Why Fencing around Your Vegetable Garden is a good idea!
I thought I would write a short post on one of the reasons why fencing around your vegetable garden is a good idea!
Around the end of May a week or so after Memorial Day I decided I would rototill about a 1200 square foot spot in my brothers backyard. I came back a couple days later to plant some tomatoes, squash, muskmelon, and the
Heirloom plant from seed “Scarlet Runner”. This plant germinates and sends out runners to grab anything that will support its ten foot vine growth.
Well it was late afternoon and the sky above started getting dark and gray. Eventually the dark gray clouds
started moving closer and a storm started, you could hear loud thunder and see quite a bit of lightening. I decided to pick up most of my tools and leave some of the vegetable plants outside to catch a little bit of watering from compliments of Mother Nature.
I went inside and had dinner with my brother two nieces and sister in-law. The rain came down hard and I could not see anything in front of me while looking out the kitchen window.
Eventually the storm ended and my brother and I noticed something about 300 yards out towards the back of the yard and we had no idea what it was. We finally walked out back to see what this big black object was. Once we got close enough we realized it turned out to be a snapping turtle.
She just sat there and looked at us after she pulled her head into her shell wondering who was going to make the first move.
My Brother and I decided to turn around and leave the turtle alone. I walked back to the garage attached to the house to put a way a few tools and plants that I would becoming back to plant the next day.
As I went back to my truck which was parked out in the backyard I noticed the turtle did a 180 and headed back to the pond it came from which was about 100 feet a way and six feet down the embankment into the pond.
I came back the following evening to finish planting my garden and all the plants were set to go at least for another week before I needed to go back out to the garden which is about 1/2 hour from my home.
Two to three days letter my Brother sends me an email with some attached pictures for me to view. In the title of his email he sent me, he wrote “Pretty Garden”. Not knowing what he was talking about, I had to open it.
To my surprise! What did he take pictures of? Yes you guessed correct snapping turtles laying eggs all through the garden in different areas.
About 100 feet from the garden my brother had a small pile of loam gravel and clay and in this pile were many eggs about the size of a quarter which my brother’s dog dug up and left. More animals came after this bonus surprise and helped their self. I never new what these turtle eggs looked like until I saw them uncovered.
To my surprise they were the size of a quarter with a leathery white shell on the out side of the egg.
Little did I know but this garden turned out to be garden central for the next three days for all the snapping turtles dropping by to lay their eggs and they all gathered around picking different spots in the garden.
So below is one of the pictures of the snapping turtle laying her eggs.
Here is one picture of a different turtle looking at my brother wondering what my brother is up to as he gets closer to her with the camera. This snapping turtle was in a different part of the garden during the same time the previous turtle was laying her own eggs.
Well, I will keep my eyes open with the hope of catching these turtles hatching from their eggs and heading back to the pond. If I do catch them then I will plan on posting them to this blog.
Turtle eggs gives a new definition to growing a vegetable garden.
This is just one reason to make a point of putting a fence around your vegetable garden.
This article on Snapping Turtles is brought to you by www.backyard-gardening.com
Tags: mother nature, muskmelon, scarlet runner, snapping turtle, vegetable garden, vegetable plantsTags: mother_nature, muskmelon, scarlet_runner, snapping_turtle, vegetable_garden, vegetable_plants