of fishing line around the whole outer edge of the garden.

One row is about a foot above the ground and the other row is about two feet above the ground.

Supposedly, the deer walk into the line and feel it but they can't see it,

therefore they won't attempt to cross it.

This method hasn't been foolproof, because I have seen a couple deer tracks in the garden.

However, the only nibbles have been along the edges where they've been able to reach over the fishing line.

 

 

We've managed to keep the deer from eating everything and we've been able to water the garden when needed with a sprinkler and it seems to drain well when it downpours. 

Hopefully, we've learned a thing or two over the past few years gardening

and will have the harvest to prove it this year.

So far, so good.

 

Do you garden?

If so, Id' love to hear your advice or tips and any great recipes for yellow squash or zuchinni.

 

 

 

'til next time, 

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