sour cherries, voles
The sour cherries are ripe. I usually harvest them around July 4, or at most a week earlier, so they're very early this year.
Not sure yet if there will be enough for a proper batch of sour cherry wine, but I'm hopeful.
Not that I'll complain either way - I lost the entire crop to brown rot last year, and I never got around to clearing away the mummified fruit, so this year I'm grateful for any harvest at all. Possibly the weather just hasn't been right for rot - we've had little if any rain so far in June.
Mulberries have been ripe for a while; I like them better when it's been dry because the fruit seems to have a more concentrated flavor.
The pea harvest will be smaller than hoped; instead, I have some very well-fed voles.
The original garden fence had 1/4" hardware cloth at the bottom, and for a few years I enjoyed the luxury of a completely rodent-free garden. But when I expanded the garden, I used less expensive chicken wire on the fence extension.
Now I have mice so full of Charentais melon they can hardly waddle away from me.
I think the most thorough way to deal with this is to replace/cover the chicken wire with 1/4" hardware cloth, then eradicate or deport all the rodents inside the fence.
Not sure yet if there will be enough for a proper batch of sour cherry wine, but I'm hopeful.
Not that I'll complain either way - I lost the entire crop to brown rot last year, and I never got around to clearing away the mummified fruit, so this year I'm grateful for any harvest at all. Possibly the weather just hasn't been right for rot - we've had little if any rain so far in June.
Mulberries have been ripe for a while; I like them better when it's been dry because the fruit seems to have a more concentrated flavor.
The pea harvest will be smaller than hoped; instead, I have some very well-fed voles.
The original garden fence had 1/4" hardware cloth at the bottom, and for a few years I enjoyed the luxury of a completely rodent-free garden. But when I expanded the garden, I used less expensive chicken wire on the fence extension.
Now I have mice so full of Charentais melon they can hardly waddle away from me.
I think the most thorough way to deal with this is to replace/cover the chicken wire with 1/4" hardware cloth, then eradicate or deport all the rodents inside the fence.