Sow There

I recently picked up my friend Annette for a long-overdue hour of girl-talk.
“Do you want to go to lunch or to frozen yogurt?” I asked while riffling through my yellow coupon book.
Annette howled.
“I knew you were going to have a coupon,” she said, followed by her infectious giggle.

Yep. Isn’t that why they make coupons? So consumers can make important life decisions like where to giggle with friends?
Frugality also influences other social options.
My friends and I visit a lot of art galleries and attend free lectures about green beans and melting glaciers. We dance in City Plaza, usually when they are playing music, and take walks in the park.

Any given Friday night, I can probably find something fun to do with a handful of quarters.
For Christmas, my boyfriend wanted to take me clothes shopping to buy a new outfit, so I asked him to take me to Salvation Army’s Elite Repeat.
This spring, my gleeful frugality has kicked into high gear while I glean my boyfriend’s fruit trees.
If vegetables gardens are gauged by gophers, fruit trees are vandalized by birds and robbed by raccoons.
When the peaches began to drop on their own accord, I was determined to prevent the bottom-feeding ants from ruining the slightly bruised treasures.
This resulted in a bucketful of dinged fruit that you can’t offer to friends in a happy gift bag.

Welcome the food dehydrator — no doubt invented by a like-minded miser.
Last year, we dried tomatoes and plum strips (which should not be confused with prunes).
This month, we’ve been sitting on the living room floor with separate cutting boards. We slice fruit while watching action movies that require almost zero attention span.
This doubles as dinner time, because its amazing how much fruit you end up consuming when your intention is to preserve food for winter.

The first batch in the food dehydrator was a mixed.
Dried Asian pears taste nothing like real Asian pears, and dried plums are super-sweet, like fruit Skittles. You also can never go wrong with dried tomatoes.
The dried peaches? Well, my boyfriend likes them.

More info than I can provide
I Googled around on the Internet this week and found some cool writers with cool ideas for using dried fruit.
The www.backpackingchef.com, suggests dropping dried peaches into non-instant oatmeal while cooking, http://goo.gl/TvzoSZ.
You can also take dried apples or peaches into the back woods and make wacky rehydrated cobbler.
We plan to add the fruit to trail mix, and maybe painting some as Christmas tree ornaments.

For the second batch, currently in the food dehydrator, I sprinkled a rack of fruit with cinnamon. If that’s yummy, I’ll experiment with cayenne pepper.
Some helpful tips for drying can also be found here: http://goo.gl/DcBlbN

The www.pickyourown.org folks recommend packing the dried goods loosely in glass jars for 7-10 days. This allows the fruit to become conditioned, and less likely to mold once you stash it in snack-sized plastic bags.
Another source noted that vitamins are lost during the dehydrating process, even Vitamin C. You should also note that the calories are not lost.
Now that we’re getting near the end of the summer fruit season, it’s time to think ahead for our next garden tricks.

My handy UC Davis vegetable planting guide says August is the time for planting seeds and small plants of cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli, and seeds of carrots and rutabaga.

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You’d need to like people to have Laura Nichols’ summer job. This week there were cars stopping at her front yard every few minutes. Drivers on Hegan Lane take a quick right onto Bruce Lane when they read the bright red letters advertising “Tomatoes, $1 a pound.”
Her shaded, roadside stand is filled with boxes of sunny red fruit, as well as other edibles, including butternut squash and zucchini.

She’s accustomed to a lot of business at the height of produce production. But this week was especially hectic with people traveling to get their fill of the U-pick peaches at the University Farm down the way.

“I can’t keep the tomatoes on the stand,” she said. Maybe part of the allure is that she likes when people snack on cherry tomatoes while they shop for bigger fruit.

If she runs out of tomatoes out front, people are encouraged to wander to their left and pick tomatoes from some of the nearly 500 plants around two sides of her home.

The ginormous undertaking began in 1998 when she put in about 75 plants. She pitched out a sign and the buyers arrived. The next year, she realized she could sell more. With the help of her dad, Bob, the number of rows continued to grow.

“He’s my silent, boisterous partner,” she joked.

Buyers are enthusiastic, and when the red ones are picked clean, people often pick green — for fried green tomatoes and chutney.

She and her dad order seeds from a seed catalog, which you’d really need to do with this type of volume.

During the season, things are busy. She picks in the morning and again in the evening, often with her watchdog following her through the rows.

She knows her regular customers who come once a week or more. Other folks will buy a boat-load for canning.

“I’ve met the most awesome people,” she said. “One little old guy came by and would bring me samples of what he got out of his garden.

“The older crowd is so much fun. We just talk about tomatoes of years gone past.”

Her location is in the middle of prime farmland, and the first few years everything grew like magic. Then there were some plant problems and she and her dad started adding calcium and rich compost they buy by the truckload.

With all that good stuff going on, she hasn’t found a need to spray with chemicals.

When it comes to soil, “I’ve got the cream of the crop,” he boasted.

She said she sees almost zero hornworms, probably because they rototill.

Over time, they’ve learned to water just right, because too much water will cause the fruit to split.

Growing and selling the tomatoes is really just a summer hobby. She’s able to use the sales to pay for a vacation once a year. Her dad’s a sailor, and Laura loves the wind as well.

If you visit, be nice and follow the signs, rather than wandering into her private yard.

To get there, travel south on Park Avenue, and continue just a bit onto the Midway. Take a right on Hegan Lane, then watch for the tomato sign on the left. Her home is part-way down Bruce Lane on the right.

If you travel a short distance farther on Hegan Lane, past the railroad tracks, you’ll see a sign for pluots, which are grown by another resident in the area.

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I’d like to say that all new experiences with my sweetheart are wildly romantic — our first garden tomato, first sunset at the river, earning the top score on a pinball game …
But this week we shared an all-too-intimate moment of projectile vomiting.
At the height of produce season, I love to gobble up fresh food. Monday, I sliced and diced until we had a mammoth bowl filled with colorful produce.

A few hours later, my stomach was gurgling uncomfortably. When I put my hand on my lower abdomen, I could feel air pockets bubbling like the sulfur pits at Lassen Park.
Maybe I had gas. I decided to take a heaping spoonful of baking soda and was prepared to hide in the closet while I deflated.
Then the wave of nausea hit, followed by knees to linoleum and hugging cool white ceramic.
I would have naturally thought I had contracted the stomach flu, but soon my guy was taking his turn at the white urn.
“Honey, that was the first time we hurled together,” I said, trying to make him smile.
So how did we get food poisoning from something in that fresh salad?
Some of the food was from his garden, much from farmers market and some from local grocery stores. I made a point of washing it thoroughly, I thought.
Just to torture myself, I looked up common forms of food poisoning and their symptoms. All are similar, in that your body tries to quickly rid itself of the offending substances. But, in our case, we both had body aches as well. At one point, I was so dizzy I had to lay down in the middle of the hallway.

I now have a greater understanding, and empathy, when I read stories about large outbreaks of E-coli or disease that ruins people’s vacations on the Love Boat.
After the worst of it had passed, we wanted to ensure it couldn’t happen again. We scoured through the fridge throwing out anything that was in the salad, could have touched the salad or could have been touched by fumes of the salad fixings.
The refrigerator was emptied and doused in bleach, as were all countertops and cutting boards.
After a day recuperating, I talked with Kiyomi Bird, public health nurse with Butte County Public Health.
She said she doubts it was the salad.
Most infections that cause violent reaction have an incubation period of several days, she said. So eating a salad and getting sick a few hours later is unlikely.
A variety of bacteria and viruses that can make you sick are outlined on the Center for Disease Control website: http://goo.gl/dmp74r.
We did not eat at a restaurant recently, so we could not blame anyone else’s lack of hand-washing.
Bird said we could have picked up bacteria or a virus just about anywhere, which made me want to live in a bubble.
I felt stupid for throwing out all the food, but the purging did make cleaning the fridge much easier.
Some toxins can make you sick quickly, but often these are carbohydrates, like starches. For example, she said she would be wary of beans left in a bowl for several hours.
Most of the preventive measures on the CDC website, http://goo.gl/nboMRP, are things we’ve heard before, but which bear repeating. Wash your hands frequently. Use bleach-based cleaners to quickly clean up surfaces, wash dirty clothes quickly. Wash all your produce thoroughly, and cook food thoroughly.
After you’re sick, bleach the bathroom and wash your sheets and clothes.

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Chicory is my new favorite wild plant. You’d call it a wildflower if it was growing on Table Mountain, but in the garden area it’s a weed.
Last year, I became enamored by the light-blue, slightly lavender flowers that are most vibrant in morning light.
Upon my request, my boyfriend let the chicory grow wild and now it dots the dry grass with cheerful flowers, which are related to the aster.
The plant is drought-tolerant to the point that chicory is considered invasive in Death Valley and other national parks, and chicory root is used to flavor coffee in New Orleans.

Despite their edible reputation, the deer in Paradise leave them alone.
When I posted a chicory photo on Facebook, my friend Barbara wrote that the plants are considered a “super food” and the young leaves can be used in salad if picked before they turn bitter.
The same is said about dandelion leaves, and I actually munched on a few of those. But generally I avoid eating weeds at the edge of the yard because dogs and cats could have lingered over the leaves.
In comparison, dandelion leaves are a little bitter like kale, which I buy to add to salads.

Another nice nibble are nasturtium leaves, which are peppery, and can be added to the bottom of a tray of fancy cheese.
It’s intriguing that in just a few generations, we can forget which plants found in the wild are edible. We yank plants we don’t recognize from our carefully planted gardens, and then spend $3 for watercress, which grows wild.
We walk past wild mint and chamomile, and don’t know it can be consumed until we see it wrapped in mesh and hung from a teabag string.

Yet, there are reasons. It would be just my luck, to be born 150 years ago, frolicking in the forest and gorging on nightshade and oleander (both poisonous).

Less edible edibles
For fun, I searched online for more wild things to eat.
Chicory, purslane and nasturtium are one thing.
But the website www.ediblewildfood.com detailed the merits of eating mallow.
The leaves can be tossed into salads, which sounds just lovely.
But the writers lost me when they said the roots can be boiled to “release a thick mucus,” that can be “beaten to make a meringue-like substitute for egg whites.”
These authors also note that boiling stinging nettle will remove the hairs, making the plant suitable for soups and pasta.
I should probably spend more time learning what is nutritious and what will kill me. With knowledge, I could hike in the woods without carrying a lunch, or survive in the wild if there is a zombie apocalypse.

Yes, I want your tomatoes
This week Holly Whittaker sent a note and offered me a big, juicy bag of tomatoes.
I happen to have a still-steady supply of plums, so we made it an even exchange.
Holly and her dad grow about 30 plants, of all different varieties. She gave me so many I felt pleasantly spoiled, and wished I had brought more plums.
That night I was able to make my first batch of fresh salsa — tomatoes, purple onion, celery, jalapeno, lemon juice, garlic, salt and pepper. Cilantro was not on hand and would have added bell pepper if I had thought ahead.

While pleased and soon sated, I had just a few pangs of unwarranted jealousy.
It’s inappropriate to envy people who have found a system of thwarting gophers, a space with full sun and who have spent the time to nurture plants and build great soil.
The tomatoes in my boyfriend’s yard are green, and we’re hoping to harvest before the gopher takes out more plants.
I shouldn’t be jealous. Right? Especially when nice people share.
Yet, when my coworker Roger brought in a bag of produce this week to the newsroom I accused him of bragging.
Holly and her hubby Ryan also suggested a recipe for super-fresh tomatoes, including an eggplant/tomato tart, http://goo.gl/LTlXe.

More recipes welcome, even those that include ingredients of weeds Twitter @HeatherHacking and on Facebook.

Plums and blackberry juice have stained my fingernails.
My beau has half a dozen fruit trees and currently the plum is producing.
Also, that eyesore of impenetrable blackberry bushes has been my new favorite place in the yard.
I can be a little obsessive. If I’m at his house all day, I’ll do a thorough search for berries when I arrive, then peruse again right before I go home. Either I missed some, or more berries ripened over the course of the day.
Now I can walk by the delectable baskets of blackberries at the farmers market and think, “ha! I scoff at your baskets at $3 each.”
Note to self: It takes six cups of berries to make one cobbler in a 9-inch pan. I plan to make a lot of cobbler.

Blackberry bushes are not a welcoming plant
When I went to give blood recently, the gal checked my arms for drug tracks, and I was afraid I would be disqualified due to the scratches.
Of course it’s just my imagination, but it really feels as if the blackberry vines inch closer each time I strip a berry cluster.
If I had more patience, I would stand still in the thicket and set up a time-lapse camera. I’m convinced the camera would document the plants aiming thorns at my hair.
After several prickly encounters, I’ve added the pruning shears to my berry-gathering tool chest. If a long, thorny tendril gets in my way, it’s out of there.

Unburdening other burgundy-colored fruit
Plum trees also have thorns, I recently learned. You don’t know this until you’re four feet up a stepladder and trying to balance a five-gallon bucket.
The plums have been ripening for a few weeks now, and I now realize it won’t be the end of the world if some end up rotten.
The first week of plummage, I picked through the fallen fruit to salvage anything the birds hadn’t nipped.
I was afraid I would waste one or two.
While we watched movies, I sat cross-legged, surrounded by protective plastic bags, slicing fruit for the dehydrator.
Unless I plan to take up backpacking, there is currently enough dehydrated fruit to make it through February.

Giver not a taker
For so many years, I’ve been on the taking end of other people’s fruit. (Special thanks to my neighbor Bob and Sally at work).
Now that I have access to my boyfriend’s trees, we have arrived at numerous social functions with a bag of plums. When we recently looked at a promising house, the real estate agent received plums as well.
But you know you’ve saturated the market when you bring a bucket of fruit to work on Monday and half remains on Wednesday afternoon.
Please people: if someone brings fruit to work, bring it home and share it with your neighbors.
I checked with the Jesus Center and the Torres Community Shelter, and each said they’re happy when the public shares the bounty from their trees.
The Torres Shelter is at 101 Silver Dollar Way, which is right by California Water Service and Costco off Martin Luther King Boulevard. Best donation times are Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
At the Jesus Center, 1297 Park Ave., drop produce at the back door before 5 p.m.

Plum and blackberry recipes are welcome, especially suggestions for a granola topping: hhacking@chicoer.com or on Twitter @HeatherHacking.

How much time can I spend in my bedroom with the doors closed and the air conditioner aimed directly at my chest?
Apparently a long time.

My house, built in the 1940s, has 1940s insulation. I can pretend like I’m staying in a hotel, and pad out into the heat to refill a cup of ice. With a computer, a telephone, TV and a shower, I could be in Dubai or my humble house in Chico.
But this game can’t last.
We’ve been publishing a lot of photos and stories about record-breaking temperatures, swimming holes and public places where you can linger.
And those who have plants we care about are waking up early to drag the hose around the yard.
Liana, one of Butte County’s Master Gardeners, agreed gardeners will be required to go outdoors if they don’t want to create a desert outside their air conditioned bedroom windows.
It wasn’t that long ago it was raining. Now with 110-degree temperatures, plants are stressed, she stressed.
The best thing to do is resist the urge to pour chemicals on your plants. It might feel intuitive to give the plants a little extra love, but fertilizers won’t help anything.
Ditto for the pesticides, she said.
Chemicals we add to plants contain salt, which plants don’t like. And did I mention the plants are already stressed?

Duh. Plants need water
It’s a no-brainer, but water is the best medicine.
For potted plants, it might be necessary to water each day, and maybe even twice, Liana noted.
But don’t allow potted plants to sit in the water, which will create soggy, unhealthful roots.
If you have a watering system, increase the volume, she advised.
Also remember that all plants are thirsty right now, not just the ones that look like they’ve been through a car wash and then left in the parking lot for three days.
Trees are also vulnerable to the ravages of extreme heat.
There’s no use watering in the middle of the day, even though plants will look like they will be dead by 3 p.m. Most of that water will evaporate and splashing the leaves in full sun is not advised. And let’s face it, if you’re holding a hose when its 110 degrees, your mood will be less than agreeable.
Water in the morning, Liana said.
I asked her exactly what she meant by “morning,” and learned some people consider morning to mean 5-7 a.m.
The typical wisdom is not to water too late at night because mildew can occur. But Liana said with this heat, that won’t be a factor.
While we’re giving extra love to our plants, we can also remember to be nice to one another.
This week my friend Ann called for a little solace.
“This heat is really getting me down,” she said.
“What do you want me to do about it,” I snapped back.

Corpse Flower update
The fun is over for the delightfully stinky corpse flower recently on display at Chico State University. Plant protector Tim Devine couldn’t hide his enthusiasm two weeks ago when the plant bloomed.
He opened his greenhouse, and let all who wished come have a whiff.
Soon after the show-and-smell, the plant began to fade.
Tim sent some fresh photos, the most recent which was taken Monday. You can see the entire progression, from corm to droopy mess here: http://goo.gl/jULv6.

Follow on Twitter and Facebook, @HeatherHacking

The beauty of nature can sometimes vary depending on the location in which it is beheld.

If you see a raccoon in your plum tree — usually a day before the fruit is ripe — the coarse fur and shining eyes are not a welcome sight. Ditto if the critter is neck-deep in your cat bowl.

But if you see the same raccoon in a creek with its young, perhaps under moonlight, the varmint is transformed into a wonder of nature.

Last weekend a bunch of us loaded up kayaks and dumped into the Sacramento River near the Sundial Bridge. With the “supermoon” shining, Tecnu, sunscreen and a rain poncho, everything was as it should be.

For three days we gazed at osprey and eagles, paddled under the wings of vultures and skimmed past otter and a bobcat.

You can peruse a few photos at: http://goo.gl/rvtW.

I’m partial to plants grown from seed packets, but I have a strong appreciation for flowers wherever they live.

In nature, we call flowering plants “wildflowers.” But in our yards these plants would be yanked.

The first night along the river we landed somewhere near Anderson. Fish jumped, the moon rose — huge and pulsing — and water lapped slowly against our semi-beached watercraft.

At dusk I noticed the evening primrose near the river’s high water mark.

Something strange happens when you’re camping — hot dogs and canned beans taste delicious and weeds take on a majestic beauty.

In 2012 I spent hours near a creek in Paradise waiting for
evening primrose to open. This tall plant is distinct — just as the day begins to cool, yellow flowers burst open. The blooms last into the next day and then begin to shrivel.

You can watch a video of the flower popping here: http://goo.gl/sXoQq.

Catching the bloom accidentally is a magical surprise. If you’re intentionally waiting, you will invariably be devoured by mosquitoes.

Last year, we gathered the seeds. The plan was to offer them to readers.

Yet, just a few days later the Agricultural Commissioner’s Office called to report on a new weed plaguing rice farmers — the evil and invasive Winged primrose willow, http://goo.gl/1ZYfk.

I couldn’t tell the difference without expert advice, so the seeds were never offered.

It would be just my luck, as the ag reporter, to distribute noxious weeds to gardeners throughout the region.

This brings us back to the question of when do we appreciate things more and less.

The unfurling of yellow flowers at dusk is likely a different experience for a farmer than it is for a kayak camper.

One of my goals is to learn how to be more gracious. I have this terrible trait that when I don’t want to do something, I say so.
Some might call this “sticking up for yourself” or “knowing your truth,” or even “being straightforward.”
Yet, there are many things you end up doing reluctantly.
The trick is, if I know I’m going to end up granting the request, I have an opportunity to do it willingly, even graciously.

Friend: “Could you drive to whatever place and do 12 things for me and then lend me money?”
Possible reply: “Yes, of course,” I could say, flipping my imaginary good citizen cape and putting on a genuine, good-natured smile.
Instead, I have heard myself say:
• “I’ll do it only if you’ve asked everyone else and they have said no.”
• “You can stay at my house, but only if you don’t ask me to clean it first.”
• “Yes, this one time, but please make arrangements with someone else next time.”
Recently a friend asked me to water his plants while he was traveling. He lives out of town and had already asked other people, who could not.
And I didn’t want to. I had other places to go, other things to do.
Yet, I knew I would do it anyway, and missed my opportunity to be gracious.

To further beat myself up, I thought about all the times I have gone out of town. My friend Kara graciously watered my potted plants.
My cat was fed and the mail fetched.
I should have said yes to my friend just because.
The thing about favors is that the person to whom you owe a favor is usually not the person who has recently asked for a favor.
This week I need to remind myself to say thank you, again, to all my gracious friends who have done me favors.
And to my sister, thank you for watering my friend’s plants when he went out of town.
Now I owe my sister a favor.

Supersize this
If you haven’t heard, this weekend will be the “supermoon.”

A full moon is almost always “super” in my book, especially if you have the right hand to hold.
The superlative has been added because the moon will be the closest to earth we will see this year.
I’ve heard the moon will appear 25 percent larger. Or was that 25 percent brighter?
An article in Slate’s online magazine explains, in detail that the moon will be closer, but we shouldn’t expect to be cosmically wowed.
And yet, I think we should all pretend. We should grab someone we like more than ice cream, head outside at 4:30 a.m. Sunday and bang pots and pans as if it is New Year’s Eve.

People who follow the Old Farmer’s Almanac also advocate planting under a full moon.
I found an article in the New York Times that interviewed a NASA scientist to debunk this myth.
But gardening doesn’t necessarily need to follow astrophysicists’ opinions.
If I plant seeds under a full moon, especially under a “super-full-moon,” maybe it will make a difference.
And really, is there ever a bad time to put seeds in the ground?

This week I stood in “death row” of my favorite big-box store.
My plan had been to buy a “gopher basket,” — a metal mesh container designed to keep gophers from yanking plants under the ground.
The product was not in stock.
Yet, I was invited to peruse the options on the neatly-arranged death and repellent shelf.
By throwing some money at my problems, I could buy green-glowing poison worms, poison pellets or a gopher gasser (which also kills ground squirrels).
One deterring mixture contained ground blood and cayenne, I was told.
I perused these concoctions. Yet, I’m currently experimenting with a device that emits a buzzing sound about every 30 seconds. After installation, two additional lettuce plants have disappeared.
The gophers have demonstrated their superiority for consecutive years, and by that I mean 10. So this year I only planted veggies in my single raised bed, which is lined in metal mesh.
Lucky for the gopher, I’m too cheap to spend another $15 on products to protect the three seedling squash plants that remain. If the store had sold the anti-love juice in trial sizes, I probably would have plunked over the cash for yet another experiment.

Plan B, more pots
This week Dennis brought four tiny tomato plants to my office. This was good timing, because the tomato plants I bought at the farmers market were recently dragged through darkness and devoured by my sworn enemy.
I’m temporarily naming the plants “Dennis’ last minute wee wonders.”
Dennis said he lived on Fifth and Arbutus three decades ago and he and his neighbor traded gardening tips.
“One day he brought me a couple of small volunteer tomato plants and said if I planted them I would always have them,” Dennis wrote in an introductory email.
“They have relatively small leaves and bear tiny little red tomatoes, about the size of the tip of your little finger.”
I’m thinking I could start a new business making edible tomato necklaces.
Over the years, Dennis has moved twice. Just as his former neighbor foretold, the tomatoes are still with him.
“They hitched a ride from home-to-home in potted plants.”
In general, I’m always trying new things. And specifically, I rarely say no to a gift.
Thursday night I mixed up a mammoth batch of soil in wheelbarrows. One bag of store-bought soil, and half a bag of compost from Compost Solutions in Orland (www.compostsolutionsinc.com).
Systematically, and with jabs of anger, I also filled a wheelbarrow with soil from my nearly-plantless raised bed.
I was hoping to come across the gopher, but instead was taunted by systematic loud bleeps from the sonic gopher-greeting machine.
Ten-gallon containers were found around the yard, including one commandeered from near my neighbor’s garbage cans.
All four of the new tomato plants are now secure in pots.
Thank you Dennis for helping to restore my sense of hope. However, I have learned gophers are exceedingly resourceful.
I will not be shocked if I come home and discover gophers have crafted a ladder from morning glory vines, and have pitched tents in my 10-gallon buckets.

If you want even more fun, you can follow me on Facebook and Twitter @HeatherHacking

Yep. The gopher is back, or at least the kin of last year’s gopher, and perhaps the grand-kin of the gopher before that.
My neighborhood must harbor an underground gopher incubation unit, where gophers are produced as prolifically as feral cats.
Come to think of it, the gopher problem had decreased several years ago when my neighborhood was filled with fertile feral cats. Yet, being the do-gooder that I am, I trapped a bunch of the strays and took them to the Humane Society.
People who have read this column for a few years may recall that gophers and my garden are nothing new. I’ve tried the hose, chewing gum, dirty dog hair, rancid fish, pet feces and plugging holes with bricks. Once a friend attached a hose to his tail pipe and idled his car in my driveway while we talked about the world’s problems.
Then I graduated to the raised bed, with a metal mesh lining to create a no-trespassing zone.
This kept the gophers away for one year, but now a ravenous rodent has returned.
My guess is that he crawled through a small entryway to the raised bed, and then got so fat he can’t crawl back out. He’s now using my raised bed as a condominium.
The feeding cycle seems to be every two days. The first plant casualty was an entire head of loose-leaf lettuce. The hole was backfilled, as if the gopher thought I wouldn’t notice.
Two days later, a second bald spot appeared.
I borrowed a heinous looking trap from a friend, which was no small feat to bury in the ground without deactivating the spring.

 

But the trap remains untouched and two more plants have vanished.
The loss of the tomato plants was the most disheartening. One plant already had small, green fruit. The plants were so big the gopher couldn’t pull them under the ground; the lifeless leaves remained on the soil until the next day when he gave the plant a final tug.
Now, I have borrowed a noise-maker, powered by three D batteries. An annoying sound is made about every 30 seconds.
Several small squash plants, grown from seed, remain in the raised bed. I’m hoping the gopher takes a hike before he learns to make earplugs from mud.
My friend Tom also suggested I dig up the entire raised bed and repair any gaps in the metal mesh. Bonus if I am able to find the critter.

Moving on, buying from the pros
The really good news is that I can be perfectly happy despite my unwanted yard guest.
Bruce Balgooyen and James Brock invited me to chat at the Saturday farmers market, where they sell veggies grown at their Riparia Farm.
This was a few weeks ago and they already had summer vegetables, including a table stacked several feet high with crisp cucumbers.
Last week I went to the market later in the morning and they had just sold their entire first batch of tomatoes.
These guys are pros, and apparently undaunted by gophers. I have full confidence the summer will be filled with salsa.

You’re also invited to follow on Twitter and Facebook, @HeatherHacking