GARDEN CHAT By Jean Lundquist
Those pesky raccoons Plus, tales of onions and potatoes
A
ll summer long, a very adroit raccoon, or maybe two or three, made me very glad I didn’t grow sweet corn this summer. He, she, or they have visited every single solitary day to come up onto the step by the side door and eat cat food, then retire to under the bird feeders where wayward sunflower seeds, discarded by mostly blue jays for unknown reasons, have been scattered. I suppose in a large field, feeding raccoons a few dozen, or even a few hundred ears of corn is not a big deal. But half a dozen short rows of corn in my garden were always stripped of ears while I got little chance to enjoy them myself. This year, I had a fleeting thought that, because I have a fence around my little plot, it might be fun to plant the whole thing in sweet corn. But when I saw that rotten raccoon scaling the pole to help itself to my oriole feeders, I knew that fence would have done nothing but make them laugh. Nothing growing inside my 4-foot-high chain-link
fence has appealed to them, apparently. And the fence has done a good job of keeping out bunnies and deer, so all is well in the garden this year. It truly amazes me how much better plants do growing in the ground than growing in a grow bag. Watering the bags twice a day in the August heat became quite the chore. I had to use well water rather than rainwater, and that also makes a remarkable difference. Plants seem to prefer rainwater for both foliage growth and fruit setting. I admit I ran out of room in the garden and resorted to using a few grow bags for the leftovers that I didn’t give away. It’s been an eye-opener for me to watch the progress of the long red cayenne pepper in the bag compared to all the peppers growing in the garden. The cayenne pepper is so stunted by comparison. I do like my grow bags for growing potatoes, though. It is so much easier to harvest them when all that is needed is to tip the bag and reach in. No more slicing through potatoes with a shovel. No
54 • AUGUST 2022 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
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