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When Things Go Wrong in the Garden

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Our new garden on the Mississippi Gulf Coast already is providing plenty of food and education. So far, besides the early spring radishes, we have harvested ripe cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, jalapeño peppers, about a dozen zucchini, and several small bunches of green beans.

In addition, we have harvested a few gallons of wild dewberries not far from the house, and I have identified several other wild edible plants in our yard and neighborhood.

This all sounds amazing, right? Like we have moved to a land of abundance.

  • Zucchini
  • Early green beans
Zucchini and green bean plants began producing well in early May.
Swiss chard and Chinese Multicolored Spinach plants growing in the garden. Sticks standing around the plants deter squirrels from digging nearby.
Summer greens, Swiss chard and Chinese multicolor spinach, defended from squirrel-digging by barricades of sticks.

Challenges in our Gulf Coast garden

Let me just list, though, some of the challenges facing the garden (and gardener!) in this yard, starting with zoological forms:

  • Fire ants — many, many colonies — which will take awhile to discourage. I have plans, though, based on my organic fire ant control articles, part 1 and part 2.
  • Moles, which have tunneled through the garden, damaging roots and making it impossible for some plants — the ones with tunnels right underneath — to develop deep root systems.
  • Squirrels, which dig random holes in the garden and uproot smaller plants as they dig.

In addition, other insect pests and the first diseases have already attacked. First, caterpillars destroyed the Swiss chard (Just like in Georgia!). When I finally pulled up the chard to replant that space with another kind of crop, the caterpillars moved to the tomato plants.

It took days and days of spraying the plants with an organic-approved Bt product for caterpillars (Thuricide) and hand-smashing the larger caterpillars to stop the infestation. I think that I finally got them all, but would not be surprised to find a couple more.

  • Powdery mildew on zucchini leaves
  • Evidence of pickleworms, hiding in the cuke

Then, the zucchini leaves got covered up in mildew. The cucumbers have been attacked by pickleworms, and then we had a tropical storm.

Backyard and garden flooded by rains from tropical storm Cristobal.
The vegetable garden completely flooded in Tropical Storm Cristobal

The storm waters have receded, but the ground stayed saturated for several days. Not all plants in the garden will recover from having their roots under water for so long. The okra looks fine, but the tomato plants are still wilted, the green bean plants are turning brown, and the rosemary (not surprisingly) is totally brown.

How does an organic gardener address these many challenges?

It helps if a gardener has a good sense of humor, a lot of patience, and a readiness to observe, experiment, and learn.

To reduce risks of flooding

We had placed the garden in the highest part of the back yard that gets full sun, but that was not high enough. For this particular garden, an obvious place to start addressing our challenges is in building raised beds, to keep the garden from drowning in future storms.

Considering where we live, future heavy-rains are a certainty. Raised beds would allow the garden to drain faster, even if it goes underwater again.

Raised beds might also reduce some of our mole-tunneling issues.

We didn’t start with raised beds, partly because we wanted to get things planted right away, but also because of the fire ants. I had observed in Georgia that fire ants seem to be attracted to raised beds. However, an underwater garden is worse than dealing with ants. Raised beds are definitely in our future.

How to address other garden challenges:

For other critter issues, bugs, and diseases, reaching for “products” is not, usually, my first choice. An exception is when I am caught totally off guard — for example, by unexpected rampaging herds of caterpillars.

Instead, these are strategies that I use:

  • Try different planting dates, to avoid the pest or disease that is causing problems. In Georgia, planting bush beans as early as the weather would allow meant I could harvest more beans before the bean beetles attacked the plants.
  • Try a different variety of the crop. Birds and other wildlife can be confused by varieties of crops that ripen to an unexpected color (when “ripe” is white or green instead of red, for example). Also, some varieties of cucumbers and squashes can stand up to mildew diseases longer than others, before dying. In addition, it is possible to find varieties of most crops that ripen sooner/faster than others, so gardeners can harvest more before an expected disaster strikes.
  • Switch to completely different crops. Some crops might be inappropriate for a particular garden. If the only way to harvest from the crop is to provide constant application of sprays/powders, that could be a clue that it is time to try other crops. Learning to love a different crop that is better suited to your yard is a strategy to try. (Note: I did not used to even LIKE beets, but now they are a favorite.)
  • Expect and be satisfied with a short harvest window for a crop. My zucchini plants produced veggies for about three weeks. Now the plants are done, partly due to mildew and partly to being underwater, and I can use that space for another crop. Even though I would love to have more zucchini from the garden, the ending of the crop is not a disaster. Instead, it is an opportunity to plant another crop. Maybe sunflowers…

Strategies in action for this current garden

We won’t have time to put in raised beds until fall. The house we moved into has had a lot of updates, but it was built in 1948. There are things that need to be done.

Today, for example, we crawled under the house (18 inch clearance) and pulled out the dead animal that has created an awful smell and attracted about a million flies over the past couple of days — it was a possum.

However, we have considered some different options for raised beds, checked prices of supplies at the local hardware/lumber stores, and figured out how much of each supply we will need, when the time comes.

For changing the timing of planting — this is our first season of planting in this garden. I have recorded planting dates and crop notes in my copy of the Garden Planner and Notebook, so that next year I will know which crops — such as zucchini, cucumbers, Swiss chard, and green beans — I should try planting earlier. Because I have kept notes, I will be able to compare results from the different planting times.

For switching out to different crops — I already have switched out the Swiss chard to something completely different. Peanuts are growing in that space, and the plants withstood the flooding like little champs. The seed packet is leftover from 2013 (!!!). I don’t really know why I kept the packet, because it took up a lot of space in my seed box. Glad I did, though. The seeds all came up.

I am still looking for edible greens that can withstand the heat, humidity, caterpillars, and other hazards of a Southeastern US summer. I have tried Malabar spinach in the past, in Georgia, and it does well, but I have been unable to love it.

My parsley is still too small to provide greens for the kitchen, and so is the purslane. I might try Good King Henry next, even though it is related to Swiss chard. Maybe as a “wilder” type of plant, it will not be as attractive to caterpillars.

Ripe red tomatoes, green tomatoes, smaller cherry tomatoes, a cucumber, and small butternut squashes all harvested from the garden, set on a tray indoors.
The good news — harvested from our garden. Green tomatoes are from wilted plants.

To address the challenge of a short harvest window, the best move might be to just plant LOADS of whichever crop is going to have only a few weeks of productivity. Even if the garden is small. Then when the crop comes in, it will be glorious, for just that short time.

This is the strategy I will likely try for Swiss chard next year. In addition to planting it earlier, I will plant more seeds closer together and harvest them smaller. At the first sign of trouble, I will harvest the whole crop to bring into the kitchen. We can luxuriate in the Swiss chard for awhile, then move on to another crop.

How to protect plants from deer

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Deer love pansies. If I plant any pansies in my garden, deer find them, eat them all, then move on to check out the rest of the garden. Planting pansies is just asking for trouble. However, there are ways to protect plants from deer; if I really NEEDED to have pansies in the yard I could.

Methods of protecting plants from deer include fencing and other barriers, switching to less-tasty plants for at least the outer zones of the garden, and applying products that have flavors and/or odors that deer don’t like.

Fencing needs to be tall to keep out deer

A University of Vermont article by Dr. Leonard Perry explains that deer are very good jumpers. If you are planning a fence to keep out deer, it should be taller than eight feet high. Ten-feet high would be good. Many kinds of materials can be used. One of the lower-cost options is a polypropylene plastic netting, but the only one I’ve seen that is a full 10-feet high is this one by Tenax. Most others are shorter, around 7 feet high.

Alternative fences, including electric fences that might not be appropriate for home gardens, are described in the North Carolina Wildlife article Fencing to Exclude Deer.

A less expensive, non-electric version of deer fencing is described on the blog of Seed Savers Exchange. This version relies on a very different strategy than all the others I’ve seen. Instead of making sure the deer know where it is, by adding flags or other visible cues, it relies on invisibility to confound the deer into not knowing whether the fence is too high to hop over.

Essentially, it calls for 30 lb. monofilament fishing line, which is strong enough to not break easily but fine enough that deer can’t see it well. The line is strung between tall fence posts, at intervals of about 12-18 inches.

This is what the author says:

Once your fencing is done and a deer comes around in the daytime or the middle of the night, it cannot see the clear 30-lb. test line. When they brush up against it, they can feel it and know the something is there, yet they can’t see it. The deer have no idea how high they need to jump to get over the obstacle they have just walked into and they will stay away from the area.

An Inexpensive but effective Deer Fence, by Pat Haberman, SSE member, March 15, 2016

The local Plant-A-Row-for-the-Hungry (PAR) garden is in the middle of a large fenced area. The fence is tall (8 feet, I think) and has kept out the deer. One day last week, though, deer found a gap in the fence. Luckily, Ed, who owns the property, found and repaired the gap quickly. Damage to the garden could have been worse. The incident provided a reminder that we gardeners need to check the fence more often.

Other barriers to protect crops from deer

Wire fencing on PVC frame, built to fit the garden exactly, protects crops from deer.
At a local church garden, cages made with wire fencing and PVC supports protect each bed.

A local church has built PVC frames to fit its garden beds. The low frames are covered with wire fencing, even across the top of each frame. Deer cannot reach through the wire to eat the plants.

The individual covers for each bed may be inconvenient to store when not in use, but they work, and they are less inexpensive than an entire fence.

Tulle fabric, a very find kind of netting, over a PVC frame protects plants from deer and other wildlife.

In some home gardens, tulle or other row-cover fabric supported by a frame is enough to protect plants from deer. The trick is to cover the plants before the deer find them.

Deer prefer some crops over others

When deer broke through the PAR fence and snacked their way across our garden, there was an obvious pattern to the snacking.

The deer definitely preferred spinach family plants (beets, Swiss chard) over cabbage family plants. Carrots were, apparently, another favored food of deer.

  • Carrot tops seem to be a favorite food of deer.
    Deer ate the green tops of the carrots.
  • Beet greens and Swiss chard seem to be a favorite food of deer.
    Deer ate the tops of all the beets and the Swiss chard plants.

The good news is that the edible roots of beets and carrots were undamaged. We were able to harvest some of each to take to the pantry.

Deer did not eat any of the kale, lettuces, collard greens, daikon radishes, and broccoli. Anyone having trouble with deer browsing in the garden might want to keep these less-favored crops in mind as crops to try next season.

For ornamental plants, University of Georgia Extension offers a list of plants that deer like less well than others. The list is in this publication: Deer Tolerant Ornamental Plants.

Use less-tasty plants to protect deer favorites

The Clemson Extension article Protecting your plants from deer suggests that homeowners try planting in Zones. Author James Hodges describes the method this way:

The zoning method consists of three areas within a landscape. Close to the outside of your property where deer have quick access, use seldom damaged plants. Moving to the middle of the property, you can include some favorites that are rated occasionally damaged. Near the house, plant deer most damaged plants that are your favorites and use repellants starting at planting and regularly during the season to discourage deer damage.

Protecting your plants from deer, by James Hodges, Clemson University Extension, Feb. 18, 2016

You can use UGA’s list of deer-tolerant ornamental plants to use the zoning method in your yard, to help keep deer away from your crops.

Do deer repellents work?

Some deer repellents work better than others. NCSU’s article on Management strategies to minimize deer damage in the landscape tells that human hair and rotting eggs have not been effective at keeping deer away.

The article does include a recipe for a pepper spray that sort-of works:

Pepper Spray:  A formulation of 1 to 2 tablespoons of Tabasco sauce in 1 gallon of water sprayed on plants has been shown to have limited effectiveness. Be sure to test a leaf with the spray prior to spraying the plant.

Management strategies to minimize deer damage in the landscape, by Dr. Lucy Bradley, NCSU Horticulture Specialist, 2016.

Use of mothballs is discouraged (in NC, the tactic is illegal), but soap is on the list of things that work to keep deer away. One bar of fragrant soap (brand not specified) protects one square yard of garden, which is not a huge space. Gardeners relying on soap as a repellent may need to invest in a large carton of bars.

Recommended repellents

For purchased repellents, Alabama Extension offers a comparison of products — by active ingredients, cost, which plants can be treated with each product, frequency of re-application for best effectiveness, and more. The comparison is in the publication An overview and cost analysis of deer repellents for homeowners and landowners.

The publication explains that some repellents work by having a bitter taste, and others work by having an awful smell or appearance. Repellents need to be applied before deer find the plants and learn that the plants are good to eat. Each product has its own schedule for re-applying it. For best effectiveness, follow the instructions on your product.

One of my gardening friends uses the repellent product Plantskydd , which is organic-approved, to keep deer from demolishing her crops. It works in her yard. She lives in a neighborhood that has numerous resident deer, but it is unlikely that the HOA would approve the kind of fence needed to keep them out of her garden.

Brie Arthur, author of Foodscape Revolution, relies on a different repellent, one that incorporates botanical oils, by I Must Garden. She says that is her favorite brand of repellent — it makes other formulations for other animal-pests. However, I have not found any confirmation that the product is OMRI-approved, so it may not be strictly organic.