My plethora of squirrels seem to leave my veggies alone too Rita. I did have to move the Fig trees out front though a year ago. They don't seem to mess with them out front at all.

I have water out for the birds and squirrels and I do put birdseed out on the driveway for the backyard birds. The squirrels help themselves to the seeds also.

Other than constantly raiding my bird feeders and the digging around in my landscape beds, the only things my squirrels seem to bother are jade plants and orchid's stems when in sheath/bud. I don't know why they do what they do, but they will sometimes just eat through finger-size stems (trunks?) at the base on my jade plants and eat through those orchid stems. I had one large orchid plant last spring that I had never seen flower, and discovered the bud-laden stems lying on the ground one morning. Broke my heart. They simply drop those jade/orchid stems to the ground and then ignore them. I built plastic-mesh "cages" around my jades last year and now have done the same for my orchids, at least for those I am putting outside this spring on wire-mesh shelves. If I see a hanging orchid plant starting to grow those flower stems, I will transfer it to the "cage" so that I can see it flower.

My next-door neighbor has suggested we start trapping our squirrels (there are six of them, all apparently one family) and re-locating them out of town. He says they are starting to "bother" him. I may do just that, though they are kind of fun to watch.

I'm SO glad you mentioned jade. I had planned to move all my in house plants outside for the summer this year instead of just a select few. I think I'll move my least sentimentally valuable jade out first and see if it is left alone before I move the ones I collected from a new neighbor's "hedge" clippings in San Francisco, 1983.....

You just never know when the squirrels will "attack". I had dozens of them out under the oak trees for at least a month before I found that two had been cut down. Perhaps the squirrels were just having a bad day! LOL That's when I caged them all in.

Winter Garden closeout. Cut the last two cabbages for corn beef and cabbage. Overwintered Willet Wonders and Sapelo sweets are coming along nicely. winter radishes, turnips, mustard, rutabaga have bolted and turned under. Spring English peas, radishes, pak choi, lettuce, spinach and beets emerging. Carrots (Purple 68 are planted, but they take a while to emerge. Cold frame, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, head lettuce are about 2-weeks from transplant. Perennial bed of walking onions are looking good. Letting the cabbage collards seed as they are not readily available.

farmerdill, do you do all this all by yourself or do you have help?
I'm envious!

I haven't even been able to plant the peas yet as it has been so cold. Forget planting anything else!

I still can do it myself altho I have cut back from 5 acres to a small kitchen garden of some 60 x 80 feet. I will plant some sweet corn in the field, but deer have become some bad I have given up the rest of it. I do have some old machionery available for the fields., but it si not going to get a lot of work this year.

I think you have a fabulous garden each year. Too bad that you have to battle those nasty deer.

Great farmerdill, great work!

I am so envious. You are a real farmer, not just a gardener, as your name implies. Love it.

@farmerdill Everything looks really good! I'm so sad I did not have a winter garden this year. Oh well, that's farming, eh?

I am so far behind. And it's been a rough month with family issues and weather, and will continue until next month so I am not getting much time in the garden. We have decided to not stress over going to market this year. If we have produce and flowers, we'll go. If not, I"m not going to stress about having time to plant stuff to take to market. With that decided, I feel much better with what I was able to accomplish today since it's supposed to rain the next three days.

I got all my broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, Chinese cabbage, Asian greens, kale, chard and lettuce seedlings planted finally! Only after the #@$%^&* guineas got into the greenhouse and chomped all the leaves on one flat of cauliflower and broccoli. There were still tiny center leaves so I planted them too.

And I planted my guttering peas today! They do not slip out of the guttering easily so I did about 1/4 at a time and scooted them into the trench I made. Roots were really healthy and I will need to put up some trellising soon. Then I got all my lettuce seedlings planted. One whole 50'x3 1/2' row. Approximately 700 lettuce plugs. I did loose leaf, butterheads and a few Romaines. Then I watered in and covered so the stupid guineas don't eat any more. But I didn't do hoops yet so they probably will walk all over the row. Sure hope they don't break it all down. But it's supposed to rain for next three days so they probably won't be out a lot and maybe by Wed. I can get back out to the garden and put the hoops in. I need to bend some more conduit yet for more hoops. We finally broke down and bought a pipe bender.

The weather was perfect for planting today, overcast and mid 60s. Rain tonight. Now I just have to get my root veggie row raked and some beets, carrots and turnips and a few other things planted. So far behind. With our heavy clay I will amend the row heavily with sand and perlite and compost.

Oh, I planted two tomatoes out inside Wall-O-Waters. Hybrid from Burpee, Steakhouse. They're the only decent looking tomato plants I have so far. Gonna pot up second planting to 4" pots tomorrow.

I may try to presprout some green beans in the guttering too and see if I can get a jump start on them, before the invasion of the Mexican bean beetle!

Arlene! Great job.

Thanks! I am pleased but VERY sore and exhausted! Resting tomorrow, sort of. Just potting up some seedlings, but to me that's relaxing. Well, there is the matter of a full laundry hamper, but I can do that in between potting up.

You deserve a rest for sure!

Lets all move over to a new thread for Spring in the Veggie garden-
The thread "What's going on in our Spring Vegetable Gardens?" in Vegetables and Fruit forum

I wonder if you lined the gutter with something like plastic wrap then put in soil if they would slide out easier and you could then just peel back the wrap as you feed the rows into the ground.

Heavy plastic "dropcloth" from the painting department @ Lowe's/Home Depot.
OR a shower curtain.