Nothin' but net... and nematodes

Last weekend I pulled up a radish to see how it was doing. I was also a little suspicious that there might be root maggots since I had read that the beneficial nematodes will only overwinter if there are enough nasties to keep them there in large numbers, and I hadn’t planted anything over the winter for the nasties to make miserable. There wasn’t the overwhelming infestation of last year, but there were three or four little horrid maggots, so I knew I had to call upon my favorite microscopic superheroes. I had seen that Sloat Gardens was carrying them this year, so I squeezed in a turbo-shopping episode there Tuesday, and got them in the ground today. No matter how many times I wash my hands after doing that they still feel wormy.

Today I also went out into the garden and removed the netting from most of the Russian Mammoth sunflowers. Two out of 7 are still rather small so I’ll keep them protected from birds a little while longer. And I reused some of that netting on the strawberries. I had to cut more to cover the blueberries. It’s such a waste of effort to go to the trouble to grow all those berries only to have the birds eat them. In a world of Round-Up, gopher traps and insecticide it seems odd that such a diaphanous barrier works so well.

As with the last time I used netting, it got frustrating. At one point I had most of the netting package draped over my head and cascading to the ground around me like some sort of funereal wedding veil. I had time to think while I untangled. I kept coming back to a conversation I had yesterday in a waiting room. A fellow waiter needed change for parking and two of us scrounged about in our bags for spare quarters. I gave her what I had, but it wasn’t enough. Then blithely I mentioned a new app that allows you to pay for parking by phone - I had intended to offer to just pay the parking that way since it only amounted to a dollar or so. The other woman who had contributed coins snapped, “Well, that doesn’t really solve the problem, does it?! Apps are for people who can afford smart-phones, and anyone who can afford a smart-phone can probably afford the ticket. It’s just another example of lives being made easier for those who can already afford it while those who ‘have not’ get no perks.”

It was pretty clear her ire wasn’t directed at me. She was just generally frustrated, and I understood that and took no offense. And there is a great deal of truth in what she said. On the other hand, I’m not such an idealist that I will eschew paying my parking meter rather than take part in an elitist app-using incident.

My hands snagged again and again in the mesh. I growled in frustration, and then the two trains of thought intersected. Good food is big business. And providing yourself with healthy non-poisoned produce is a rich man’s game. Organic produce is expensive. The time to cook the produce yourself represents time you are not working to make money - another cost. Want to grow your own? Land costs money. Time costs money... a LOT of money. And there’s a learning curve. Your first few years are likely involve a lot of failure. And you need supplies that cost money... from trellising to fertilizer. And pest control - especially organic pest control - costs money.

Genetically modified crap in a box that you just microwave... crap that is treated with hormones, insecticide, fungicide and herbicides ...that crap is a WHOLE lot cheaper. And on top of it all, you have to be somewhat well educated to know it’s crap, because the packaging sure is pretty, it looks good and it smells like what you’re used to. A lot of talented marketing man-hours go into those boxes of crap, and carrots, onions and kale just don’t have the same advertising budget. Education costs money, and a truly good education that makes you really think? Well, there may be a lot of universities out there, but that kind of education doesn’t grow on trees. There’s education, and then there’s education. And that second more luscious type of education is only for the very lucky or the very privileged.

I don’t know where I’m going with this. But when I stand out there in my garden on the hill I am very thankful... and a little uneasy.

Tally hoe

As a matter of record keeping, I want to note that I fed the following plants on Friday May 25th with EB Stone’s organic vegetable food:

Sunflowers
Blueberries (was that a good idea? Not sure it was the correct food)
Radishes
Cucumbers
The accidental bean plants (I think they’re Italian rose beans)
Patty pan squash
Pumpkins

I don’t know if I ought to feed the kale. But I know I ought to feed the beets and strawberries. Perhaps tomorrow.

And speaking of kale, I need to look up how harvest this stuff. Do I cut down whole plants? Do I just harvest individual leaves that are large, leaving the centers? I will look it up, but if any of my readers have more clues than I have, please let me know.

Oh, and a lemon tree update - it seems ridiculously happy in its new location. It is putting out new leaves like nobody’s business. I’m very happy about that. I anthropomorphize citrus tress... aberrant psychology I know, but whatever. So anyway, I’d feel pretty terrible if I killed one through neglect or bad placement.

Proof that I'm tired.

My friend Ro pointed out that these are aphids... the same aphids that I dealt with last year. She said that I ought to hose them off with water and spray the plant with cayenne pepper and garlic.

These bugs don’t come off with a hose - not even set on high at close range. But I do remember those things now, so I did my best (they still don’t come off) and sprayed with a mix of cayenne pepper mixed in olive oil and dilute biodegradable dishwashing soap. I remember the concoction I used last year needed the dish soap. I didn’t have time to do the garlic, but I will add it in to the bottle so it will be garlic infused for next time.

Bird netting = people netting

I thought I would deliver a Public Service Announcement to all gardeners: If one is not careful, bird netting can double as people netting. If you, oh gardening public, do not heed my warning, you too may find yourself out among the sunflower seedlings struggling against bird predation... out there in your muddy clogs and newly ripped t-shirt, singing, “Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel? Deliver Daniel? Deliver DAA-AA-AA-niel? Didn’t my Lord deliver Daniel? ... then why am I stuck in this &!#-#@$% %$#*&!^ net?!?!?!”

And speaking of &!#-#@$% %$#*&!^ things, those scaly pests are already attacking my hollyhocks. I suppose I’d figure out what they are and what to do about them.

On why T.S. Eliot is full of hooey

April is most certainly NOT the cruelest month. No, that honor goes to July or August. April is full of optimism justified. The prospect of marvelous success unrolls before you like a velvet carpet of green. The seeds spring up (yes, perhaps violently, but nothing compared to the carnage of later months) under their own power feeding off the stored nutrients in the cotyledon. As long as you put down Sluggo or beer traps, they’re too small to attract the notice of most pests. Rodents don’t care about them until they’re much larger. Aphids wait until plants have got a good vascular system to attack.

It’s too soon to find out that you planted the wrong variety for your climate, or that you chose vegetables impossible to grow in your location. You won’t realize you’ve got root maggots for at least a few more weeks if not longer. It’s too soon to realize that months of excessively heavy fog beyond even what’s normal for your area has caused the content of 90% of your beds to give up the ghost while handing the keys to the fungal kingdom on their way out. In April the spring storms sweep the sky clear and the cobalt blue expanse overhead whispers promises and love songs.

If only it stayed April for a little while longer. The treachery of summer lies just around the corner.

I came back from a weekend away to find the garden in order. I know that wouldn’t happen in July. In July I would have come home to a catastrophic die-off due to an onslaught of something from the insect world, or rodents would have spent the 48 hours recreating Toronto’s underground PATH in my yard. But it’s April, so all is dandy. I even had some sunflower sprouts to crow about. I keep seeing ladybugs and ladybug larvae, and can’t decide if that’s wonderful because they’re good to have in the garden, or an ominous sign because they love to eat aphids and their presence indicates a food source. But it’s only April so I’m an optimist... for now.

Peas, please! And radishes, too!

I’ve got sprouts! And that’s a very nice thing given how grueling this week turned out. I’m very excited, and it strikes me that germination occurred much more rapidly than last year. I have to think that’s due to duration of higher soil temperature and sun angle. No matter how mild the weather may seem, shorter days = shorter days and you can’t circumvent that short of using grow lights. And I’m not that desperate for sprouts.

Vegetable and Herb Fracas-see

We finished up setting out the garden for the summer today. I’m still nursing the head-cold, but at least I know I did my vitamin D duty. The weather’s supposed to turn foggy again tomorrow, so I’m glad we got stuff in the ground while the weather was nice for humans.

I decided to make a small herb bed. I have had herbs planted outside my kitchen door for the past year and a half, but they aren’t doing so well in that location. I thought perhaps they’d do better if they were with the rest of the garden and therefore got regular care. I chose French thyme because I use thyme quite a bit in my cooking, and evidently the French variety is not nearly as picky about it’s living quarters as the other varieties. Who knew? And I went with a kind of basil that is new to me: African basil. According to the guys at Sloat, this type of basil makes a respectable culinary basil and it is perennial in our climate and it isn’t nearly as fussy and heat-requiring as regular basil is. (Any plant that needs heat should go over the ridge behind our house and discuss their needs there, because I can’t help them. I learned that lesson last year and I’m not making the mistake twice.) And I planted regular old culinary sage because I really like sage and I am bummed I let my last plant die. I also put an oregano in a pot nearby. I’m a bit phlegmatic about it because I learned years ago that you absolutely MUST check oregano plants right there in the store before you buy because in a single batch of plants there will be some with loads of aroma/flavor and some with absolutely none and I couldn’t find a really good one when I went. (It could also be that I went when I had a head-cold and my sense of smell is still affected). I have a good oregano plant around my kitchen door but I need to find a way to get it consistently looked after because it’s suffering over there.

I finally did right by our long-suffering dwarf Meyer lemon tree. We took it out of it’s pot (it was a very large pot but the poor tree was still root bound) and found a good full-sun yet still sheltered place for it in the front yard by the driveway. That tree has lived through thick and thin despite our neglect. It stopped producing lemons awhile ago, but perhaps if it is in a good location and can settle in well it will stay happy enough to produce again.

We put in a small bed of parsley because we do use a lot of it in cooking and it’s also the lousiest bed in the garden sun-wise and it’s hard to know what else to do with it. Next to that we put in a bed of purple carrots - we loved those last year. And the beets went in a bed between the carrots and the strawberries. I went with the Bulls Blood beets again - they grew brilliantly last year and I want some “sure things”. If I have good success with the garden this year maybe I’ll get fancier beets for the next go around.

I read up on garlic and a number of sources said that it’s best grown interplanted - it chases away certain kinds of vermin and it’s happier that way, anyway. So I interplanted it with the peas - peas are nitrogen fixers so the soil oughtn’t to get too depleted that way. These are the bulbs that I pulled last year and stored in the fridge. Many had started sprouting. I’m not so sure they’re going to result in great garlic heads, but I thought since I went to the trouble I’d give them a try. The reason I wonder about them is that I don’t know their source - they were here when I bought the house. Lots of books and online sources say “don’t plant supermarket garlic” because it could carry diseases or be treated to prevent sprouting... and I wouldn’t put it past the previous owners to do just that. But on the other hand, these are sprouting like crazy and they do look healthy and they’ve already been in the ground here. So what the hey, and if the garlic fails there are at least peas in the bed.

One smaller bed next to the blueberries just got flowers this year - two California natives. One is Baby Blue Eyes, a very pretty annual, and the 'Rose Chiffon' variety of California Poppy. I only have four plants in there, I may want to get more. On the other hand, they’re native - maybe they’ll do well and spread around?

In the really big bed between the kale and the peas we mixed it up with interplanted Purple Dragon carrots and Watermelon Radishes. These are all seeds from last year - it will be interesting to see if there’s a drop in germination rate. The birds seem to like them just the same - I need to get some floating row covers in for those beds.

Finally... the reason for this blog entry’s name... I put a brawl in the little triangular bed in the very corner of the garden. You see, I planted English lavender and French lavender right next to each other, and I expect loud inebriated arguments coming from that quarter in very short order. Something about the vulgarity of fish and chips and how beer is infinitely better than some foppish chichi wine.

And, now for the hard part... maintaining it all! I hope the bad bugs take a vacation and the good bugs come hang out at my place. (I hope that I’ve stacked my deck a bit better than last year by planting certain kinds of flowers, and I’ll be buying nematodes prophylactically later this week.) Here’s to an uneventful summer!