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So I've been spending some time out in the yard making Rosco's area a bit nicer. I put up a better fence to keep him away from the dog, and dug up a section for gardening.

I took some of the spineless prickly pear I've been selling in the food classified section and decided to start a new cactus patch. Most of them should sprout roots and start growing this spring.

The rest of the garden has a nice coating of pasture mix seeds under a thin layer of compost. Once those take hold, next spring I'll probably start another garden on the other side of the yard.

I'm also thinking of building raised beds along the length of the new wire fence and grow some greens for the spring. In the mean time, since Rosco has the routine of retreating to his house each evening, I'm in the process of building him a bigger house that's insulated and with enough room for a heater so he can spend his sunny winter days outside.

Anyway, just rambling about my latest project. My girlfriend doesn't quite get it so thanks for letting me share. )

-Tim

It does look nice. I'll tell you a story about our cactus.

We have spineless cactus planted for our sulcata. We had to put a white plastic type of fencing around it to hide it from her.
Before we hid it we had a flimsy type of ranch fencing around it but she could see it so one day she went through the fence, tore it up big time & ate ALL the cactus she wanted to. LOL
Our cactus patch wasn't big enough yet to harvest any for her to eat so we kind of had to start over.
We went to the local home improvement store & got some white plastic tall garden fencing to keep in hidden from her.
That has worked out because today there is enough cactus to harvest some for her to eat.
They get their minds made up they want something & that's it. They are going to have it!
-----
PHRatz

God I wish I had that much room for my russian.

It looks good! I'd put something opaque along the bottom of the fence so he can't see out through it. A friend used vinyl mobile home skirting on her fences & it worked well & looked pretty good.

Last summer a storm knocked over a night blooming sirius into the Russian pen. By the time I got home, Boris had eaten lots of it & taken a bite out of every leaf. It bloomed a single flower in September but at least I discovered a new thing to feed the tortoises!

I was concerned about that too, but this is the first tortoise I've ever had that doesn't try to go through it just because he can see through it.

I know how it is. I used to have a group of 5 leopard tortoises several years ago and I was growing some cactus in pots that I kept in the pen. I didn't think they were big enough to tip the pots because they were fine all summer, but one day I came home and all 3 pots were tipped over and all of the cactus was gone.

Sneaky little devils.