海角大神

It takes wildlife to raise squash. Well, at least that鈥檚 been the case in our neighborhood.

Already this spring the lettuce has been booming, and the tomato starts are growing taller 鈥� but the big test will be how much zucchini we can harvest.

Now, I realize that may seem a strange wish when, by fall, most gardeners are desperately trying to donate their 鈥渮ucchinis of unusual size鈥� to anyone who will take them.

But in my garden, squash, melon, and other cucurbitaceae seedlings had generally been the slugs鈥� and snails鈥� food of choice, so they didn鈥檛 often make it to maturity.

But all that changed last year, when we discovered the ecology of zucchini.
It was actually the hawk in the birdbath and the falcon on top of the beehive that tipped us off.

They were hunting in our city backyard, and while that didn鈥檛 seem a happy thought for the resident families of squirrels, doves, and tree rats, to the ecologist in me it was a good sign that our generally organic (no herbicides or pesticides) garden and heavy mulching methods had helped reestablish a more balanced ecosystem.

Of course, there had been earlier signs; it just took us awhile to see the
animal-squash connection.

When we first moved in several years ago, we periodically heard nocturnal rustlings outside. We discovered that these came from a trio of raccoons looking for cat food left out and for grapes and blackberries that were ripening along the side fence.

We marveled that these raccoons had strayed several miles from their riparian habitat along the American River, but figured perhaps they lived part time on one of the larger brushy lots nearby.

Fortunately, they didn鈥檛 seem to want our numerous tomatoes, but neither did they appear to eat the abundant snails and slugs who subsisted on our squash seedlings. And the scrub jays, which had turned the lid of our kettle barbecue into a regular perch, apparently much preferred nuts to snails.

So, after a couple of years, we鈥檇 given up on growing zucchini or any of its relatives, realizing that the mollusks would just munch them down.

By then the raccoons had moved on, but we did have a family of opossums. We only rarely caught glimpses of them (since these marsupials seemed not to venture out much before midnight), but based on the cats鈥� and dogs鈥� tracking efforts, it appeared they lived under the old garden shed in the corner of our property.

Not wanting our latest wildlife cohabitants to become roadkill, my husband suggested feeding them in the yard. And so we started buying sacks of the almost-too-ripe-to-eat fruit on sale at the local grocery and leaving pieces out under the trees where they roamed.

What we didn鈥檛 know at the time, though, was that having them here would bring better ecological balance to our backyard by reducing our mollusk population and provide a safer haven for squash.

Opossums, we learned, do eat snails and slugs. So last year we set out cucumber seedlings, and we were thrilled when they survived and thrived. This year (unless the opossums develop new cravings and the hawks go vegan), we鈥檒l be nurturing and harvesting many more cukes for summer salads and 鈥渮ukes鈥� for saut茅s and breads.

But in any case, I know there鈥檚 more than enough squash out there somewhere for all of us to enjoy 鈥� even the snails and slugs.