Who's Been Eating My Beets?

I've always wanted to grow those great big juicy beets like I see in the farmers' markets in Costa Rica. They're so big, I always assumed the farmers used lots of chemical fertilizers to grow them. I grew beets in South Carolina, and they got fairly big, but once the hot summer weather set in they just seemed to poop out.

My first beet crop (if you look closely you can see the damage done by the rats)

Well, I planted some beets here in my new raised beds, and gave them plenty of good, organic soil, plus just a little bit of chemical fertilizer as a side dressing. It doesn't really get hot here, and those beets just kept getting bigger and bigger, until they began to look like the ones in the farmers market. My dream had come true.

I didn't pay them much attention for a couple of weeks, and when I checked them out again, I discovered that some animal had been gnawing away at the tops of the bulbs. My gardener saw the culprits one day -- two big fat rats in my neighbor's compost pile. My neighbor had been putting his kitchen refuse in my compost pile, but then I noticed he was putting in animal products, such as fish and meat bones and fat. I told him several times not to do this because it would attract vermin. But I guess he thought I was just giving him advice, not telling how it HAD TO BE. Eventually I had to put a lock on the gate between our lots, because he just wouldn't listen.

So now he has started his own compost hole, and it is attracting rats, and they're eating my beets. I told him about the problem, but he insists they are gophers, despite my eyewitness accounts. He's a hard headed person.

I've put out rat traps for several nights, but the nights the traps are out, the rats don't come around. And as soon as I don't put the traps out, the next morning I see evidence that the rats have been at it again. They must be able to pick up my scent on the rat traps. The upshot is that I have lost my entire beet crop.

I have a new planting of beets coming along, so I'm going to have to come up with a different solution.

Happy gardening!

Fruit Trees

Fruit trees have been struggling. In the three-months of November-December-January (2009-2010) I planted three orange trees, a grapefruit, a lemon, a guava, a mango, an avocado, and a fig. Only one, an orange tree, has been doing well from the beginning. It was lucky enough to have been planted in a spot that is fairly fertile and has decent drainage. All the rest were planted in heavy clay with little or no drainage. Planting holes were dug for each, measuring two feet wide by about a foot deep. They were not nearly big enough. Due to the extraordinary heavy rains last year, emergency drainage ditches were dug around each in July. This was enough to keep them alive, but they all suffered root damage from waterlogged conditions.

During the last four months I've been remedying the situation, one tree at a time. I began with one of the orange trees which was planted in terribly hard clay. I enlarged the hole to four feet wide and two feet deep. This required disturbing the rots somewhat. The space where the clay was removed was filled with top soil, sand, rice hulls, compost, and rotted cow manure. I also raised the tree three or four inches higher. The payback to the tree was that it now had about three times as much good soil and fertilizer around it and much improved drainage. In a little more than a week I could begin to see a difference. The leaves seemed shinier and perkier and it began putting on new growth.

The lemon tree in its new location

I've continued this treatment with the other fruit trees, and each one has responded well. The avocado tree looked so sickly that I removed it and started over with a new tree. The lemon was planted in a low area, so I moved it to a higher location. The only trees that remain untreated are the guava and the mango, and I hope to get to them as time allows.

Remedying the fruit tree situation has been a long, back-breaking process. But it's nice to see healthy trees again. Hopefully some will begin to bear fruit this year.

Happy gardening!

March Weather Report

Danilo & his brother beat the bean shells with sticks.

As March progressed a clear trend in the weather became apparent -- drier, warmer, and less windy. Total rainfall came to 3.7 inches, down from 6.1 in February. Two thirds of the rain fell on just two days: March 1st and 26th. At the beginning of the month daily highs ranged in the mid-70s; later in the month it was around 80, with the hottest temperature recorded so far this year -- 85 degrees, on March 27. And, as the old saying goes, "March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb." Gusts reached 22 mph on the 1st, and by the end of the month had died down to light breezes.

Separating the shells from the beans

Our neighbor across the road harvested his black beans this month. He had planted them in December, when it was still raining heavily. March is the best month to harvest beans, due to the dry weather. The beans are knocked out of their shells the traditional way, by beating them with sticks. He got a good crop.

The finished product, before winnowing

The weatherman says the rainy season should begin early this year -- in mid-April. Time to begin planting.

Happy gardening!