Voles in the Acorn Squash

     Voles, voles, voles.  Furry little critters that eat or destroy so many of my veggies.  They fit right through the one inch mesh on one of my fenced areas.  This spring at my park garden I observed a vole hanging upside down from a broccoli leaf to get a good angle to eat the broccoli head.  To zero.  Not a head did I harvest from that patch.  I had a large beautiful cardoon plant two weeks ago.  Had.  One morning it was all collapsed.  The voles had eaten the stems clean through at ground level.  And the indestructible hosta bed, gone.  I thought the hosta succumbed to the drought, but they would have recovered in the last month when we have had some rain.  But no, they are just gone, like potato chips for the voles.

Vole-atized acorn squash,  October 7, 2012

      This is not some new form of acorn squash that has cute little "peanuts" like some of the bumpy pumpkins.  These are acorn squash that have formed scabs from where the voles chewed on the skins.

      This squash is more than half eaten.  It seems that if the voles just chew the surface, they may make minor damage and leave.  But if they get into the interior of the squash, they really chow down.  There have been some squash that have just an outer skeleton where the meat has been eaten from the interior.

Two perfect acorn squash,  October 7,  2012

      Well almost perfect.  They are not quite ripe yet, but I hope they will ripen properly off the vine.  When ripe, acorn squash will have a consistent dark green color, without the lighter shades shown above.  And why are these two so nice?   Because they were growing suspended on the fence, at least a foot off the ground.  I suspect that the voles are afraid to climb to such an exposed position.  Will I be growing my squash, pumpkins and watermelon on trellises next year?  I will if I want produce rather than raising it to feed the voles.

Today's Harvest

      This afternoon is hot and muggy, but not raining at the moment.  So time was spent in the garden working on the tomato staking, and to look around for the hiding harvest.  This is what shook out of the bushes today.  Patty pan and acorn squash, a nice cucumber, a yellow straight neck squash, and more tomatoes.

Back yard harvest, 8-15-11

      The tomatoes were added to the batch on the porch to finish ripening.  Would you believe that Cindy made a triple batch of tomato soup just yesterday!  Simply scrumptious on a cold winter's day.

Porch collection, 8-15-11

Early July Blooms

      Well it is pretty obvious that I didn't bang out a bunch of blogs about our recent trip to southern France.  Some how life intrudes on our best intentions.  I was fairly pleased however that the home and park gardens did not get too overgrown with weeds, as I had tried to get the gardens ready for some self cruise control.  The sun is out this morning, and it promises to be another day where I give up and seek the shelter of air conditioning.  So before it became unbearable, I took a stroll out back to grab some quick shots on July 7, 2011.