Maximum Security Garden  
Posted by poppynewbe -- September 26, 2000
First, let me give you an idea of what I had to work with. The soil where i am is like sandy-rock. Because of this there was no way I could grow in the natural soil. Secondly, their is just about every natural poppy-enemy you can imagine where I am. My objective was this: Make the ground worthy of my plants, and keep as many animals\insects away from them as I could. This is not an easy task considering we have rabbits, birds, gofers, and just about any little seed\plant eater you can think of. What follows is the best way, I think, to make an afordable and practicle garden.
1)I started with an area about 20ftx20ft around. The soil there is fairly poor, so I bought about 500lbs of high grade potting soil and cactus mix.
2)I decide that it will be best for my plants to dig up the original soil about 1 1/2 feet deep for the entire 20x20 area, and fill this with the high grade potting soil/cactus mix.
3)Once the hole is dug(and I'm half dead from all the digging, the arthritis in my hands, and so short winded from smoking I can hardly breath)I make sure to line the entire bottom and sides of the 20x20 foot trench(To safeguard against the damned gofers)with chicken wire.
4)Next is the easy part. All I have to do is lay down the new soil. First I mix my potting soil with the cactus mix. The first thing to go in the hole is a thin layer of manure so the adult plants will have something to gain nourishment from. Next I lay down the cactus\potting soil combo. Now I have a gofer-safe big square filled with some of the best soil around.
5)The next thing I have to do is save my land from the impending doom of rabbits. In order to do this I have to put up a "wall" of chicken wire around the total circumference of the ditch. I just bought some thin, cylindrical pieces of wood, and cut them to about 3 1/2 feet long. Next I start to pound them into the ground right along-side the big "square" at a rate of about one post per 2 feet.
6)Now this was the fun part. Trying to get those big roles of chicken wire to un-role so I could fasten them to the poles with plastic zip-ties. I wound up trying to run up and down this big long "road" of wire to try and get it to flatten out. Finally, I had achieved my goal. The entire garden was "Maximum Security" or so I thought.
7) I took about 3000 or so Persian seeds and just tossed them out over the soil(same way I have done in the past)and turned on the water. I was a happy man........
Next morning: 7:00am
Im so happy la'la'la walking out first thing in the morning to gaze at my new and soon to be very prosperous garden........And then I see them. I don't think that there could possibly be a more devastating site than to walk out to your new garden and see about 10,000 ants all walking in a bee-line carrying away about $20 worth of seeds. I was insane with rage, I wanted to kill them all, but what can I do??? Put poison on my soon-to-be seedlings??
Well I did the best I could. I immediately turned the water on and tried to "drown them in place" hopefully with my seeds in tow.
The next thing I did was dig a kind of ravine all the way around the garden, at least, I hope, soon to be garden. I then filled this "ravine" with salt and ant spray. It has been about a week and I have yet to have any more problems.
I guess that no matter where you go, how hard you work, how many @#$ Damn blisters you have on your hands, you can never really have a maximum security garden.
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