Rigging and meeting garden neighbor

 It is a wonderfully glorious clear (ish) day today. Got out at my usual time with the compost bucket and checked things out. First, put the seedlings in the window for some air and better light. Noticed a root or two showing under the mesh.

The iris looking plants I think are Dutch Iris that come up every year, I remember yellow flowers on this clump last year. Hoping they bloom better this year but it's not tended very well and spreading every year. Not my garden, not going to say anything.

As I expected, the radish didn't make it so I pulled it out and tossed it on the compost. Not much to be done other than that, though the lettuce is coming out with enough leaves I may have to snip some either today or tomorrow. We're expecting rain Wednesday/Thursday so not going to worry about watering. 

Seeing the peas struggling to reach far enough for the next rung on the trellis I decided to string some of the green wire in a zigzag patter as far as I could go. Didn't bring my gloves so hands got all dusty orange on them. That was about when Layla, the garden neighbor came in to check on her beds.

The gophers have ravaged her bed of fenugreek and whatever else she had planted. She pointed out they were even under the lemon bush. I told her the lemon will survive, it has a lot of heavy roots. She has a thick Spanish (not Mexican) or Middle Eastern accent so it's difficult to have a conversation. She is upset rightly so and said she bought some containers to grow her plants in now.

 They pulled a lot of her plants down just in a few hours from when she checked it this morning to when she came back. I know the pain, believe me. She got a couple of 3 gallon pots and started digging up dirt to put in them. Whatever, gotta make do with what you have. The Fenugreek seemed to do just fine with it so not going to tell her otherwise. Again, so thankful I have the raised bed and am hoping to figure something out after the potatoes are done to grow the tomatoes and maybe some other things there. 

I only have two panels left from the raised bed and that's not enough. I would have to dig a huge trench somehow to use those in some way. Will look at the poultry netting again or maybe gopher baskets (which is just as much digging honestly). I would need a 5 gallon size basket for each tomato. If I'm planting more than one, it makes sense to just do a trench. I have more room in the north bed than I did for the south bed and in doing s a little research gophers do come out at night (again not going far from their hole) and that's how one of my marigolds and peas got eaten above ground. Good thing I left a few inches above ground with the netting in the south bed.

 So that's the next project I guess, planning a 2x4 foot trench and line it with poultry netting to plant tomatoes. As soon as those potatoes are done, the digging shall commence!