Garden Invasion

The vegetable garden looks like triplets have been jumping on the bed. Everything is rumpled and dug up: there are holes under my tomatoes, excavations under the leeks, the beans are teetering and the onions have fallen over. Lettuces are covered in dirt, and the cheddar cauliflower I carefully grew from seed are limp from the abrupt airing. Three of the romanesco broccoli lie dead.

This is ALL OUT WAR! The armadillos have attacked! The perimeter has been breached. For all of this gardening season, there were no deer, no squirrels, no pigs, and no armadillos. We have had produce constantly all winter and spring from a garden protected by a seven foot fence and dug six inches into the soil. We have had lovely lettuces, broccoli, kale, collards and onions all winter. Now we have beans and peas, and peppers, tomatoes, squash and cucumbers coming. Before the night forays of the armadillos we had ten rare fingerling potato plants, just up and starting to produce those wonderful long blue potatoes you can't get unless you grow them yourself. All gone.

I spend several hours replacing the plants I could save, filling in the holes, plumping up the mulch. I hear the dull thump of the gopher tortoise who lives just outside the fence. He's benign, my friend. But since he's a protected species, I can't extend the garden. As I replace mulch the dapper head of a black racer rises up out of the mulch. He swirls around for a few minutes before exiting.

I look carefully at the garden perimeter, trying to figure out where the critters come in. I think I have found out several places of entry. I am ready with old tent stakes, rocks, (try to find rocks in Florida!) logs, strange pieces of junk, and the HAVE-A-HEART traps! By now the outside edges of the garden are kin to Watts Towers with their strange mix of wood, logs, rocks, and things I found in the barn that were meant for other purposes. I can't believe that I, a normal elderly person would be doing all this. If all this fails, I will get my friend, Warren, to stake out the garden and shoot them. I'm serious.

This is the first full year I have had vegetable and flower gardens that I could really observe and take care of. I am thrilled to see the flowers I planted bloom. I look at them several times a day and I have carefully monitored the progress of things I thought were weeds, but turned out to have lovely blooms. I check out the vegetable garden, more serious than flowers because we need to eat them. I am always looking up plants and flowers in my books and on-line. I am learning stuff. I am captivated. In the dry season I need to water every garden every day, but keep in mind to conserve water.

Last night we had a good rain. It was gift. The pastures look so green, the resurrection ferns on the trees are plumping out, and for this one day I did not have to water the gardens. It was so moist that I went out with the rake and hoe to plant some wild flowers in memory of an old friend who died today. She'd be glad to think of wild phlox, calendula, and poppies growing somewhere in rural Florida in her name.