Gardens, Snakes, Mice, and Gophers

Sam got into gardening at age 13 with an epiphany. "The prophet said to plant a garden. My family is not doing that. I'll have to do it myself." So he did. He planted corn, tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes. The first thing he harvested were some wild grapes already growing in the yard. He made grape juice. When his family tried it, they spit it out, it was so disgusting. And from then on they refused to eat anything from his garden.  To this days he swears that the potatoes he harvested were the best potatoes he's ever eaten.

My story is much simpler. My maternal grandparents were master gardeners (former farmers). My parents always had a garden. I expected to have one. And so, this spring, after seven years of marriage, Sam and I were finally able to plant our very first garden! Unfortunately, we planted on the very last day and the harvest has been mostly pathetic.

• Pole beans: They poled fine. But I've only gotten about 25 beans.
• Peas: Three of four plants burned up within a month. The last plant has given us about 18 peas.
• Butternut Squash: Didn't grow a single leaf for two months. But now I've got two 6-inch beauties coming.
• Pumpkins: The plant is huge, but every time a little pumpkin starts, it shrivels within a week. Right now I have three bouncy ball sized pumpkins. And it's almost October.
• Tomatoes: I got a large starter from Costco, so we've gotten tons of beautiful tomatoes.
• Strawberries: Coming along beautifully. Wasn't expecting anything this year.
• Zucchini: At first we got quite a few (7), but now the starts keep snapping off randomly.
• Crookneck: We got 3, and are now having the same start-snapping problem.
• Parsley: Big and gorgeous, but I haven't a clue what to do with it! So I've never used it.
• Cilantro: It was too hot and it went straight to bloom. No cilantro.
• Rosemary: Absolutely beautiful, I've made some crazy good bread.
• Basil: My baby! It was huge and healthy, and I made so many yummy things. Finished the season off by making and freezing my own pesto. (Thanks, Sara!)

Now, how my starts are breaking and why my pumpkins are shriveling, I don't know. Do you think snakes could do that? See, three separate times while I was checking out my plants, I've seen snakes slither though. I'm not particularly scared of snakes, but I wasn't prepared to see them and they were entirely too close, so I almost ran away flailing and screaming every time. But my kids were always there (I'm starting to think these short people are following me around wherever I go), and I didn't want to teach them to be scared of snakes, so instead I called them over and pretended to be fascinated. (All while wanting to throw up. I'm such a great actor, I should be in the movie, too.) In case you were curious, they were all skinny garter snakes. Two 12", one 24". I followed one to the den. Under my driveway. Then I leaped for joy.  [EW.]

Here's the problem with the snakes. Garter snakes eat large bugs (which I am particularly scared of) and mice. And with the field full of mice in our backyard, and the mouse living in my front flower garden, I'm not so sure I want Sam (obviously it wouldn't be me!) to get rid of the snakes yet. It's a catch 22.  If only snakes ate gophers. Cuz the guy that keeps digging up my backyard has pretty much become Family Enemy #1. Problem is, there are millions in the field, so killing this guy wouldn't solve the problem. Really, we need to dig 20 feet down and put a wire fence that spans my entire yard. Any volunteers?


ps. I want to make some rosemary olive oil and I have this beautiful glass bottle to put it in. Anyone know how to do that? How much to put in? What else I should add? Garlic, maybe?