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High Gopher Farm [1]

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Date: 2023-07-29  

Canned Beets

Armored Strawberries

Tiny Blue Flowers

All Its Glory

It’s finally summer here in Dan Bacher country, and that three foot by twenty patch of dirt known as High Gopher Farm is beginning to look presentable. It’s named after a farm in Ayrshire, Scotland call High Garphar. I imagine that it would confuse the owners to know that a community garden allotment six thousand miles away is named after their farm.

The main plot is three columnar apple trees (two varieties) and alpine strawberries, interspersed with a volunteer ground cover with tiny blue flowers.

As you might guess, the park is ruled by gophers, who have eaten every thing I’ve planted, plus most of the volunteers. Some folks like to put down a layer of hardware cloth, but I’m currently dealing with the rusted aftermath of the previous tenant’s installation. My solution is to use big tomato sauce cans as armor. You can see in the photo of the lone strawberry by the beets that there are two gopher holes right next to it, presumably indicating a frustrated gopher.



The operation is powered by the composter below. It’s also where I hide my hose nozzle. Currently, a garter snake lives inside, guarding my stuff. We occasionally scare the poop out of each other. I almost weeded him once. Scared me out of my skin. I found his skin in the compost, so I guess it was mutual. The calendulas are volunteers that sure help my compost heap look less heapy.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/29/2184005/-High-Gopher-Farm

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