Extension News: July 2010 Archives

When a young moose, looking like an awkward horse, showed up in our front yard one May morning, we were delighted but didn't bother to look around for Mother Moose. We assumed she was probably about to give birth and needed to focus her energies on caring for the newborn, not for a yearling who already knew how to feed and fend for himself.

Despite his size, he was clearly a young fellow, slender, brown, and definitely goofy-looking. There’s no denying it ­moose were last in line when good looks were passed out. Still, seeing one in your front yard is exciting, and we were delighted.

It being May and the height of black-fly season, we thought Youngster might have been driven from the swampy woods by thousands of biting insects, and now wasn't quite sure where he was or where he should go.

Fortunately, my camera was nearby. I grabbed it and turned it on, while he stood for a long time, just 15 feet from the house, staring up our long driveway toward the road and the trees beyond it. Apparently assuming the way home wasn't there, he trotted around to the west side of the house.

The woods are quite close to the house, perhaps only 20 feet away. “Hmm,” he seemed to be thinking, “There’s no water here. Lots of trees all around, but I don't think I've ever seen this area before.” So, after a few more minutes of contemplation, he turned around and headed back to the front of the house.

Once again, the driveway captured his attention, and he stood there for five minutes, just staring and trying to figure out what to do. Clearly this was an easy path to follow, and he could see more trees beyond that funny black path on the ground. We were concerned that he'd trot out toward the road. We live on a bit of a curve, and few drivers follow the posted speed limit of 30 mph. What could we have done to dissuade him and turn him in a different direction?

Instead, he turned again to the west and retraced his steps to the side of the house. From where we were, looking down from the second floor window, he seemed so near. (Low, seven-foot ceilings in our house brought him even closer to us, peering out the second-story window.) How often does a moose stand below you?

Of course, I snapped away with my camera, trying to capture every expression on his face. He was indeed a puzzled lad. For yet another full five minutes he stood there, just gazing at the trees.

Finally, he turned away from the woods and returned to the front of the house. After several more minutes of gazing up that alluring driveway, he happened to turn his head towards the north. There, in the space between the house and garage, he spied the beaver impoundment through the trees.

Water! Up close, it doesn't look like a pond at all, filled as it is with tall, dead trunks, but seen through bushes and trees, it’s clearly a body of water.

Our lost young friend wasted no time heading for familiar territory. He shifted immediately into full gallop. Around the flower garden, past the porch and garage, through the leach field, and down the hill to the swamp he raced.

Now that he was back in her watery environment, we didn't fear immediate danger from trucks or cars on the road. We imagined him feeding happily on water plants and other tasty flora.

It turns out that we were wrong about our wild visitor. Through the efforts of an editor at Cooperative Extension, a Fish and Game biologist got to take a look at a photo of our “male yearling.” The biologist immediately pronounced, “Oh, I think it’s a female and I'd estimate her age at about two-and-a-half years. That schnoz is way too long for a yearling. And by this age, a male would have the beginnings of antlers and this moose doesn't.”

So, our lost male yearling was probably a teenaged female that stumbled into our yard while exploring the area. And the Fish and Game biologist also noted something else from my photo. Our moose showed signs of having suffered an attack of winter ticks. Her coat was ragged and thinned almost to skin in the shoulder area. Fortunately, the biologist said that our young moose should survive and continue to improve. I don’t know what our young female was thinking during her wander in our front yard, but she certainly gave us a delightful 20 minutes, some great photos, and a terrific story to tell our friends.

By: Susan M. Poirier, Master Gardener

Photo credit: Susan Poirier

The first week in April I filled my little greenhouse with trays of seeds and watched them sprout and grow. And grow. Soon they outgrew the confines of the greenhouse, but the garden needed more plants.

Enter Superhusband, who built two large, sturdy cold frames. We rushed the trays of eager plants out to the cold frames and started more seeds in the greenhouse. Shortly, burgeoning squash, pumpkins and cucumbers began peering over the tops of the cold frames trying to clamber out. We moved them to a holding area in the middle of the strawberry bed, shuttled replacements from the greenhouse to the cold frame, and started more plants in the warmth and generous light of the greenhouse.

All the plants are now flourishing in the Alexandria Community Garden. Town administrator Christie Phelps and I started the garden last spring. (I'm her assistant in the office; in the garden, she's my assistant.) Feeling depressed by the sparse grass and dingy subsoil sand and rock, and poor quality sand and rock at that around the Town Hall, and being frugal Yankees, we tilled up a 12-foot-wide strip between the building and the parking lot, improved the soil with lime and compost, and planted vegetables.

In late May this second season, we dug the squash, cucumbers and a few melon plants into their new home, surrounded with black plastic. They soon began to flower and by mid-June had set a respectable crop of two-inch squashes. Eggplants and peppers seemed less pleased by their move from the protected areas; weeks after their transplant, they're only now beginning to take hold. Tomatoes have grown tall enough to require staking. All have bloomed, and several have set tomatoes already.

Lettuces and cabbages came directly from the greenhouse and are doing well; the cabbages have already begun folding their leaves over each other as if in prayer. Green and yellow string beans, planted a couple of weeks ago, are fairly leaping up into the sun. We seeded mixed greens and after only a few short weeks have started handing out quart bags of lettuces and mesclun.

We put up a sign at the Town Clerk's window: Would you like some fresh salad greens? See Cat or Christie. This morning I harvested and gave away four quart bags of mixed greens, two of baby spinach, and two each of baby summer squash and zucchini.

The strip garden wraps around three sides of the building. Out back is a pile of horse manure where we’ve planted pumpkins that will provide the Alexandria Village School kids with jack-o-lanterns come October. This spring, we added seven blueberry bushes and 100 strawberry plants to the planting beds.

We've learned that people really like the idea of a town vegetable garden. Even if they don't ask for produce, they just like seeing it growing there. Christie and I gather the vegetables daily and set them in the lobby of the town hall for anyone who wants them. (We cut the salad greens to order.) The vegetables serve as a reminder of how good fresh food is, and we make sure people know that just about anyone can grow their own.

Almost every day I have somebody in here who wants to learn more about growing vegetables. Christie lets me leave my desk, spend 20 minutes to half an hour with these folks, show them what we've done, and explain how they can do it themselves.

Last year, we didn't keep track of how much produce we gave away and how many people wanted information about growing vegetables for themselves. This year, I'm keeping a tally.

We financed the seeds, soil-improving materials, and plants (though not the greenhouse or cold frames) with a grant from the N.H. Master Gardener Association. Last year we spent most of the money on tools. This year we're putting most of it into soil amendments. In just two years we have improved the soil tremendously.

All has not been skittles and beer. Last year we were hit with the late blight and lost 100 heavily laden tomato plants. This year I peer nervously at the garden each time I return from a day or more away. Something has nipped off a few tomato plants, and just yesterday a wretched rodent ate three full trays of seedlings I'd admired in the morning, planning to remove them to the garden on the weekend. In the evening, I found three trays of stubs and a red squirrel. While I didn’t get any fingerprints, the red squirrel is my prime suspect.

The first year the farmer who rototilled the garden leaned down from his tractor seat, fixed me with a steely glare, and said, “Ya do know, it’s just brown sand, don’cha?"

I acknowledged that I was indeed trying to grow stuff on sand. “But, I have a plan!” I exclaimed.

He nodded, “Well, just so ya know.” And he rumbled off nodding to himself­the equivalent in a Yankee farmer of a belly laugh in other folks.

Yet last week he allowed that the garden looked good. That was nice. But did he have to seem so darned surprised?

By: Carol “Cat” White, Master Gardener

Photo credit: Vegetables at Alexandria Town Hall, courtesy Carol White.