Now we have a pudgy woodchuck eating my lettuce. I’m tired of fighting the inevitable. He or she can have it all.
Tansy is supposed to keep away bugs. I have planted some near my tomatoes. I wonder if it will keep bugs from noshing on my tomato leaves.
And deer don’t like foxglove. I thew a bunch of foxglove seeds in the ground a year ago. Now I’ve got foxglove all over the place. I wonder if they would keep the deer away if I transplanted them to surround my garden.
Meanwhile, the little (but heavy cement) statue of baby Pan that I’ve been hauling around through every move for the past decade seems to have found a perfect spot. He’s a little worse for wear, having had part of his foot chipped off, but I’ve grown accustomed to his wild appeal.
I have a few manufactured creatures hanging out among my flowers. I’m rather fond of my garden whimsies as well.
There eventually will be a climbing spinach growing up the stakes behind the gargoyle. The other photo is how I try to put to use the trash (like that pallet under the plants and the tire that I painted green) that my brother has lying around his property. That little arrangement is in the woods near entrance to the garage.
And, for the first time ever out here, I spotted a robin. I don’t know why they are rare here on these acres. Actually, fewer and fewer birds are showing up at our feeders, since we take them down at night because of the racoons, and then we don’t get them back outside early enough in the morning.
I have never been a morning person. When my last boss was asked what she might say negative about me, she said that my desk was always messy and I didn’t like to get up in the morning. Some things never change.
tansy is also a highly invasive noxious weed and is deadly to livestock. i spent many summers as a youth picking it in southwest washington on various farms – the only way you can eradicate it is by hand, because the rate of return is commensurate with how much root is left in the ground (and there’s always some). so if you’re potting it, that’s great, but if you are planting it directly in the ground, watch it carefully as it could spread beyond control quickly. and if you have deer or other plant-foraging animals who visit your property who don’t know better – it could kill them.
Love this garden post — more, more! Sometime I’ll tell you about my (so far) rabbit-proof fence.
It’s amazing how many plants are poisonous. From what I’ve read, though, deer don’t like the smell of Tansy, so they avoid it. And apparently horses are not put off by the smell, so they might well try to eat it. Tansy is sold as a “deer resistent plant, so I’m inclined to leave it where it is. The land here is not hospitable to any growing things. The only place where things are growing is where I put in lots of topsoil and garden soil and manure. I had planted tansy seeds last year and none came up. I’ll leave these two plants where they are and keep an eye on them in terms of spreading.