I rushed around this morning, getting a few more things planted - a row of swiss chard, another row of spinach - before the storms blow in this afternoon. So, as of today - this bed is full, maybe even too much so, with my early spring garden - and it's time to clean out the second bed for warmer season crops. I always feel better after this one is planted and growing - there's something about having a vegetable garden underway that makes me think that my world is a bit less chaotic - and that although my office is stacked with manuscripts and articles and a million other things that I need to get through, and although my home needs a good cleaning and there's laundry to do - that it is all okay because my lettuce is growing, the strawberries are blooming, and the sugarsnap peas are poking up through the ground. I find a small (and much needed) slice of sanity in having a vegetable garden planted.
I turn over the soil in my beds with a pitchfork - and I only experienced one small trauma during this seasons preparations: while digging up a clump of weeds and soil and turning it over, I saw three small snakes wiggle out. They were a about a foot long each, so probably it was a nest - and two of them were pretty aggressive, even at this young age - and that along with their coloring made me think copperhead. I've had trouble with copperheads in my yard for several years now - and while I've tried to come to grips with snakes in my garden (here and here and...here) - even with poisonous snakes in my garden (along with the blind beagle and my other dogs) - I simply haven't fully accepted their presence. If I had been able to reach a blunt-ended shovel or a hoe in time, I would have killed the three snakes. But unfortunately before I could find my hoe they had moved into the straw covering my potatoes - to be only discovered again one day, I'm sure. I've always been told by snake folks that you need to be more careful of younger poisonous snakes because they haven't learned how to control the amount of venom they release, so they tend to throw caution to the wind and really zap you. Great. If I were savvy, I'd just accept it and post a sign along Highway 17 advertising the Lower Awendaw Snake Emporium and charge admission. When folks came up to my gate, I could greet them with a snake wrapped around my neck and I could have them hanging from trees (the snakes, not the visitors). The place would be a hit, I'm sure - and perhaps it could be the Charleston County satellite location of the Edisto Island Serpentarium with a full fledged gift shop and real exhibits - better yet, maybe I could donate all of my snakes to the Seprentarium for free (confession: I did call them once) and get back to gardening in peace.
But the garden is underway, the birds sound like it's warm out, and the snakes are moving around (even if unintentionally). It's a new season.
Snakes? snakes? In all my years of gardening, so far, I've never encountered a snake. Thank goodness!
Posted by: Carol | 25 February 2007 at 04:50 PM
I unwittingly pulled a full-grown snake from under my couch back when we first moved here. The carpet guys later said it was a copperhead. Eeeeewwwww! Scared the stuff out of me. The kids still laugh about me running half-dressed up the stairs, shrieking my lungs out. So my advice is, Pam, keep that hoe close by when you're gardening!
Posted by: Pat | 25 February 2007 at 06:11 PM
A former co-worker (who, by the way, is also the mother of an active local blogger) from Summerville had an uncanny talent for getting struck by poisonous snakes in her back yard/garden. I think she got bitten twice.
Copperheads are live-born snakes. I don't know if there's a fertility cycle for them, but they're so small at birth (three to four inches) that you can just grind them under your boot. Adult copperheads don't so much get long as they get fat. And I'm guessing you've got some young ones and they're liking the warmth of your beds as a wintering spot, what with the happy little microbes in the organic matter churning out heat.
If memory serves, copperheads are not roaming snakes. I always thought they were the most dangerous, since they give no warning and they blend in so much. I've come close to stepping on them, grabbing them, etc., multiple times (I once lifted a cinderblock off a pile and a copperhead fell out of the hole where he'd been sleeping). So as much as I hate to say this... hunt them down and kill them. Hoe or shovel. It's just not safe for your animals.
Posted by: Daniel | 26 February 2007 at 08:40 AM
Carol: You are very (very) lucky!!!
Pat: That's a horrible (and scary) story! You're lucky that you didn't get a nasty bite - the copperheads in my neighborhood are pretty aggressive!
Posted by: Pam | 26 February 2007 at 08:41 AM
Daniel: I've heard the same thing - especially the part about them not roaming. Gives me the absolute creeps - they do blend in, and will chase you (I've been chased by them in my yard) - I try to live in harmony with everything in my yard, but I just don't think I can live in harmony with copperheads. Maybe I need to have a snake hunt.
Posted by: Pam | 26 February 2007 at 08:44 AM
The thought of copperheads churning out of the garden is pretty creepy, Pam! I hope your have a fast reaction time and good peripheral vision!
But I can't help be amused that you have all the snakes, while Carol is the one with the Hoe Collection.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
Posted by: Annie in Austin | 26 February 2007 at 11:35 PM
Annie: Now there's a thought. Perhaps her hoe collection needs to be turned into a traveling exhibit, and I can be stop No.1!
Posted by: Pam | 27 February 2007 at 07:35 AM
A traveling hoe show! I'll have to give that some thought! Thanks for the idea.
Posted by: Carol | 27 February 2007 at 07:52 AM
Carol: Let me know if you need a curator!
Posted by: Pam | 27 February 2007 at 07:15 PM