Ive posted more than once bitching about edible gardens and the hidden costs involved, which make home grown not cost effective, at least not for the first 5-10 years, if you can fight the good fight for that long.

HST, when my citruses produce like I envisioned in my head, I will have more oranges, pears, apples, figs, poms that we could ever eat. Will have to set up a fruit stand to recoup a portion of our investment. (Trees, traps, fertilizers, fungicides insecticides, soil, mulch.)

Yeah right, I'm hearing ya! But I'm telling ya them feral cats know their stuff. I know an elderly widow lady that lives in the countryside. She has about 7 feral cats she feeds, mostly she keeps them around for companionship, no close neighbors. And I tell ya not one bird, not one squirrel, not one snake, not one rat, nothing but cat. However she do have some coon that come up on her porch at night looking for left over dry cat food she feeds her ferals.

If it's not the squirrels or the birds, then it's pests and diseases. If it's not too much rain, then it's blasting heat. The edible gardener in Texas is definitely a tenacious one.

I've quit the summer battle, and I only grow veg. in the fall and spring. The local CSA at the farmer's market has solved my problem and eased my stress.

Michelle

It has to be done for the satisfaction of growing your own but never as a money saving strategy.

Or a lawn soil production factory. I get great topsoil out of the garden while I grow veggies. I tell you that I cannot get grass to grow better than in my garden. When I shovel the paths of chips and such out after they have aged a season and soaked up goodness, it is kind of amazing how my yard reacts. Plus, its magic how all the grass seed gets into the mulch.

Yup, good ol Mimus polyglottus, destroyer of freshly ripened fruit. The melodious little gluttons.

To add insult to injury, after they have their way with the hundred little cherry tomatoes (shaking them to and fro), seeds end up strewn all over the place.

I'm a gardening neophyte (3rd year on the new property) but am not completely giving up on crops that don't ship well when picked fully ripe (berries, tomatoes) such that the prime ones aren't available in grocery stores.

I got a few good weeks of blackberries before they got wise. Early in the season it looked like they were deterred by the thorns. But eventually they were darting in and out of the thicket. When there's white bird poop on the fence, that's a good sign. The onset of purple & blue stains is a bad indicator in this case.

The black cherry tomatoes they left alone for the longest time. They're a little bigger than regular cherry tomatoes and they're good when boiled/stewed by the dozen.

Of the various types of inexpensive support structure for bird netting, a self supporting cage of 5 ft tall steel hardware cloth was the easiest to assemble. (photos below)

At least they don't ruin the plants I grow strictly for their aroma.

Dan; SWEET, nice protective fixture you have set up there, looks like your loaded for bear! Lol. Or is it Bambi? Back on the serious side, that does look like a nice sturdy protective barrier you have there.

That flexible hardware cloth works well, and it only need a few feet of bird netting on the top. Fortunately I don't have to deal with rabbits, squirrels etc, just the mockingbirds. It is a bit of an ordeal opening the front flap to crawl in for harvest or maintenance. It certainly won't win awards for appearance but it's in the backyard, so not offending hardly anyone. Maybe next year it can be refined further.

Someone59, your humorous telling of the tale pretty much mirrors a lot of our experiences including mine. I've narrowed my edibles pretty much to greens and herbs; Malabar spinach in the summer (nothing bothers it) and kale (have to watch for caterpillars) and Crawford lettuce (which nobody but us wants to eat) fall and winter.

If I were starting over I'd do a keyhole garden. I'd make it so it could be covered with shade cloth to keep the bugs and birds out. I'm still tempted by just reviewing it again, but with just the two of us HEB organic veggies work pretty darn well for now.

Successful vegetable gardening in Texas can be done by the truly dedicated as probably a lot of people on here can attest. My dad had a large garden and my mother credited their good health and long life to the good veggies he raised. I guess their freshness and abundance overcame his lack of organic practices.

Roselee, I remember that great article. If I were to start over, I'd do hydroponics in a fancy English-looking conservatory.

Roselee, I hadn't thought that far into the topic but now that you mentioned it.... Your entirely right before the time of automobiles and HEB, I do recall my mother and grandparents sharing stories about great gardens they had. They didn't have any alternative if they wanted to eat. What a tough resilant bunch they were! May they rest in peace and the Lord bless ALL their souls!

I think one of our shortcomings wasn't observing how the older folk did things but can we really expect a mom who shuttles kids here and there or a two adult working household to do better? In the past our folk watched those gardens daily, even more often so problems were averted or treated early. Also modern families have more alternatives: take out, dine in, catering, mail order, which were unthinkable even in early 20th century. So it may be unfair to infer modern families are less resilient than old families. (Though I do observe many whiney wimps out there, ha)

Sorry for the misunderstanding, i didnt intend to imply that our generation is any less resilient than our forefathers. However, we certainly are a winey bunch! And our children have this "entitlement" frame of mind and are much more winey than ourselves. My grandmother told me on more than one occasion... That during the depression they had NOTHING. You couldn't go to the store and buy the simplest of things. Practically everything went to manufacturing items to fight the war. But She said NO ONE wined because they had to go without. Everyone went without, it was a way of life for a long time. But it was all for the good of the country. So they accepted it and got along the best they could because they knew better days were coming. Could you imagine a woman in today's times not being able to go inside a dept store and purchase a pair of panty hose or a set of nylons? They'd freak out, And we would never hear the end of it. Yep, we're a winey bunch alright!

Interesting... That's a new one I hadn't heard before, lol! I'll have to remember that one.

My wife just texts me to bring her more wine.

@trickyputt, that is proactive enough, ha

I have disco balls, mirrored ball ornaments, some funky sparkly 1970ish ornments & anything shiny hanging on & around my fruits i dont want the birds messing with. Now i've got to come up with something to stop them from scratching & pecking my citrus.