Gardening with Nature

Recognizing kinship with animals

May 2024, Harvesting flowers with young citrus tree planted against the rock wall. All photos by author.

I celebrate the digging animals in my garden. Yes, I know that voles and gophers eat plants. I want my plants to grow, but a small animal that can dig in rocky dense soil has my respect.

There are mole tunnels running just underneath the soil surface. Moles are small almost/blind insectivores. I am glad to see their activity loosening soil, as they eat insects. I suppose their tunnels can damage a young seedling if it gets air under its roots, and the plant dries. I prefer to think of the good the moles do.

Early in the morning, a frog is in the vole tunnel entrance.

Voles make tunnels a bit deeper, often just under the dahlia tubers. Sometimes I find part of the tubers eaten, but last year I had a small tuber that grew into the most floriferous plant. I hope the missing parts of the tubers do not show the dahlia growth. I try to trap them in live traps, but I only catch mice.

I thought I had lost one clump of dahlia tubers to voles when I noticed the wilted sprouting top. I repotted the tuber in a pot and cut off the wilted part. Now the dahlia is growing. I am wary of vole damage to the dahlias, but now the dahlias are all growing well with their first sprouts loving the warm weather.

Found under wet cardboard in the winter. In the dry summer, vole tunnels protect these ensatina salamanders who also need vole tunnels to lay their eggs.

I admire the digging animals for making perfectly tilled soil. I collect it to use in soil mixes. The vole’s digging mixes and enriches the soil with their waste. The ensatina salamanders use their tunnels to lay their eggs. Currently, a large gopher snake is under the cover of a compost pile while it waits to shed its skin. Probably this snake eats some voles. My cat caught two voles in one week. I have been live-trapping all winter and only caught mice.

Notice the milky color of the gopher snake’s eyes. That is a sign the snake is ready to shed its skin. This snake seems to like the warmth of the compost pile and the protective cover that keeps the pile from drying. I found the snake when I lifted the compost cover.

This spring I have seen a few dead plants that had their roots eaten. That’s not many compared to the total planted. The vole digging garden evidence is very little compared to a vole colony in the nearby woods. That colony had numerous piles of soil and evidence that a predator had tried to dig out a vole. I am glad the garden vole activity is minor.

This diabrotica beetle or spotted cucumber beetle is attracted to this wild cucumber vine, Marah macrocarpa.

The beautiful native wild cucumber is celebrated wherever I find it, even in the garden. Last year it attracted the green-spotted cucumber beetle. These beetles feed on plants, so when they were eating up the cucumber vine, I squished them with my feet. This year I found a wild cucumber along the path to my new garden. I put up a trellis for it and enjoyed its little flowers and their spiky pods as I walked to the garden. Now it has been discovered by the beetles, but the squash and cucumbers sprouting in the garden are fine. Some gardeners deliberately plant what they call a trap crop to attract something they want to get rid of. The wild cucumber vine is working like a trap crop. The beetles collect on this favorite plant, and I squish them.

Borage volunteering in compacted gravel. Feverfew and Bee Plant, Scrophularia californica, are behind it.

Borage finds places to grow even if I forget to plant it. Right now it's growing on the side of paths. One flowering borage plant is growing on about ten inches of compacted gravel where it isn’t watered.

I think borage has the potential to suppress weeds with its large leaves. If I plant it near the end of summer, its big leaves may prevent grasses and weeds from sprouting when it rains in October. We have used borage in bouquets. Their clear blue flowers contrast well with warm colors. I am sure there are many uses of borage, such as putting the flowers in food. There is a white-flowered form besides the blue. I plan to explore the uses of this plant and get both flower colors growing in my garden.

Aphids on the fava bean plants are a ladybug nursery. These insects quickly reach balanced populations. The ladybugs move to other parts of the garden and continue to eat aphids.

This bed has tomatoes and carrots with some early lettuce, peas, and zinnias. I noticed two tomatoes have a few aphids. I may have used too much fertilizer when planting, as high amounts of nitrogen fertilizer make growth that aphids like. The ladybugs will discover the aphids. The ladybugs are establishing their colony with eggs laid on the fava bean plants. I think the tomatoes will be aphid-free soon.

An abundance of growth happens as the weather is warming. I harvest greens and fava beans besides flowers. I am learning to appreciate the interconnectedness of the plants and animals of the garden. As I study and observe how they interact, I see the garden as a healthy balanced ecosystem.