New Garden Plan From Higher Up

Mrs. Razed Bed just returned home and came up with an executive decision.  We are going to pull up everything that does not do well in this heat (all the remaining greens, all lettuce except the romaine, green onions, etc.), which should give us about 60 square feet available.

Since I am trying to transition into a diet similar to the one laid out in The Blue Zones, and since the Nicoyan chapter tells how they eat a lot of beans on corn tortillas, my wife bought enough organic silver queen corn seeds to plant 240 corn plants, at 4 per SF.

So, after the sun sets, and before a hopeful rain shower late tonight, we are going to plant the corn seeds.  This means no more green bean planting, but we have over 100 pole beans growing like crazy on the fence.

I failed to ask her how she plans to keep the raccoons and deer from getting to the corn, since it will grow higher than we can fence in.  At least, it will be much easier to maintain corn than our other options, and Silver Queen is only an 88 day corn.  That puts the harvest around September 22, and our first frost date average is October 29.

Any ideas about keeping 12-15 deer away from food they believe has been set out for them?  I think for now, our raccoons have abandoned our attic, since it is like 120 degrees up there.

That make me want to go out and pull all my bolted lettuce...except the ones I'm saving for seeds.

Silver Queen is the tastiest most delicious corn that ever crossed my tastebuds.

Good luck. And thanks for mentioning The Blue Zones. I ordered it from the library.

CC

The 2nd Ed. SFG book has a sidebar about it on page 76.  I know this because MY BOOK CAME YESTERDAY and I started the boxes for my corn today!!!  *happy*dance*


Beyond that suggestion, I'm clueless and hoping someone with lots of experience chimes in for us.  

 Razed Bed wrote:
Since I am trying to transition into a diet similar to the one laid out in The Blue Zones, and since the Nicoyan chapter tells how they eat a lot of beans on corn tortillas, my wife bought enough organic silver queen corn seeds to plant 240 corn plants, at 4 per square foot.

I thought corn was 1 per SF?  Silver Queen is sooooo yummy!

It is supposed to be 1 per SF, but my relatives in NW Wisconsin have been growing both corn and sorghum for years and have plants in their field about 6 inches apart, so I go with 4 per SF.  In our enhanced growing medium with a lot more water than the fields get, I have been successful in the past with 4 per square.

The trouble is with the deer.  The Wilt Chamberlain buck showed up again this evening as I was grilling some chicken.  He just looked at me for a couple of minutes and did not leave.  I went inside to get the platter to bring the chicken inside, and the dang thing had approached the patio.

I have been surfin Youtube and now see that meat-eating deer is not all that rare.  I found one eating a Wendy's double bacon cheeseburger and another eating t-bone steak.

If that buck had been caught eating my wife's expensive organic, free range chicken, I would have been the one having to sleep in the woods tonight.

Wow I never heard of that. I guess they have an instinct that tells them there is valuable protein there. Wonder how their digestive system handles it.

I've seen hippos and elephants eat dead H/E's in nature shows before, even though both are normally strict vegetarians. And I saw a youtube in which a deer grabbed and gulped down a startled squirrel.

In other news of the weird, squirrels eat mice. In years when squirrel populations are low, mice populations can explode.

Dang, those are some hardcore deer!  You need a random boom sound generator, but that would bother you!

Wow! Meat eating deer.

Corn: p 219, 2nd Ed ANSFG , 4 per square.