Why am I gardening at 10pm?

I was gardening in our garden (4 total plants) last night at 10pm. I called it gardening by candlelight to try to make it more exciting than a flashlight and study lamp. Why you might ask? Well, we have these crazy squirrels in the neighborhood and they feel it's their duty to antagonize everyone by making weird noises, chasing each other up and down trees and across balconies and dig up our plants.

To stop the abuse of our plants by these bushy tail bandits we bought some wire to surround the bottom of the plants. I decided that 10pm on a Wednesday was as good as time as any to work on it. In this small exercise I did learn something though and I thought I would share it.

Approach One
I decided that it would be best to cut the wire in a circle about the same size of the pot. I did that without to much trouble and then cut an inner circle in it so it it looked like a doughnut. I could then slide the plant through the hole in the middle.

Lessons Learned:

• Do not pick the plant up by the plant itself! I did this to a small tree that we have and the whole thing came out of the dirt. I was standing there with wire in one hand and a dangling tree in the other.
• A whole in a circle of wire to put the plant through the middle sounds good but not when the plant doesn't fit and the wire is shredding the plant to pieces. It's cool though, I got it to work with minor damage to the tree and manage to bend the wire in place. Not the prettiest or best solution but it worked.

Approach Two:
For the second and third plant I decided to use another approach. I simply cut the wire into a circle and then cut a line the length of the radius. I then opened it up and put it around the base of the plant and dirt. Simple, effective and clean!

Lessons Learned:

• Do this in the day, it's probably much easier
• Get good wire cutters
  

Conclusion:
We will see how they hold up to the crazy squirrels in the area. I know it's tough living in a small suburban community but we try to keep life exciting!