Grow Your Own

Comment by Cal on March 25, 2009 at 2:16pm

By the way ... here are the 4 individuals responsible for all the doggy-doo I have to deal with ... all eager for their Sunday drive.

Comment by Mouse on March 25, 2009 at 6:02pm

Good teeth! Very nice smiles...

This morning I dreamt I was walking up West St with people and my dog Maisy, when Barak Obama turned up, put his arm round my shoulder and ushered me off to a house with his friends. But it was all far too fast and disorganised. The gate was closed and the door, and my dog Maisy wasn't there. I could hear her crying in trouble..... so I left quickly, calling her name. It was a desperate moment.

There was nothing for it but to wake up and lie there knowing that she was on her chair, curled up and shiny, fast asleep. And she was too.

Comment by waldopaper on March 25, 2009 at 8:48pm

doggie poo... mixed with doggie & kitty hair... proved just the thing to keep the rampant bun-rabs out of the prototype raised garden. Stack it around the perimeter... and the buns kept away. We'll see if it works early-season this year.

Comment by Mark on March 28, 2009 at 7:29pm

Pan, this morning the woman who co-runs the City College urban garden was talking about worm composting and said that you need two bins side by side that connect. When you get enough castings in one bin, you stop adding organic material to it and start putting stuff in the adjacent bin, and the worms will migrate all by themselves from the bin with their own castings, which they don't much like, where there is no longer new food being added, to the other bin that doesn't have many castings yet and where there is nice new food for them. So you don't have to separate the worms from the castings by hand, just encourage them to migrate. I've never done it, but it sounded sensible..

Comment by Mouse on April 2, 2009 at 6:50pm

http://www.fourthway.co.uk/posters/index.html
These posters for Ugandan farmers are interesting, though difficult to read.
I particularly like the Kitchen Garden and the Sack Mound.

May well buy 25 metres of burlap/hessian tomorrow. The cardboard isn't adaptable enough on my steep slope with banks and curves. Also large sacks at excellent small price, to experiment with. May also try sowing seeds in long hessian pouches and snipping them open when they're being planted.

The peas are in the airing cupboard now. I'm so fond of fresh raw peas.

Comment by Mark on April 2, 2009 at 7:07pm

City college now has a second organic garden, the milpa. This morning there was a ceremony with Native American dance, song, and sage, and the corn seeds were planted. In three weeks the beans and squash will be planted around the corn. The Food Not Lawns movement is growing and taking back a tiny plot here and there. Maybe someday it will progress to Food Not Parking Lots and Food Not Freeways and we can begin to heal the land. Not likely, but a pleasant dream.

Comment by curt on May 10, 2009 at 12:34am

SLUGGGGGGS! YUK!
Controlling Slugs and Snails in Your Garden

The slug... your adversary

Slugs may be a very serious problem to you if you live in the Northwest or other moisture laden areas of the country. A single lawn prawn can successfully remove an entire row of seedlings from your garden in no time at all. He can turn a perfect plant into swiss cheese over night and return to the safety of his hideaway, leaving you to wonder what happened...... As slugs wander about, doing their evil little slug deeds, they leave behind them a trail of slime which amounts to nothing less than a road sign for themselves and every other slug to follow to the grand feast.

To make the situation even worse, slugs are hermaphrodites, they all have male and female reproductive systems. Yes, they can mate with themselves, and in the privacy of their own abode, each slug will produce two to three dozen eggs several times a year. The egg clusters look like little piles of whitish jelly BB sized balls. They will hatch in anywhere from 10 days to three weeks or longer, and these sluglingss can mature to adulthood in as little as six weeks. Destroy the eggs... wherever you find them.

Slugs may live for several years, getting larger with proportionately larger appetites each year. Now, do you really want to go out to your garden some morning and find an eighteen inch Banana Slug waiting for you?

The battles and the war

Although you may never win the war against snails and slugs entirely, you owe it to your plants to fight them with every weapon at your disposal. You can control slug populations with several different methods. With each battle which you win, you have prevented hundreds of new slugs from hatching.

The battlefield

As with any battle plan, it is to your advantage to be able to set the field. Set your field by cleaning your garden, and eliminating the places where the slugs hide, sleep, and reproduce.

*
* Pulling the weeds from your garden is something you need to do anyway. As you pull each weed, you remove a potential slug outpost.
* Keep all decaying matter cleaned out of your garden beds. While leaves make a good mulch, once they begin to compost they become food and shelter for slugs and snails.
* Prune the branches of any shrubs which are laying on the ground. Keep the old leaves and such cleaned out. By doing this you will have destroyed yet another slug haven!
* Cultivate your soil regularly to keep the dirt clods broken up, and unearth any slugs which may have burrowed under the surface.
* The shaded areas beneath decks can be a slug arena: keep them weed and litter free.
* Just about anything can become a slug home. Boards, rocks, pots and other gizmos should be kept out of the garden.
Keep the lawn edges trimmed. Slugs will congregate under the umbrella of unkept grass.

The weapons

For the sake of the environment, it is better to make an effort to control slugs and snails without using chemicals and poisons before you resort to chemical warfare.

Hand to hand combat

*
* Keep slug pokers stuck around the garden at random. Meet your enemy, one on one... Your weapon is at hand, impale them!
* Fill a small bowl with stale beer. Put it in the areas where the slugs are active. Stale beer attracts the slugs and they drown. You may also use grape juice or a tea made from yeast, honey and water.
* An early morning stroll around the garden, salt shaker in hand will often result in many casualties for the bad guys.
* Destroy any and ALL slug eggs you find!
Bait and destroy tactics work. Set a pile of slightly dampened dry dog food in an area frequented by slugs. In the morning and evening visit the feeding station a few times.... slug poker in hand!

Battle lines

*
* Cedar bark or gravel chips spread around your plant will irritate and dehydrate slugs.
* The sharp edges of crushed eggshells around the plants will cut and kill slugs. The calcium in the eggshells is a good soil amendment anyway!
* Sprinkle a line of lime around your plants. (Obviously this won't work around plants requiring a more acidic soil)
* Certain herbs (Rosemary, lemon balm,wormwood, mints, tansy, oak leaves, needles from conifers and seaweed will repel slugs. However using a mulch of these plants will only turn thhe slugs away, in search of other food sources.
* Oat bran will kill slugs when they eat it... sprinkle some around.
Enlist allies..... snakes, ducks, geese, toads, and Rhode Island Reds would enjoy helping you out as they dine on your slugs.

Chemical warfare

Probably the most popular, most effective, and easiest method of controlling slugs is by using commercial slug bait products. These may be purchased in the form of meal, pellets, powder, or liquid. The primary concern of using chemical baits and poisons is the possibility of poisoning small critters, creatures and even small children. Always follow the instructions to the letter, and go the extra steps necessary to insure that the poisons are inaccessible to anything but slugs and snails.

*
Make traps to collect slugs out of plastic pop bottles. Cut the bottle in half and then invert the top part of the bottle into the bottom part to create a no escape entryway. The slug bait can be placed inside the bottle and will draw the slugs in where they will die and await disposal.

*
* Cut a one inch 'V' notch in the rim of a cool whip bowl. Invert the bowl in the garden over the slug bait, and place a rock on top of it to keep it secure.
* Commercial, disposable slug traps may be purchased at many garden centers. Quite a bit more expensive, but they work!
At the very least, cover the bait with a weighted piece of wood or an old shingle to prevent access to the poison. The slugs will still find it, consume it, and die.

Surprise tactics

Try as you might, the war against slugs will go on as long as there are gardens. You will never win, but you can keep them under control. Remember that for every slug you destroy, you are preventing countless generations of that slug's offspring.

*
* You may want to consider offering a bounty on slugs in your neighborhood. It might amaze you how many slugs an ambitious young person can gather up at a nickel a head...
Organize a 'Slug Derby' with some small prize for the biggest slug, the ugliest slug, person with the most captured slugs.... A grand event for any neighborhood, to be sure!

As you wage your war on slugs and snails, you are almost certain to be 'slimed' at least once. YUK! Mix up a little warm water and vinegar, and use this formula to remove the slime from your hands like magic!

from http://www.thegardenhelper.com/slugs.html

Comment by curt on May 10, 2009 at 3:09am

More excellent tips on how to rid your garden, albeit temporarily or snails and slugs ; http://www.sustainable-gardening-tips.com/garden-snails.html

Not wanting to spam this network with useless gibberish again, thought I would tell you in a few words how our garden is coming along. I'd post a few pictures as evidence or to better illustrate, but that's no easy task without a digital camera. I feel soooo naked with a digicam! In two weeks time, i should have one and by then, my stalk bean plants should have found their way to the climbing assists I set up. After a first round of putting twelve or so beans in the ground in two seperate areas and those beans rotting away for no apparent reason, I decided to soak six more on the window sill in the living room. It only took two days, one sheet of paper twol, a little water and a planting dish and the beans sprouted. This time I didn't put them in as deep, just an inch or so and covered them very fine with dry earth. From there on, it took the beans about one week to advance to mini plants, the stage they are at now. Snails and slugs have had a go at eating away at the very first leaves but the beans grow too fast for them suckers. I now have six healthy plants that will grow like crazy.

We soaked peas for two days and planted them in a similar fashion and they too are now coming up. I planted six pickle seeds in a small pot and placed them on the window sill where the sun has the greatest strength. It took the seeds a few days but they all came up okay. The tiny but rapidly growing plantlets, I transplanted to the pre-designated spot in the garden two days ago. The first day, they sagged but they're healthy now. Right next to the pickles, the succhini seeds haven't come up, yet. It may be too early. I'm not worried about them because they seem to make it with ease each year.

My upside down tomato plant is very healthy and now has eight blossoms that are opening one after the other. Another set of blossoms, another eight-pack is growing just above so the plant is promising to bear at least sixteen maters. It's really convenient to have the plant hanging around. I would move it from the exposed spot to a covered spot to protect it from frost as the frost was still on. And just yesterday, I moved it again to protect it from a storm. The plant doesn't seem to mind being moved around as long as I'm gentle. I'll do more of this next year for sure but as you may get to see later - if and when I get pictures up, upside down tomato plants riggings are not very attractive. Practical yes, but unattractive. Al of our herbs are flurishing. We added a few that were missing. You name it, we probably have it, all within a few square meters and directly at the end of the walkway for easier on the spot harvesting while cooking inside.

Slugs and snails are a real issue. We have too much junk laying around. They hide under the junk and even under dirt clots or unkept lawn areas. But slugs are only pesty when it comes to salad greens. Now I know why my neighbor has her raised beds mostly filled with salad. She's constantly harvesting slugs and it's easier to do so if you don't have to bend over. The critters are so small and inconspicuous, I have to wear my reading glasses to see them! But one thing is for certain, we will not be using chemicals to combat them.

I'll letya go with that. It's bad enough as it is with me spamming the place all the time.

Happy gardening !

curt

Comment by Mouse on May 10, 2009 at 4:50am

Goodness Curt, there's nothing spammish about your contributions, your perspective might need a small adjustment, that was very interesting and useful if you have the stomach for slug hunting. I find a little goes a long way. Haven't killed any this year so far, or snails, just helped them out of spots of bother. The blackbirds like them. Find quite a few empty shells.
The thing is with so many birds here now I'm loath to try. It was always impossible to beat slugs on this north facing slope. And last year I killed such a beautiful old one, green and yellow and have regretted it since.

So I just try to keep things out of their reach while breeding them in undisturbed undergrowth and permaculture style heaps, which so many other creatures like and need. Next door they have gone to town on decking and paving, the birds have reduced in number very greatly throughout the country because many garden birds were unable to feed their young sufficiently in recent years, the fashion for decking removing their access to earthy snacks.

I'm planning to put my young plants in hessian sacks ( I don't think slugs will like them) and pots. The sacks will become part of permaculture heaps eventually, everything coalescing in the dance.

Though now I suppose I might suddenly become a fiendish slug killer again, prowling the night with a jar of salt water and a torch, dropping the poor blighters in it.

So I'd never plant salad in the ground, it goes in pots on raised planks.

Comment by Mouse on May 10, 2009 at 4:55am

Pots on raised planks
might be the most useful thing

It does keep the slimy fellows at bay
because its so difficult for them to find a way up.

But how do you get more planks and blocks to seat them on, when the yard now charges £40 delivery!
I have to manage with what's here.

Comment

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• …
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• …
• 13
• Next ›
• Page