Buckets in the Garden

A few days ago, June 17 actually, I saw the quail digging in my garden and posted pictures.  I also said that I would tell you about the buckets.  Well I am finally doing that today.

My cucumbers and gourds were planted almost the middle of May.  I went out of town for 8 days and when I came back nothing had germinated.  I thought was kind of strange.  I went to dig up the seeds and see if they had rotted or were still there doing nothing.  I dug and found no seeds.  After looking closely it a couple of hills where the seeds were planted I found that the hills had a hole in the center of them.  All the cucumber and gourd seeds were one.
After taking a week or more to decide what to do.  I finally decided to replant.  Thanks to my nephew I got the idea of putting the buckets with the bottoms cut off over the top of each of each hill.  He was shading his plants and I decided it would stop the seed thieves.

Here are the pepper plant that the pots were protecting when the quail came digging.  The pots are from the grocery store.  They are the ones that they get flowers in and display the fresh flowers in.  They were throwing a bunch out and Hubby got them for me.

Most of the cucumbers are doing great now that they spent time with the buckets protecting them.  The one in the center front died.  There is one still in a bucket that is smaller than the center back one.

A few of the gourds have germinated now, but at this rate winter will be here before they grow gourds.

I was given a couple of watermelon plants last week so the buckets are protecting them. I don't think they will get big enough to bear fruit before winter either.