Dick Smith's Live Bait (In Delafield!)
Dragonflies! Also fun to watch!
Posted on 07/01/2025 5:32:22 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
The MONTHLY Gardening Thread is a gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you.
If you have specific question about a plant/problem you are having, please remember to state the Growing Zone where you are located.
This thread is a non-political respite. No matter what, you won’t be flamed, and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked.
It is impossible to hijack the Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table Recipes, Preserving, Good Living - there is no telling where it will go - and that is part of the fun and interest. Jump in and join us! Send a Private Message to Diana in Wisconsin if you'd like to be added to/removed from our New & Improved Ping List.
NOTE: This is a once a MONTH Ping List, but we DO post to the thread all throughout the month. Links to related articles and discussions which might be of interest to Gardeners are welcomed any time.
LOL! That looks about right...though the glass of wine would be MUCH closer! ;)
With all of this rain, I am living in, ‘Mosquito H#ll’ these days! I’ll have to do my daydreaming and future garden planning from the kitchen table. ;)
Do you have chickens? They LOVE Japanese Beetles. They are the only predator those jerks have!
I usually have mine on the grapes, but I haven’t seen any so far this season. Hopefully, with all the rain we have had, they drowned in the ground while in their larval phase. Hope Springs Eternal!
I made a pre-church run to get gas & jalapeños. I will pick 1 or 2 of my biggest to try them out, but I want red ones for pepper jelly & need to leave them on the plants so that’s why I bought a dozen. I think I have some partial reds in the freezer, but too lazy to get in the garage to look. I made the filling last night so I’ll be ready to roll this afternoon :-)
Had a busy week with the family, so just catching up. Looks great!
I’m just catching up on the thread after the wonderful 5 day visit with our son, his wife, and our two grandsons, ages 4 and 16 months. The older one picked the first shishitos on Wednesday morning which I sautéed with onions, mushrooms, and cherry tomatoes and added to the scrambled eggs with cheese for breakfast on Thursday. By last evening, we had a dozen more ready, so I blistered them for a little treat to go alongside our grilled burgers and corn on the cob (fresh from the farm 2 days before).
Now I have to try them in the air fryer!
Someone else on this thread shared this recipe a few years ago. It’s a staple around here. I freeze in very small containers. Good on anything from a burger to steak to chicken. I am using my last container from last year up. Maybe it was Pollard?
https://www.seriouseats.com/creamed-shishitos
Excellent! Thank you!
The 4 year old was very excited to help me in the garden picking the peppers. Not so excited to water the plants for more than a few minutes.
Our kids don’t have a very big yard at their home in California. So they very much enjoyed getting to be outside as much as possible. They played with a big bouncy ball and loved running around, playing tag, and then settling into the hammock for some quieter moments. I keep wishing that they would decide to move closer. I’m sure they do the same, but a dollar goes a lot further around here. I have no plans to move out there, even though I’d love to be around the grands more often.
We went to the orchard which also grows several different crops for the market. We picked our own raspberries on Thursday and I made fruit smoothies for all of us the next morning. I’m just relishing that we got to have so much fun with the four of them. It doesn’t usually go this well, but I think we got our son and his wife to understand that doing things nearby, and keeping things simple is a recipe for success.
Where they live there is so much pressure. Out here we can get away from the world a little bit.
"What Birds Eat Japanese Beetles? (And Clean Up Your Garden) - birdertopia.com
June 28, 2023 - Ducks and wild turkeys are known to feed on the grubs as well, while bluebirds, catbirds, and the common grackle enjoy feasting on adult beetles. House sparrows, purple martins, and various species of finches are among other bird species that will gladly ....."
Japanese Beetles equal free poultry feed!
**I will not use the traps anymore. I think that the attractant just brings more onto your property! Of course, if you are looking for chicken food more of them may be a good solution! (I do not have chickens!)
Good to know! Those birds better get with the program and rid us of those monsters once and for all!
Dick Smith's Live Bait (In Delafield!)
Dragonflies! Also fun to watch!
My day was not very productive as far as working in the garden goes. We have had the worst hatch of mosquitoes I have EVER seen! I have been here for 9 years and this is the first season I've gotten bit or even SEEN a mosquito! Ugh!
So, I'm going to town tomorrow to get gas for the mower, pick up some pet supplies, bug dope and a head net as Beau took both of ours with him to Bear Camp. He obviously has all the bug dope, too - we seriously never seem to need it! I can just imagine what the bugs are like up there, as they've had even more rain than we have had!
So, I made a mad dash and checked on things and all looks well - little disease so far, even in this wet season. Grabbed the first Cucumber, and I should have usable Zucchini later this week. Lots of green tomatoes on and NO SIGN of Blossom End Rot. Hurrah!
Hoping to get out there in the AM, doused in (the safe stuff) bug dope and my head netting, LOL! Glad I don't have neighbors that can watch me.
I’m looking forward to the Dragonflies and the Brown Bats feasting on them in the coming evenings. I think the Barn Swallows eat them, too? They always follow me around when I’m mowing and kicking up bugs.
We don’t have any standing water anywhere near the house. Beau is a FANATIC about that. I’m pretty sure they’re using puddles, or that there’s so many of them that they’re all the way up here from the Pecatonica River. My rain barrel is emptied on a regular basis and I float a few drops of oil on top of that, just in case.
We’ve never seen a hatch like this!
Yes on the (free range) chickens, which is likely why we’ve not had serious problems with Japanese beetles in recent years.
I can’t let the chickens go into the garden area(s) of course, so, we do see strays, plus stink bugs and a variety of other garden attackers. Any I can catch, the chickens get. But, I often have to resort to Sevin spray or dust.
It’s funny to watch the chickens eat a stink bug. They down it so fast it can’t “stink” them.
Speaking of “quick”, we just got a hard quick shower. It popped up out of “nowhere” (6 minutes from one light aqua spec on radar, to a red “blob” on top of us), dumped over half an inch on us in 10 minutes, and then moved off, dying. I got soaked running out to close car windows... It looks like almost all this week onward is going to be wet - hopefully not as bad as most of May and June!
As a kid, my dad would catch hellgramites to use as bass bait - said they were ‘the best’.
We got Japanese beetles (old house), but we also would get a June Bug hatch now & again, usually after a rain. It was hilarious watching the local crow family in the field, hopping after the June Bugs.
I have been wearing a bug head net frequently the last couple of weeks. There’s the occasional mosquito, but the gnats have been terrible. I think they are hatching out of our landscape mulch. Yesterday, I had trouble with some biting flies while mowing - look like house flies, but they definitely bite. The poor cows are just bedeviled with all manner of biting insects. There are birds (a flock, actually) that fly around the cows, catching insects, but it doesn’t seem to help at all.
I think its a wet year which is good for insects. They have mosquito dunks that have BT that releases and kills the mosquitos in rain barrels and ponds and garden pools. (Bet Jungs would sell them!) There are treatments and traps for barn flies, but thats up to the farmer. I use mosquito bits in house plant pots to kill the fungus gnats.
Qiviut; I do not think I have gone fishing in 40 years, and I think I used them once in that time.
I do not have a pond, but there have been days when I was outside and suddenly dozens of dragonflies appeared flying around my yard and garden. (A lot of Fireflies have been out this year! A good moist year for them!)
This afternoon I watered and fertilized all of the potted plants, which are looking
pretty great still, but anything in the ground looked so thirsty. I gave a couple of hydrangeas some much needed water. The forecast was only 10% chance of rain before midnight.
Fast forward a few hours. We’re getting a good soaking rain (with thunder but no lightning yet). I didn’t bring in the chair cushions from the deck chairs because I thought it would be a 20 minute spritz like we usually get these days. I was totally wrong, but I’m grateful for God’s rain.
Missing the kids and grandkids. The house is too quiet. I think I’ll put the toys away tomorrow. They’re giving me a little comfort right now, seeing those pudgy little hands in my mind. I think I’ll make a photo book from this week for the boys. It was a really great visit.
My son mentioned several times how much he was enjoying the small town simplicity of where we live. It IS a step back in time, at least for the 21st century. We still have enough of the comforts of the new modern life, while holding true to the ideals that brought us here.
We had GOOD CLEAN FUN every single day! I think my son has forgotten what that is like. We hope to have a yearly summer trip from then, so that the boys grow up with crazy good memories of being at Grandma & Grandpa’s house.
"Things that attract Dragonflies" (Which then eat gnats and mosquitos..)
Things that attract Dragonflies that eat gnats and mosquitos
"Safest Way To Kill Wasp Hornets And Yellow Jackets In Your Whole Neighborhood"
Eliminating wasps hornets and yellow jackets. How To Attract DRAGONFLIES For A MOSQUITO FREE Yard And Garden!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.