In a previous post I mentioned I would relate some of my adventures with storms and squirrels as pertains to my container garden. Storms first.
We’ve been having an inordinate amount of rainfall in my neck of the woods this Spring, and by rainfall I mean great, heaping, torrential downpours! The day I planted my plants, there was a storm comin’. We could see the sky turning dark, something moving in fast from the east. But I thought I’d have plenty of time to finish the job. The wind picked up, and The Mister looked concerned.
“Better pick up the pace a bit there, Missus.”
I brushed off his concern.
“Not to worry, not to worry.”
And sure enough, I got everything nicely planted, gathered up my tools, and went into the house, feeling pretty smug and muttering something about fretful old farts. About two and a half seconds later, the skies cracked open and rain came down in rivers!
The following day, The Mister got me the rest of the plants to finish the garden, went off to fill up the car with gas from the shed, and nasty black clouds started moving in again.
“You think we might get caught in this?” I asked over my shoulder.
“Might,” The Mister replied without looking up.
“How much time do you think we have?”
“Hard to say.”
I started working faster.
“Well, do you think there’s any danger, you know, from lightning bolts or something?”
He capped the gas can and put it back in the shed.
“Only for whoever’s still outside when it hits.” And he headed back to the house.
My fingers were a blur! But I got everything safely ensconced, dropped my tools and dashed up the back steps into the house. And yikes! lightening, thunder and deluge of rain within mere minutes. The Mister looked over at me.
“Nice timing there, Missus. Didn’t know you could move that fast.”
“Well, I was highly motivated.”
And then there’s the squirrels.
The morning after I had prepared the boxes with soil and compost, I found them besmirched with a number of squirrel-size divots. Great! We have a real problem with squirrels in our area. We also have a real problem with feral cats. Now, you’d think the latter would take care of the former, but no. Things are not nearly so convenient as that in the Wild Kingdom. Anyhoo, I did some research on how to keep the squirrels at bay. The first two suggestions were a rubber owl on the shed roof, and/or rubber snakes in the boxes themselves. I took a moment to imagine how that would look, then uttered a fervent prayer that other suggestions would be forthcoming.
They were. Someone said they’d had good luck with placing river rocks around the plants. Apparently, the little rodents don’t like digging under them. And someone else said the ONLY thing they had tried that worked was sprinkling the boxes liberally with hot spices – chili powder and cayenne.
I did both the rocks and the spices and woo-hoo, no squirrels! My dear sister Chris, who has a lovely garden every year, confirmed the use of hot spices as a successful deterrent for these cute but pesky critters.
So my boxes are doing very well, and I’m feeling pretty proud of myself. Next time, I’ll tell ya about goofy sun faces and li’l Amish children and what they’re doing in my garden. You don’t want to miss that, now do you? 
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