Cardboard

[flowerbug]

mice are like worms, they get eaten by almost everything outside. i don't have much problem with mice eating seedlings or getting into what i've planted, but at times they might nibble on the dry bean pods. i don't mind a little sharing. with all the rock piles we have there are always mice around, there are also semi-feral kitties, snakes, owls, raccoons, etc. which will get at any nests that aren't hidden well enough.

i do set out traps sometimes near the foundation of the house to reduce the population of mice if i see a lot of tracks (especially in the winter when i can see the tracks in the snow). if i do catch any mice in the traps i put the bodies off into the south side bit of grass that we mow and the crows or other creatures will come along and get them within a day or two.

 

[baymule]

Those are some adorable future garden helpers you got there. Keeping the garden weeded is an ongoing chore. Mine is weedy but not as bad as in past years. Cardboard really helps but I have a big garden and can’t always find enough. I use paper Feed sacks too.

 

[digitS']

There was a time before purslane found me and began to shadow my every step.

A tractor cleared an area close to an acre of small pine tree stumps behind my home in the country. I put livestock fence around it and planted a nearly 200' by 50' garden. I remember looking at that garden over the first 3 years and not seeing a single weed. It wasn't perfectly weed-free, I can't claim that. There were always seedlings hiding under the vegetables. But, if I found them, they were gone.

The big veggie garden is about the same size, today. It isn't outside my backdoor. Here at home, I have a smaller area but that darn purslane! Maybe cardboard would be the answer and I should stop putting it in the recycle bin.

Steve