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Thursday, April 28, 2011

Veg Garden Stage 1 Pics

Well - here is the basic structure. Not very pretty, but hopefully functional enough.



And here is the Proposed site for the beds - getting its daily 3 hours of sun.

Progress at last The "raised beds" have been started. Who would have thought that it would be cheaper to build out of brick than it would to build out of wood? Yet another strange discovery during this process.

My "bricklaying" isn't great at all, but it does the trick. There's not going to be a lot of walking space left once I'm done - but that's the point. Plated a few seeds with the kids and will load pics of the seedlings in a week or two.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Veg Garden 1.2

"Plant this mate"
Well, even though I carefully chose only vegetables that the baboons wouldn't eat (veg. garden 1.1), it didn't stop them from uprooting all my plants and leaving them to die - why? go ask Monkeynuts ... lol. Well - this was it - frustrated with the fact that it is so easy to augment your groceries with a few simple plants, yet the presence of baboons in the area means I  cant plant veg in the open (even veg they hate) I decided to devise a way of growing at very least a handful of veg..

I initially looked into the idea of using grow lights and using a section of the garage but it rapidly became apparent that this would not be the most cost effective solution. Instead I have decided to use a small section of the garden I can easily close off between the house and wall. This patch is not ideal as it does not receive a large amount of direct light, but its the only section I can easily close off. This was also the section of the garden my daughter had earmarked for her aviary, chicken coop, farm, etc. (Little girl with BIG plans) but I decided this stood a far greater chance of actually happening, and so my garden plans won.

The plants I had already growing there were doing pretty well until the root inspector came calling, and it is right off the kitchen, so it got some points there.

I wanted to get as much light and rain as possible, while keeping it strong enough to keep our hairy friends out. Cost was also an issue in the design of the structure, so plans were kept as cheap as possible. I have subsequently found out I could have saved a bit by using clear corrugated roofing and collecting the runoff, but no crying over wasted money :( who would have thought proper roofing would be cheaper than chicken wire?

So - I have now built the structure out of 38x38 structural treated timber and chicken wire (looks shocking :( but will have to do) [[ Click here for pics ]]  and got a lick of varnish on for good measure. Now to get going on the raised beds. I need to maximise my use of the area, so will be using raised beds, hanging pots, and vertical growing to get the most out of the area (in theory), although I will really have to wait and see how it all goes with the light issue and winter on the way.

Once the beds are in, and I have seedlings and possibly even some veg growing I have to install an electric fence. After installing the gate and admiring my handiwork I realised that a determined baboon with all its strength could simply break the door off if it was so inclined, especially since we now keep our dog indoors for its safety. A store bought solution is not an option, and so I am planning on using an electronics kit system which runs a car coil to produce the charge. Again - I will let you know how that works and where you can purchase the parts (yebo electronics or electronics123.co.za). Thats that for now, will edit when I have pics and progress.

Baboon vs Baboon - 1:0 Ouch!



I came across these pics (not very good quality Im sorry) I took about a month ago, of a baboon (Bafana I think his name is).

He was quite badly injured in a fight with another male baboon. The event itself was quite traumatic with me trying to keep my dog out of it (poor lab was trying to protect her house - and almost getting killed in the process), keep my kids safe, and still deal with the injured baboon in my garden. 

It started with the two baboons throwing each other off the top of my neighbours roof, through his greenhouse roof. There was then a tussle and the injured baboon jumped over into my garden, leaving the other to deal with the dog next door (chuckle - boerbull [spelling?]). The poor bugger was then trapped in my garden unable to get out as his leg was so badly injured.


At first he was bleeding so much I thought he was going to die soon. At one point he even seemed to "faint" as he tried to stand up. The inherant intelligence of this animal really shon through as he quickly established I was no longer a threat, and almost seemed to be coming for help, moving slowly towards me. I know people often incorrectly humanise animals, but these guys are really clearly quite closely related to us; On the criminal side of the family, but related nonetheless. 


We contacted the agency responsible for looking after the baboons in the area and told them about what had happened. To my amazement (after having about 8 baboon monitors traipse through our garden with a collective -"umm - OK - what now") they decided that since it was a baboon on baboon attack, they would not intervene, and left the baboon in our garden, unable to get out. We were horrified at the prospect of having to explain to our already traumatised children why we hadn't done more (we didn't think he was going to survive the night). 

I was requested to leave the baboon and not help or intervene in any way. Eek. My poor dog was locked in the garage, and I watched the poor guy amble around our garden. I was then phoned to take a few pics to document this event (you see the results here) but the light was almost completely gone - hence the quality - and I didn't want to get to close and agitate him at all [excuses for crappy pics].


Amazingly this guy, after drinking a bit of pool water and gathering his thoughts, was able to move a camping chair and a log against the wall, and by climbing onto the chair was able to use the log to get over the wall, where he spent the night across the road. 

To our relief however, he survived the night. Two days later a vet gave him some antibiotics for the wound, and about a week ago I saw him hobbling along the road. He is still quite badly injured, but seems to be well enough considering.


End of that particularly odd chapter.