Cardiff Garden Blog

A month or so back I posted about trying indoor lights out along with a heat pad to start seeds indoors. After a month or so I've transplanted most of the seedlings to the garden. But not before I hardened them first. And by harden I mean slowly introducing them to the natural sunlight and wind.  See grown indoors they aren't exposed the UV rays nor are they exposed to breezes and wind.  So the fragile plants must be introduced slowly. Starting out just an hour and day and working up the time incremently. You can see some of the tomato plants in this shot with some pale leaves. That is because the UV rays have sunburned the leaves.  This happens when they get too much sun to early. I am learning this process as I go so I'm hoping the next batch I will get them out sooner so they can be stronger plants earlier. That's not to say that sunburn will just kill your plants. So can be resilient and come back. Since planting these, very few have died off. My sucess ra

So if you've seen some of my past posts you know that I've had encounters with possums and raccoons in my backyard garden. I've trapped 3 raccoons and eliminated 2 possums but gophers had been a problem in the past I wasn't really willing to tackle. At least until recently. The gophers in my backyard alley were ruining plants and soil everywhere. I'd had enough. So after some serious research I chose my weapon.  A Victor Black Box Gopher trap.  The amazon reviews were great and it was under $15. Now as you see the trap here it's set and ready to go. You would just point that end (the open end) towards an open tunnel.  It works like a reverse mouse trap, instead of pinning a rodent down it pulls them up and pins them to the roof of the trap.  The trigger is that coat hanger looking metal piece in the middle.  It packs quite a punch when triggered. Now you can't just look for an open hole and stick it in front of it. I watched YouTube for about an ho