I'm waiting to get my taters in too, and that's how I'm storing the still-whole taters for another week or so. Gotta get Beau motivated to till up our new tater patch.
Posted on 04/17/2021 6:02:34 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
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INSTALLING SPRING...
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Install delayed....please wait.
Installation failed. Please try again. 404 error: Season not found. Season ‘Spring’ cannot be located. The season you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later. 😉
“Ticks have four stages to their life cycle: egg jerks, larval jerks, nymph jerks and adult jerks!”
Good info. Mice are a breeding ground for ticks. A number of times we have saved TP rolls, then soaked cotton balls in Permethrin and put them inside the TP rolls when dried, then scatter the rolls under shrubs and tucked into building corners.
Supposedly mice take them and add the ‘bedding’ to their nests, thereby killing ticks at the larval stage.
Probably Wishful Thinking when ticks outnumber people, pets and livestock combined about a million to one. :(
She is also a master pie baker!
I got most of my potatoes in today but was not able to finish planting all of them.
The weather won’t be good for planting the rest probably till Friday or Sat.
What’s the best way to store the chits in the meantime?
Found a product that has both kinds of tick-killing nematodes, plus a third that attacks cutworms and wood borers: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086683PNS/?coliid=I2A1HXBTNES43P&colid=1TR7W7DESUU4P&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it
They also are supposed to kill Japanese beetles, fleas, chiggers, corn earworms, potato beetles, fleas, SVB, and a whole friggin list of other nasties!
I did not see ladybugs on the list, so hopefully it will leave those alone. It also doesn’t mention mosquitoes, which I wish it would kill. But, just the ticks would be worth the price in my opinion!
I'm waiting to get my taters in too, and that's how I'm storing the still-whole taters for another week or so. Gotta get Beau motivated to till up our new tater patch.
I’m hesitant that it WON’T harm the TRUE Ladybugs - but in reality, I have seen exactly ONE in my garden this season, so far.
We’ve got those gawd-awful orange ‘ladybugs’ by the bushel around here!
Beau uses a product called ‘Tempo’ that he mixes with water and sprays the south side of the house in early summer to kill of the orange bugs and the Box Elder Bugs.
They’ve both become a lot less in numbers over the past two seasons and I haven’t noticed any drop-off in Good Bugs - but I also plant my ‘Beneficial Bug Mix’ for them. I’ll have to post that again for everyone. ;)
That I can manage.
Good morning. Beautiful picture. Flowers blooming nicely. For Easter Sunday had snapdragons, violets, and pansies on the table. They are the plants doing very well right now. However, there must be a bug eating the seedlings. Three times already this season, seeds sprouted but were simply gone in a couple of days. Any suggestions?
What is wrongnwoth orange ladybugs other than they are not red?
I’m assuming she means Asian Beetles? They look like ladybugs, but they’re not.
OMG! Don’t EVEN get me started on Houseplant Deaths by Customers, LOL!
I had one nut who watered her plants - EVERY DAY. She was truly nuts, as she had a ‘handler’ that helped her when she was in the store. She’d bring in a big box of sopping wet houseplants and wanted me to ‘fix’ them.
We could NOT convince her (or her handler who rolled her eyes a lot - probably her own sister, LOL!) that she had to stop watering her plans every day.
We finally stopped taking her phone calls. She was truly crazy. I hope she never had kids! Yikes! ;)
Should have sold her watercress and lotus flowers.
She’d neglect to water those, LOL! She was Loony Toons! ;)
St. Francis would have loved tomatillos
Marc Boucher-Colbert, a professional gardening consultant who is the gardening specialist at the Franciscan Montessori Earth School in outer Southeast Portland, sees gardening as a great way to teach children about happiness and gratitude.
“All it takes is one thing to hook a kid,” said Boucher-Colbert, mentioning carrots, strawberry towers, bean pole teepees and sunflower rings as possible “hooks.”
That’s true for hooking parents and grandparents too.
The COVID-19 lockdown meant tens of thousands of non-gardeners or lackadaisical gardeners took another look at their backyards or signed on for a community garden plot.
Google searches for “gardens” surged last spring. An April 2020 survey by the National Gardening Association found 20% more adults saying they were gardening more than usual. That number was on top of an already higher than historic interest in gardening, especially on the part of young people, ages 18-39.
Thomas Scharff, who works for TriMet and who recently completed his master’s degree in urban and regional planning from Portland State University, is part of that younger group of gardeners.
His mother, Barb Scharff, a member of St. Ignatius Parish, said she has forever grown “meager” flowers and a smattering of vegetables.
The Scharffs got serious about gardening after Thomas learned about permaculture in Peru.
When he returned to Portland, he proposed making changes to the family’s backyard. Specifically, he suggested transforming it into a vegetable garden.
Veteran gardener Mark Ingman, then also a St. Ignatius parishioner, helped with the 2019 project.
Ingman told the Scharffs that for their garden to be productive, it would need more sun. And to get more sun, they would need to cut down their apple tree, the one they had planted for Thomas, his tree since his childhood.
Thomas voted for the garden, and his tree is now embedded throughout the yard as wood chips, feeding the soil as it decomposes. He and Ingman plowed and set up a drip irrigation system.
Now the space is ready for its third season of production, primed for arugula, cilantro, tomatoes, kale, lettuce, squash, herbs and even kohlrabi. The strawberries are out front.
“It’s a way to connect with our roots, growing your own food,” said Barb.
Boucher-Colbert sees Catholic gardeners as being ministers to their community and to the earth. That can mean “planting a row for the hungry” or connecting with neighbors while working a flower bed in the front yard — or sharing those strawberries.
Boucher-Colbert is a fan of St. Francis and thinks a nice statue of the saint is never amiss in the garden.
He’s also a supporter of the Outgrowing Hunger project, an initiative that connects garden plots with immigrant communities in East Portland. The Catholic Campaign for Human Development has given the group a grant, and one of their gardens, at Southeast 150th and Division, is close to the Franciscan Montessori Earth School.
“The gardens reflect the ethnic heritage and show a lot of different methods of gardening,” said Boucher-Colbert.
Those Outgrowing Hunger gardens are just a couple blocks from St. Joseph the Worker Church and its thriving community garden.
Becky Fletcher, a longtime St. Joseph the Worker parishioner, is part of the plowing, planning and pruning force behind that parish’s garden.
“I just like seeing the plants grow — to see all the plots blossom and fill out,” she said.
The garden is made up of a dozen 12-by-10-foot beds, 10 of which are rented out to parishioners for $25 a year and two of which are planted to donate the crops to the parish’s food pantry. “We’re very proud of how much food we have given to the St. Vincent de Paul food pantry,” said Terri Fessler Boris, administrative assistant.
There are also a variety of berry bushes and two fruit trees.
In addition to giving produce to the food pantry, gardeners share and exchange produce. “That’s part of the fun,” said Fletcher.
The Zomi community at St. Joseph the Worker typically rents four or five well-kept beds.
Fletcher appreciates that the Zomi families garden with their children.
Community gardens don’t necessarily last forever.
Father Jeff Meeuwsen, pastor of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Aloha, is philosophical about the discontinued garden there. He explained that for now there aren’t the boots on the ground to make such a garden successful, adding that could always change. St. Mary Parish in Corvallis is another parish where the community garden is in abeyance.
Other parishes with community gardens include St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Sherwood, where volunteers work in the Hope Garden, producing vegetables and berries for the St. Francis Food Panty. Resurrection Parish in Tualatin has a sizable plot that helps feed the needy.
St. Henry Parish in Gresham has an invitation on its website inviting gardeners to sign up for a garden plot.
A final piece of advice?
“Grow tomatillos,” said Fletcher. “They’re so easy and they make great salsa.”
BoB. Your calico blend has the perfect camo for your cedar/cypress mulch! If lying in the shade she would be almost invisible to the chipmunks and squirrels!
LOL, she hunts mice, gophers and lizards - occasional bird as well, but that’s what cats do so we can’t get mad.
We had a terrible rat/mouse problem before we got her - spent thousands on rodent control (that didn’t work well) - we have tree rats that run along the wires and destroy the fruit in our fruit trees - so frustrating.
Since getting our kitty, we haven’t seen so much as a one of these pests. She is the best rodent control ever.
B.o.B. A ruthless killer at play! Good deal!
I use a lot of bubble gum to control chipmunks and mice, and squirrels. It reportedly works on rats too. They love it, can eat it, it goes in, but can’t be digested. My neighbor has taken to using it too.
Unlike poisons like warfarin, this will not affect hawks or owls who later eat the garden vermin.
I have heard that eye drops on fresh fruit will also resolve the problem, but its a lot more expensive and you have to constantly put out and waste fresh fruit. A box with a hole and pile of unwrapped Double Bubble from the Dollar General cheaper. ($1 for 25.)
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