Device Offers Reliable Deer Protection

We've lived dangerously this spring in the garden. Not having seen as much deer activity as usual, we left caution in the potting shed and allowed our vegetable garden to grow at its peril.

Last week, of course, we paid the price. A big chunk of my wife's pea crop was devoured. Unlike other years, though, we didn't panic --because we knew we had a reliable weapon right inside that shed. We popped it out, put in a fresh battery, and can now sleep soundly at night again.

The next issue of the magazine, at the printer at the moment and due in your mailbox by mid July, will have more about our secret weapon. But for anyone else having deer issues right now, I wanted to let you know.

Known as the ScareCrow sprinkler, the secret to the device is a motion sensor that can scan an area about 50 feet out from the sprinkler in a span of about 100 degrees, or about 20 feet in each direction. When the motion sensor "sees" a critter, a pulsating sprinkler head shoots water across the entire area. Sounding a bit like a loud rattlesnake, the ScareCrow reliably kept my unfenced garden free of deer and groundhogs all last season. If the sound doesn't frighten away the animals -- like our neighbor's cat, for example -- it annoys them with the heavy stream of water.

The only disclaimer to make is that the device takes some getting used to, both day and night. The motion sensor tends to see everything, including small birds that land on the tops of bean poles, so the ScareCrow goes off frequently and -- for the first few nights last year that we turned it on -- made us jump out of bed to look for deer each time it went off. It also senses motion 24 hours a day, so if you venture into the garden and forget the device is in place, you're going to get really wet.

All you need to activate the ScareCrow is a battery and a charged water hose. Purchase a good, quality hose that can withstand being in the sun all summer long. Make sure your hose couplings are tight so that no water is wasted from leaking.

After that, you should eventually be able to sleep tight knowing your plants are protected.

If you type "ScareCrow sprinkler" into Google, you'll find all sorts of companies selling the product.

CHECK OUT the numerous resources for education, such as www.melna.org or www.rodaleinstitute.org . For video tips specific to organic lawn care, you can now visit www.safelawns.org.

-Paul Tukey: June 21, 2006.

The Old Farmer's Almanac: June Gardening Tips

• Any bedding plants you find for sale can safely be planted outdoors in beds, boxes, or containers.


• If you long for a hanging basket filled with blossoms, compare prices on different-size plants. It may be more economical to buy several small plants and combine them yourself rather than pay for one large plant.


• Starting this month, keep hanging plants such as fuchsias well watered and out of direct sun, or their leaves will burn.


• Mulch around trees to create a safe zone where your mower won't go. Nicking a tree trunk can seriously damage even a well-established tree.


• Mow your lawn according to the needs of the grass, not the calendar. Grass thickens and provides better cover when regularly clipped at the proper height.


• Prune rhododendrons after they flower. On young and old plants, snap off spent flower stalks by bending them over until they break away from their stems.

For more gardening tips, go to our Gardening Pages.

Courtesy of The Old Farmer’s Almanac® Dublin, NH www.almanac.com.

The Old Farmer's Almanac: Calender

Full Strawberry Moon (June 11)
The Algonquin tribes knew this Moon as a time to gather ripening strawberries.

Flag Day (June 14)

What we know fondly as the "Stars and Stripes" was adopted by the Continental Congress as the official American flag on June 14, 1777, in the midst of the Revolutionary War. Colonial troops fought under many different flags with various symbols and slogans -- rattlesnakes, pine trees, eagles, "Don't Tread on Me," "Liberty or Death," and "Conquer or Die," to name a few. The first flag had 13 stars on a blue field and 13 alternating red and white stripes for the 13 original colonies. Now there are 50 stars, one for each state in the Union, but the 13 stripes remain. Flag Day was first celebrated in 1877, on the flag's 100th birthday.

Read about some Do's and Don'ts for the U.S. flag.

Father's Day (June 18)

Like Mother's Day, Father's Day has a modern origin. The idea came to Mrs. John Dodd as she listened to a Mother's Day sermon in 1910. Her father, William Smart, had raised his children alone on his Washington farm after his wife died giving birth to their sixth child. Mrs. Dodd proposed to the Spokane Ministerial Association and the YMCA that they celebrate a "father's day" on June 5, her father's birthday. The idea received strong support, but the good ministers of Spokane asked that the day be changed to give them extra time to prepare sermons on the unexplored subject of fathers. The first Father's Day was observed on June 19, 1910, in Spokane, and soon other towns had their own celebrations. In spite of widespread support, Father's Day did not become a permanent national holiday until 1972, when President Richard Nixon signed a law declaring that it be celebrated annually on the third Sunday in June.

Send an Almanac E-card to Dad to celebrate this special day.

Courtesy of The Old Farmer’s Almanac® Dublin, NH www.almanac.com.

Gardening Book Reviews

BOOKS ON GARDENING make fine friends for those with a green thumb -- but who has time to sort through the hundreds of titles on the shelves? The editors of the Gardener's Companion have carefully culled the finest volumes for reading or reference and offer brief reviews. On days when you just can't get outside, why not curl up with one of the following books and plan what you'll do next in your garden?

• Advice For Beginners
• Bulbs
• Cook's Gardens
• Crafts
• Flowers
• Gardeners
• Garden Tours
• Herbs
• Landscape/Design
• Nature
• Shrubs/Trees

Courtesy of The Old Farmer’s Almanac® Dublin, NH www.almanac.com.

Fountain Planting

• Don't let peripheral plantings compete with the house for emphasis -- the eye is to be drawn to the house. Borders are incidental to the central focal point of the landscape, which is the house.
• Frame and mass at the edges, to leave the center of the place open. Keep the largest plantings off to the side.
• Avoid scatter -- no flower beds in the middle of lawns, no brilliantly colored plants without a background of green foliage to set them off.
• Make flowers incidental, to supply color and finish. The lawn and the mass plantings are the main pieces of the plan. Flower sparingly.
• Consider position carefully. Far more important than the right choice of plant is its correct position with reference to other plants and to structures.

Courtesy of The Old Farmer’s Almanac® Dublin, NH www.almanac.com.