Nature doesn’t merely abhor a vacuum. Nature is a vacuum.
You name the delicious food plant that you’d like to grow, and I’ll find a pest that will hoover it up before you can.
Thus, the Iron Law of Backyard Gardening:
Anything that can be eaten, will be eaten.
Plan your garden accordingly.
Machine-gun emplacements optional
I had a friend over yesterday, during which time I showed him the various deer defenses for my garden area. These are pretty much in line with my original garden plan for the year (Post G23-009), and include:
- A square enclosure,
- fully surrounded by a 6′ trellis,
- which is in turn surrounded by an electric fence,
- with motion-activated water squirters inside,
- plus a handful of Wireless Deer Fence units,
- a motion-activated light.
- And some chemical deer repellent, held in reserve for the fall, when the deer get really aggressive.
I can see where some might think this is a bit extreme. But, so far, this seems to be keeping the deer out of my garden. I’ll settle for that.
Outside the defensive perimeter, the only survivors are plants that deer won’t (typically) eat. This year, that’s mustard, various “deer-proof” flower mixes, marigolds, and zinnias.
I don’t plant that because I’m particularly fond of it. I plant it because the deer aren’t.
A multiple-choice question for testing your gardening maturity.
When you consider planting sweet corn in your garden, the first thing that comes to mind is:
- How great fresh corn will taste.
- Where’s the best spot to put it.
- How to keep the @#$)$(# squirrels (raccoons, deer) from eating it.
Score your gardening maturity level as follows:
- Novice
- Intermediate
- Veteran
Why? Because if you don’t have a good solution to c) above, a) and b) just don’t matter.
This is no mere academic exercise. I’ve been thinking about planting a little Silver Queen sweet corn in that garden. It ticks all the boxes for something I’d like to grow. My whole family likes it, and we can’t buy it around here, not even at the local farmers’ markets.
The old me would have simply cleared some space, planted some seeds, watered and fertilized according to directions … and hoped. But in the squirrel-infested suburbs, I suspect that all I’d be doing is buying myself a ton of heartache down the road.
Why? See the Iron Law of Backyard Gardening above.
Probably the existing electric fence etc. will keep the deer out. Maybe the squirrels won’t recognize it as food. Maybe the local crows won’t discover my tiny batch of corn. Maybe my cucumber beetles (which double as the Southern Corn Rootworm) won’t find it.
But when I add all those up, the likelihood that I’m going to get to eat that sweet corn is pretty slim. Absent some fairly strong and pro-active defensive measures.
Before I put a seed in the ground, I have to work out how am I going to keep the squirrels off my corn.
All else is folly.
I dis the sisters
The first thing I came across is the traditional “Three Sisters” planting method, above. It’s actually pretty sophisticated, in that you don’t just randomly inter-plant corn, beans, and squash. Instead, the squash is planted to form a defensive ring around the corn/beans plot. With the idea being that (e.g.) raccoons and squirrels don’t like pushing through the prickly squash leaves, and so will leave your corn alone.
Funny thing about it, though. As with so many things for the home garden, a lot of people repeat that story. Almost nobody tests it. And almost nobody reports the results of that test. I found exactly one individual who tried it, and said it was a miserable failure for keeping squirrels out of the corn.
And I believe that, because my squirrels had no problem at all waltzing through my cucurbits in order to gnaw on my winter squash and pumpkins. What finally put a stop to that was wrapping the pumpkins in floating row cover, which, apparently, led the squirrels to forget that there were pumpkins there. Or something.
(Upon reflection, it’s entirely possible that modern squash varieties are a lot “tamer” than what Native Americans would have grown. A thornier squash might in fact make a pretty good barrier against squirrels and raccoons.)
So the idea that a row of squash plants is going to deter them from going after a prize like sweet corn, that’s just fantasy. Might work somewhere, but I’m not staking my corn crop on it.
And then for every other “home remedy” approach to keeping squirrels off corn, you can find plenty of people who tried it and had it fail. Hot pepper powder. Peppermint oil. Chemical repellents. And so on.
Near as I can tell, my options are to grow my corn in a squirrel-proof cage (including six inches under the soil, and a fence roof on top), or produce enough of an electric fence/net that the squirrels can’t get over it to get to the corn. Or, alternatively, exterminate my local squirrels, or use a squirrel-hating dog as a garden watch dog.
Given that I already have an electric fence driver, I believe that if I go through with growing Silver Queen, I’m going to surround it with a mesh-type electric fence. If I can find or make one cheaply enough.
This is my gardening life
In hindsight, this really and truly reflects how I garden now, after just four years of intensive back-yard gardening. Each year, what I grow is a smaller and smaller subset of what I’d like to grow.
My vegetable garden increasingly consists of plants that can fend for themselves, and those that I can feasibly protect. Poisonous leaves (potato, tomato)? Perfect. Painful thorns (cane fruits)? Ideal. Or plants that are mostly left alone, as long as I can keep the deer off them (peas, beans, sweet potato, cucurbits). That’ll do.
But sweet corn? No natural defenses. Attractive to everything that flies or walks through my yard. Tall enough that fencing it in is a chore. Plus, plentiful insect pests.
With sweet corn, it’s not a question of whether something will eat it. Just when, and how much.
If I can figure out some cheap and feasible squirrel defense, I’ll give it a try. But if that’s a crash-and-burn, I’ll buy my corn at the store just like everybody else. And move on.
