The Daily: 21 August 2023

Posted on by Eliza Daley

The groundhog developed a taste for squash leaves while I was away last week. I assume this is either retribution, since I’m not providing more beans, or desperation, eating anything that was in that bean heaven in hopes of finding something as delicious — though there are hundreds of plants that are less spiny and probably richer in nutrients than squash within a twenty foot waddle of my veg patch. I don’t know why they have to eat from my garden, never mind ingesting leaves that undoubtedly will give them ulcers, when there is a whole jungle of native groundhog food growing all around the veg patch. There is also a buffet of edible, and not quite as edible, weeds all over the garden. They didn’t have to eat the squash…

They have not eaten the stems, so there is a limit to their tolerance for spines in the throat. That or they just don’t eat stems. They rarely eat the bean stalks either. They also did not eat the flowers. In fact, they pulled these edible treats off the plant and apparently stomped all over them, mashing them into the dirt. I can’t understand this at all. Squash flowers are delicious. Even humans eat squash blossoms in any number of ways, from raw salads to deep fried fritters. But the hog spurned the blossoms and, instead, ate every last prickly leaf.

There will be no squash harvest now. No cricket bat zucchinis. No ratatouille and veggie goulash and grilled yellow crooknecks on garlic toast. No freezer full of shredded squash for breads and soup thickening. No butternut squash for cookies, bread, soup, stews. No pumpkins for Halloween and Thanksgiving and Yule. No mini pumpkins to adorn the mantle or field pumpkins for carving. No fat blue hubbard squash for sublime pie and endless pints of purée. No red kuris and pink moschatas to brighten the dining table until I decide to roast them. No acorns and buttercups to be baked with walnut oil and spices and stuffed with black beans, rice and chile. No delicatas… but then the squirrels had already broken all those vines anyway.

No cucumbers either, by the way. The very few vines that survived being trampled while the hog ate all the beans are now broken and defoliated.

I have a garden of weeds and gnawed stumps. I want to cry.

There are still some beetroots and turnips, but no carrots or radishes or spinach. I am digging the potatoes and the garlic and onions this week, but the leeks were all smashed and the sweet potatoes were defoliated back with the bean debacle. If the weather forecast for sun is accurate I might get some of these bushels of green tomatoes to ripen before the frost. Maybe. And I have one tree of unidentified small apples that probably will make good apple butter — they don’t look like long keepers. But this has been the worst gardening year I have ever experienced. So much time and expense gone down the gullet of an obese groundhog. It’s enough to make me want to plant grass…

Instead, I bought a bunch of things to cover the plants next year. I also resolved to put in a spiny hedge on the hugelkultur mound and plant more smelly herbs. And if my co-worker’s husband truly wants to come hunt this thing in the middle of town, I think I’m going to let him, zoning laws be damned. (He has a bow… it’s not too irresponsible…)

Meanwhile, there is more mold in the basement, this time on a couple pine bookcases. I don’t know why those two got it and not any of the wood pantry shelves I have down there. But anyway, I have to unload these cases and address that mess. These are expensive enough that I will try to get rid of the mold first, but I don’t have high hopes. What I can see on the surface is only a small fraction of what is going on inside the wood. But maybe a few soakings with anti-microbial cleaner and then a coat of Kilz will take care of the roots. I don’t want to paint these shelves, but I also don’t want to toss them. And I’m afraid tossing is probably what will happen.

But that is a project for next week. I still have enough of this flu virus in my veins that bending over makes me dizzy. Packing up books is just not going to happen. I am also not quite sure what I’m going to do with the books while I’m doing bookcase remediation. At a minimum I have to buy some boxes because I have none. So that needs to be sorted this week in my four or five hours that I’m not asleep or working.

All in all, I am dejected, as close to giving up and buying a condo in New Mexico as I’ve ever been. If moving weren’t such a daunting thing, I’d probably already be making offers…

So that’s all I’ve got for now… maybe next week will be better…

©Elizabeth Anker 2023

18 thoughts on “The Daily: 21 August 2023”

      1. There are ways of skimming the fat off of a stew, as you surely know. Besides, the fat of vegetarian rodents like rabbits and groundhogs is very different from that of cows and pigs. Might be less clogging to the arteries, but I’m not sure. Having said all that, I confess that I never killed or ate a groundhog; in fact I’m rather fond of them.

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      2. I’m not sure, even after all this, that I could kill or eat a groundhog. I’ve had many years worth of fun watching them. There was a mom living under my farm’s woodshed — very far from the market garden. She raised several litters. Baby groundhogs are embodied joy. And fearless. Mom had to teach them to run for the burrow when I came outside.

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  3. As a home gardener, my heart goes out to you, absolutely. I once lost an entire garden in a June hail srorm in New Mexico. Devastated, utterly devastated. Feel my gardener’s love wrapped all around you. (I no longer live in New Mexico, for many reasons).

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    1. Same on the leaving NM bits… but after this summer of flood and smoke and rampant rodent predation (among other things), I am starting to wonder if a chronic lack of water is not as daunting as it felt a decade ago… 🙂

      Thank you for the gardener’s love!

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  4. I had a pet groundhog in the late 50s named Buttons. He could stay in the house (Grandmas) and used a litter box like a cat (one of my earliest chore responsibilities). In the Fall about the time we lit the first fire he’d go out to sleep in a burrow under an outbuilding. This lasted 5 Falls until he went back wild the spring of 1961. It used to be a common thing for Appalachian children to have pet groundhogs. Buttons would sit/lie on the vinyl couch with me while I watched TV and share whatever snacks I was eating. He also like bagged dog food and any fruit. I think he came out sometimes in the summer when I’d whistle and call him, but not come too close. I can’t be sure because he had grown and changed. He never bit or scratched us. I remember his tiny hands. He could crawl under impossibly low furniture, and that’s where he liked to sleep. I shared this because I think it’s valuable to understand your enemies. But I do sympathize with your disappointment. Maybe you could buy some squash and still make your recipes.
    It’s not cheating, most people do it. My gosh woman, you’re driving an RV, not riding a mule.
    (Hope that’s not too personal.)

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    1. It’s more that I’ve spent perhaps a couple hundred dollars on seed and starts and many hours on planting and cultivating and I don’t get to benefit from much of that. I was counting on that harvest to make up for the expense and labor… the hog is not my enemy. I’m just trying to figure out how I get to eat out of my gardening efforts…

      The squirrels might be my enemies though…

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      1. Anything I’ve written is not in criticism of you, Eliza.
        I’m almost 73 and maybe becoming senile and sentimental.
        I try to garden and also have my plants eaten by critters and killed by weather.
        I try not to cry and cuss so loud the neighbors will hear me.
        Gardening has become unreasonably expensive since most people have to order seeds and sets from boutique suppliers. Several of the local outlets around Gaston County have closed recently and the big boxes and hardwares seem to have de-emphasized garden supplies as less profitable. As older people have died or become disabled gardening has dwindled and the roadside stands are gone. Our farmers market consists of 3 or 4 diehards sitting at tables with meager offerings. Contrary to the encouragement by Resilience/Post Carbon I have witnessed home gardening and small farming becoming extinct around me. Your knowledge from New Mexico and New England experience has value.
        I hope you’re able to keep writing for a long time. Hey, didn’t Buddy Ebsen get exited when Irene Ryan would announce she had cooked a groundhog? I’m ignorant about that because I’ve been a vegetarian since childhood and have become more vegan over time. But I like your spirit and attitude so much that if your work friend’s husband kills one it would be OK if you eat a bite. Imagine a big old groundhog for Thanksgiving. If you knew me better you’d understand I’m not kidding you. Congratulations on your supportive comments at a time when I estimate people are responding less often on all leftish and progressive sites. Ominous times.

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  6. It has been a terrible, horrible, no good very bad gardening year and my heart goes out to you! I came home yesterday to find the pie pumpkin that had just gotten ripe and that I was going to cut from the vine that evening had been ravaged by squirrels along with the two small and not yet ripe sweet meat winter squashes. My consolation is that I got one pumpkin before the squirrels did. No zucchini for me either this year, though thankfully my csa farmer seems to be having a bumper crop of zukes and summer squashes this year so I’m not completely out of luck. The hog got your sweet potatoes too? Is there anything left to look forward to? Can you at least plant some seeds for fall/winter harvest? Just thinking about your poor garden makes me want to cry. If your green tomatoes never get ripe, I’m sure you will become and expert at fried green tomatoes and all the things.

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    1. I think it’s time to declare war on the rodents. And I’m a pacifist… At least you can actually shoot a groundhog. I don’t know how you get rid of squirrels.

      I do have potatoes. The vines are still green, so I haven’t dug them up. But I’m fairly certain there are spuds in there. I didn’t sign up for a CSA because I thought I’d have too much for just me out of this garden. Silly me… but the farm market down the street has several stands with piles of zucchini. I expect they hunt their hogs…

      I’m definitely planting peas and greens for fall and I’ll try more carrots, but those might be overwintering things. I think long season mokums are all the seed I have left on carrots.

      And yes, I do make a mean goat cheese and fried green tomato pie. But these enormous plants and all these fat fruits are just taunting me. Luckily today is sunny. Maybe tomorrow too. Not looking good after that. So we’ll see if about 30ish hours of sun is enough.

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  8. Such a discouraging garden year….here in the Adirondacks, it’s wet, gray, cold…..tomatoes (what few there are) hanging unripe, I’m stepping on slugs in the paths. But my heart goes out to our neighbors in Vermont….you’ve had much more to deal with. We are thinking of you!

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  9. If you’re still there next year you’ll be ready. That movie Caddyshack comes to mind. “In the immortal words of Jean Paul Sartre, ‘Au revoir, gopher’.” As for the squirrels, they sure are mean up there.

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    1. I’ve had a lot of Caddyshack quotes running through my head this year… and many people quoting it at me also… maybe that says something about the level of control I think I need on this patch of ground. Or maybe if I want to eat from it, it really does take that much control-freak effort these days. In any case, you are right: I will be ready!

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