Gardening: On overwhelmed seed suppliers, crafty raccoons and feeding wildlife taboo
After a grand and glorious garden season, it’s time to spend a bit of time around the water spigot otherwise known in the normal world as the water cooler. Here are some tidbits I’ve recently picked up.
Gardening was one of the few hobbies we could do safely during the pandemic and a lot of people who had never pulled a weed took up the hobby.
Growing food crops in modern victory gardens was popular because of concerns about COVID-19 disrupting the food supply. World War II victory gardens saw us through tough times then, and they reemerged this summer to feed our communities.
Food gardening was so popular that seed companies were swamped with orders and had to suspend taking orders so they could keep up. “Out of stock” notes were common on online catalog pages. It looks like the trend may continue into 2021 so buy your seeds early at our local nurseries to help them weather the COVID-19 storm.
Fall is the best time to add manure and soil amendments to your garden. The manure will completely break down and help build the soil biome by spring.
An interesting way of getting the material incorporated was brought up in a Facebook post by a Washington State University colleague. A friend of his lives where there are a lot of wild turkeys. He covers his garden in the fall with compost and then puts down a nice layer of tasty corn.
The turkeys come in to eat the corn and till the soil in the process. After they finish, he puts up his turkey fencing, and he’s done until spring.
How many of you have wondered why raccoons seem to wash their food?
Well, according to an article on CBS News online, these critters aren’t cleaning their food at all. It turns out raccoons have very sensitive front paws and need to feel their food to know its good. They put it in water because their paws are even more sensitive under water. Hence, they are attracted to our backyard ponds knowing they can easily feel for the right morsel.
I know that doesn’t console those of you who have lost expensive fish from your ponds to raccoons.
In another part of the story, the writer also talked about how smart they are. Toronto city officials spent a lot of money designing and deploying raccoon-proof green bins only to have the crafty critters figure out how to turn the raccoon-proof handle and get into the bin anyway.
Finally, we are going into the season where many people feel sorry for the deer and try to feed them. Don’t. Wildlife specialists say the critters are perfectly capable of surviving on their own munching brush and other woody plants.
They may eat your corn or hay, but they get little nutrition out of it. Their stomach chemistry changes in the winter, so they eat a completely different diet than they do in the summer.
You could literally be killing them with kindness.
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– Pat Munts can be reached at pat@inlandnwgardening.com