A Puzzlement

Every year by the time Fall rolls around at my mountain home I am flat worn out. Not by the exertion of the garden, which I love, but by trying to keep the critters from eating all my efforts.

Perennial has a totally different meaning here. Here it means alive until eaten. It isn’t like we have a few hungry pests-we have hoards in strange varieties. At 9000 feet, animals that wouldn’t distain to eat a petunia at sea level make it a quick meal .This year I watched an elk cow eat a whole big bush in 20 minutes. Years of useless hollering and missed rocks rendering her impervious to my presence.

DP keeps a pellet gun by the door. It is the muffled yell and moan that bring him eagerly into the fray. Never would I actually say “DP get the gun!” The holes in the porch ceiling testify to the danger in that.

I have just been pondering for a long time now about why you can’t engineer flowers and shrubs to taste bad. I know what you’re thinking. Plant marigolds, nasturtiums and daffodils. I do!! That’s my point! If Nature made them taste bad to critters, I do believe that she wouldn’t mind a little help with some varieties that are pink and purple and white, etc.

Now all you organic guys don’t get your pants in a knot.

I’m just saying……….!

If you can make sweet corn, which is like heaven compared to field corn, why can’t you help flowers and shrubs out a little.

Organic Control of Garden Insects

Now I want to make this clear to you from the start, I am a Kansas girl, I was born a Kansas girl, will die a Kansas girl, and it won’t matter where I am relocated I will always remain a Kansas girl, yes, I have the ruby red slippers to prove it too!

I am not afraid of snakes, I am not afraid of bugs, rabbits, or other wildlife that may venture then the yard. I can remember as a child watching ants for hours, and putting little grains of sugar on the sidewalk to see them carry it off to their home (now you can tell my attention is easily captured, and I was an easy child to entertain).

The one thing that I am afraid of, I detest, and I have a full-blown hissy fit every time I see one is a Squash Bug! I hate em, hate em, absolutely without a doubt completely hate em. They appear overnight at the base of a squash plant, they bore into the stems, they suck all the life out of the plant, within days you have a limp pitiful plant where once little zucchini were growing.

I love organic gardening, one of my high school classmates brought me a pickup load of horse manure one time and it was the best gift I got all summer long. If there is a natural way to amend soil, fertilize, or take care of garden problems, I am all for trying it.

So, the first time I encountered squash bugs I started my research and there it was the golden words of how to get rid of them. You pick them off the plants, put them in a blender, add enough water to make a thin liquid, then spray it on the plants. The squash bugs pack up and leave, never to be seen again.

With the enthusiasm that only a novice could have, I picked bugs, picked bugs, and picked bugs. Brought the blender outside, put the bugs in, a little water and pushed the button ~ not enough water, off with the lid and more water, pushed the button ~ still not enough water. Off with the lid and put a lot more water in, pushed the button and ~~~

For crying out loud, I had forgot to put the lid back on, up came water like a fountain with pieces of mushed up squash bugs all over me, in my hair, on my face, all over my clothes!

I was running around like a demon-possessed being, into the house, into the shower, and after using all the hot water, I felt a little bit better, but I swear I could still smell the squash bugs.

Back outside, there sat the cursed blender with the residue of my arch-enemies The Mushed Squash Bugs in the bottom. I did the only thing a reasonable person driven to the point of insanity would do – into the trash went the blender, and into the car I went and down to the nursery.

Now I can’t just ask a question there, I had to go into the whole story and they are good at my nursery, very, very good, no one broke out laughing, but I could see their shoulders shaking when they thought I wasn’t looking. I think the fire in my eye would have kept anyone from laughing out loud at that point.

I found there are very few products on the market, organic or otherwise that will rid your garden of Squash Bugs, but a few non-organic applied to the base of the squash plant when it first comes up helps to deter the bugs from infesting.

To this day I can claim to be only a part-organic gardener, and the part that isn’t is the squash plants – and I really hate squash bugs to the bone to this day! And, every once in a while when I go to the nursery someone is brave enough to ask if I have squash bugs this year!

To learn more about organic gardening with all the little tricks and short-cuts, I recommend:

Organic Food Garden Beginners Manual: Click Here!

Or

Organic Pest Control Secrets, Get Rid of Pests without Chemicals: Click Here!

Worms, Worms, Worms, Worms

When our home in the mountains was built, an incredible unintended bonus was a huge unfinished cavern under the front wing of the house. It measures about 100 feet by 25 feet, for years it has been used to store junk. But we know that this is not its intended purpose-we just don’t know what. For years my Daughter, Lee and my Daughter-in-law, Dee (my partners-in-crime) and I have , at times, sat in a row facing it. Cocking our heads this way and then that, like Forrest Gump and the little Gumps. Hoping that at some angle it would provide inspiration for its intended use, to no avail.

Then came the Martha Stewart show on “Worm Composting”. Within the hour both the girls had called! This was it! The finely oiled machine kicked in. We were all doing computations on how many flats would fit and where we could scrounge the materials for the walk ways. Lee went on line and found the Styrofoam peanuts for the bottom of the flats and Dee called the dump to see if any contractors had dumped wood out there lately. We were rolling!

And then……

This is a phenomenon not usually seen in these parts, but I can say from distant memory, that when both of DP”s size 13 feet come down on the other side of an issue it gets your attention. The Girls, sufficiently removed by many miles from ground zero, felt the shock waves. “No, but Hell no!” was all he could manage. When he calmed down sufficiently to talk, he reasonably said, “Why don’t you start small and get a feel of it.”

That made sense to all of us. We ordered one batch of “Red Wigglers”, bought one plastic tub and started saving newspaper.

We were ready!............- for almost anything but pissed off, temperamental, picky eating worms. You can’t buy an inbred dog that is more trouble. Not to say I didn’t get the hang of it.

But PULEASEEEE.

It was the day that they were unusually ticked about something and had crawled all over the sides and top of the tub that was my Waterloo. In my mind I saw them all over the floor, sides and top of the cavern, coming up thru the vents into the living room. Just the sight of the big bags of peanuts Lee had sent brought on anxiety attacks.

To learn more about raising worms, you may be interested in "The Worm Farm, DIY" Click Here!

Or "Start Green Gardening with Worms and Make Money!" Click Here!

Bonsai Gardening, or Not!!

Since our blog is about the adventures and misadventures of gardening outside the box, I thought I might share one of my fascinations (and honey there are a lot of them) with you.

This will be about gardening within a box, actually in a tray - did you know Bonsai is actually 2 words – Bon means tray and Sai means planting or growing.

I have just loved little colorful things, like an old mynah bird, since I was just a little pear ~ if it was little, shiny, or colorful, I had to have it, try it, or collect it, and nothing fits this bill quite like these precious little plants and trees!

It doesn’t matter where you live, everyone can have a bonsai tree and if you spend your year in different locations, they can relocate too – I suggest buying another makeup case just for this purpose!

Learning all you can about bonsai before you make your first purchase will save you time, dollars, and heartbreak – I remember my first was a Christmas gift from our son who said “They said you can leave it outside all winter, just water it”. I did and while it was evergreen it got browner and browner until come spring, all I had left was a pot of crispies ~ that was the “bon” and flakes, no sai.

You need a pot, and a tray, there are millions on the market, so get one that you love; then you need to decide on a starter plant or tree, or start one yourself from seeds.

If you are as impatient as I am a plant or tree is definitely the way to go, while I plan to live to be at least 100, I don’t want to spend all those years waiting for a tree to grow from a seed, I want WOW and I want it NOW!

A great starter tree is the Japanese Red Maple; I love this because the tree’s leaves change to bright red or orange in the spring and fall and a deeper red in the summer.

This tree works so well for an upright bonsai and you can train it so the little leaves are one-inch long or less. The trunk and tiny limbs can be green or red.

You will need tools and instructions on how to care for your particular choice. And from your care will come a lifetime of enjoyment watching your little creation evolve!

We think you will find this great ebook on bonsai provides you the information you need to not only get started, but be successful at this adventure!

Bonsai Gardening Secrets:
Click Here!

The Debacle of the Electric Fence

In our high mountain valley there lives the rarest of all creatures, a really good and reliable handyman.

The love of my life, my husband D.P., has many talents- handy he isn’t. Thus Mr. Keller has ever and will forever more help us keep our home together. In a sincere effort to be handier like Mr. Keller, D.P. has invested in stacks of “How to books”. We have books on building, painting, patios, etc. But his favorite book of all time is Plumbing. It is a measure of what he has learned that when he got a book on wiring the last of the kids moved out. I mean it’s one thing to have no water.

You may wonder how this relates to gardening, that’s where the electric fence and Mr. Keller come in.

In an effort to save my gardens (or Deer Buffet as our older Son calls them) from critters I divined that I needed an electric fence.

So from a ranch supply place ,I ordered a reel of yellow tapey wire stuff and a box to hook it up to. I read the directions and proceeded to string it up and plug it in. All set! Right? But how do you know it’s working? I’m not touching that thing. That’s way below my Queenly pay grade. Kids are all gone-remember the wiring.

Now I’m not one to lightly contradict the goddess of queenliness “The Sweet Potato Queen”. But I know what I know. Hours of begging and even the “Promise” could not entice D.P. to “touch that thang”. Guaranteed to work my eye.

Enter stately Mr. Keller who can make anything work. After surveying the crime scene, all that yellow tapey stuff, he gingerly walked over to the fence and gently laid one finger on it.

Yeowwww! His white hair flew up and he did a half hop.

My teeth were clenched and my eyes squinted in a look of horrified concern. This was the only way I could stifle my laughter.

We continued down the fortification until we reached a place where I had flubbed up. In showing me how to fix it, it got him again! He pretended it didn’t and I pretended not to see. My shoulders only shook a little bit.

When we reached the corner where the fence started up the hill ,he bent over and pointed to a better angel it could take. In absolute horror-in slow motion, I watched him back in to the monster. In my head I was screaming “nooooooooo!” but no sound escaped my lips. This time we had full butt contact and it was a 2 hop jolt with arm flailing. I was undone, bent double howling with laughter, tears streaming down my cheeks. All poor Mr. Keller could manage was a pale, slightly sheepish grin.

I swear that I am not normally the kind of person who takes glee in others misfortune. I can’t tell you why this was so funny. I only know that even now whenever I notice the reel of yellow tapey wire stuff in the garden shed my shoulders shake.To my knowledge Mr. Keller was the only critter ever shocked by that fence. The moral of this story is that there are better ways to deal with critters in your garden.

Try this eBook it has lots of hints: Organic Pest Control Secrets
Click Here!

I also know where you can buy some slightly used yellow tapey wire stuff and the box to hook it up to.

Real cheap

WELCOME!!!

Welcome Zimbabwe! Talk to us often. We love hearing from you.

If It Hops, and It's Ears Flop - It's Public Enemy # 1

After spending most of the winter going thru seed catalogs, finding just the right seed for each vegetable for my garden plot, it was time to order. By the time the order arrived, Spring was just peeking around the corner. All those wonderful seeds, I lined up the packets in what order I wanted to plant. I ordered garden stakes so I could tell just what seed was where, I lived gardening, I dreamed gardening, and as soon as possible, there I was, twine on the ground, stakes in one hand and my wonderful packets in the other.

The rows where marked, the stakes on each end, the twine in between, the furrows made, and the seeds sprinkled and covered. The wait began –

And, just as nature intended, the seeds germinated and tiny little plants started to pop up. Here came the lettuce, the spinach, the radishes and onions, and finally the green beans. I was so proud of my garden, taking pictures to send all my friends of the baby plants.

Then one morning, as I strolled to see and measure the overnight growth, I stopped dead in my tracks, my jaw dropped and tightened, my eyes squinted, my backbone became stiff as a board – what had happened to my garden!!! I no longer had green beans, I had an entire 2 rows of little stems with no leaves, no tops, just little sticks – the rabbits had found the garden and devoured all of the green beans.

I sent a queenly plea to all my fellow gardeners – what to do and how to do it ~

De-fence was the solution, spray it around the perimeter of the yard and the rabbits will not cross it – two cans later, the task was accomplished. Three days later the sticks were growing leaves again and all was well in my garden kingdom.

Day 4, I walked to the garden, the beans were sticks again and a rabbit was happily hopping thru the fence between me and my neighbors. The De-fence had failed. Out went the plea again – what to do?

In poured the suggestions, each of one was tried in this order: talcum powder (they ate the lettuce), human hair (they ate the spinach), dog hair (they started to nibble on the okra), hot pepper flakes – the rabbits enjoyed salsa. My neighbor went to the nursery and came home with Hot Wax Pepper in a spray. She had replanted her beans and they were up just one leaf – she sprayed and sprayed, and the next morning – sticks, not a leaf in sight. Then someone suggested dusty miller – so off to the nursery I went, bought the last 4 in town, they were leggy and they were wilty, but they were dusty miller, so I hopefully planted them and watered them like they were gold.

Lo and behold, either the rabbits found better food to eat, or my plants got too big to be tender, or the dusty miller worked the trick, but they quit eating the okra, which other than tomatoes and peppers was all that was left. They still came into the yard, hopping around looking for something tasty, but I thought I was finished with the worst of them.

Then, just before the first frost, I was looking at the baby clematis my sister had planted for me in the spring and it was gone, just gone, chomped off at the top of the cup I had around it.

After a few choice words and more research I am back at the point to last spring – hopeful, wondering what I can do to keep the little hoppers away from my garden, and ready to invest in chicken wire or hardware cloth to surround the garden, the new plants, the yard, and maybe even the neighborhood! Anyone with any suggestions, please post on this blog – they will all be taken to heart!

It is so undignified to see a Queen chasing rabbits out of the yard in her jammies!!!

Want to learn more about rabbits? Check out this book:

How to Raise Rabbits – The Complete Beginners Guide for Rabbit Owners
Click Here!