Category: Garden

I’m understanding more and more the appeal of hydroponics.  I could grow vegetables in a controlled environment, maximizing yield while minimizing space, all the while eliminating pest problems.  I realize of course that this is an overly-simplified view of gardening, but frustrations lead me to consider it.

This, The Year of the Garden, has me experimenting.  Before I choose how to invest my energy and resources, I have planted a variety of test plants.  At the end of the year I will consider the results of these subjects, then use it as a baseline to decide what to grow in the future.  Except tomatoes of course–I will always grow those.

Still, it’s irritating when something doesn’t work out.  Yet I’m quite the gardening pragmatist on all matters besides tomatoes, so rather that fight nature, I strike bargains with it.  The rabbits are eating my flowers, so I plant beans and clover–something far tastier.  The rabbits in turn have, for the most part, agreed to leave everything else alone.

But, there are forces with which I cannot reason.  And said forces are always of the insecta variety.  I had a tentative relationship with my local ecology, until the Japanese beetles arrived.  Nasty little harbingers of death.  First they attacked my crabapple, then the ash, then the peppers, then the basil.  So I did what I don’t like to do–applied insecticide.  I’ve also installed a beetle trap for the first time.  I don’t like to take these measures because they always have adverse and unpredictable effects on the balance.  But it was either that or lose my entire garden to the scourge.

I had a couple pumpkins volunteer, no doubt from the Jacks who withered away post-Halloween.  And wouldn’t it be cool to grow a pumpkin?  I did successfully manage to do so one year at the townhouse.  My pride and joy this year is big and happy.

Then I noticed some interesting wasps frequenting the plant.  From experience, I generally take that as a good sign, as they prey upon things that eat my vegetables.  But this wasp was one I hadn’t seen before.  Curious, I took to the Internet, but as we can still only search with text, it made identification difficult.  So I consulted a better resource: the family chat.  It is often quite convenient that I have contact with such a variety of biologists whose degrees and hobbies frequently overlap.  I took a photo of the questionable insect and sent it to the group.

Moments later, I received a response.  I was instantly concerned.  Such a quick turnaround couldn’t possibly be good news.  My sister advised me it was a vine borer, followed by the comment: “mother fuckers!’ and the suggestion that I “kill them!!!!” as “THEY WILL DESTROY ALL YOUR SQUASHES”.  I must say, that was very clear and concise expert instruction.  So many of my colleagues could learn from this effective communication.

So it turns out that this little fucker is a moth.  As the name implies, their pupae bore through the stems, often with fatal results.  The myriad of treatment suggestions ranged from targeted excision of the grub to injecting BT.  This seemed like a lot of trouble for a plant I wasn’t terribly vested in, so I guess I’ll just wait to see what happens.  The main stem is already chewed, so I doubt there’s much I could do anyway.  Pity.

Are there any bugs that selectively eat dandelions and thistles?

–Simon

Nothing truly stays dead in the plant kingdom.  The late frost, which I suspected had killed my basil, had only slowed it.  In keeping with the saying that it’s only a weed if you don’t want it, basil would very much be a weed indeed were it not so tasty.  Behold, the two plants I had started in December:

And like my Evil Morning Glories, I have applied a new taxonomic designation.  When I make pesto from these, they will grant me regenerative properties.

–Simon

Whenever I complained about any form of manual labor, dad was quick to remind me of his own youth, namely the pre-dawn cow-milking.  Recently I had him iterate a favorite anecdote to Liz, regarding the drafty farm house and a glass of water on his nightstand freezing overnight.

During the Lubbock years, a brilliant idea was conceived.  My parents, environmentalists and chronically short of funds in those days, decided that when the lawn was mowed, the grass would be bagged and spread under the rabbit hutches.  Then, over the course of the following week, this drying grass would soak up the all the delightfully nitrogenous excrement that the rabbits produced.  The resultant urine-soaked yard waste would then be shoveled into a wheelbarrow and carted to the alley–dumped upon the compost pile–in time for the next mowing and batch of grass.  This pile would lengthen, requiring that it be watered and turned, until the now saturated mass would breed the necessary microorganisms, expediting the pile’s decomposition.  The conclusion, and omnipresent lesson in decomposition models and the nitrogen cycle, courtesy of dad, was an incredibly nutrient-rich and organic soil for use in the gardens.

And amazing gardens my mom did have.  Yet somehow, I failed to appreciate these lessons at the time.  Through some combination of being a kid and doing hard manual labor in the west Texas heat, the miracles of biology fell flat.  And while I remember my sisters helping with the mowing/shoveling/turning, I don’t recall their involvement nearly as much as my own–something I attribute to being the only son, and the point at which the cow-milking anecdotes would emerge were I to point out these injustices.

But, I did enjoy gardening, so mom indulged me with a section of the garden for my very own.  And while there was many a discussion on what I couldn’t plant in it, the joy of having one’s own child willingly involve themselves in a parent’s hobby likely superseded the irritations of teaching me basic gardening.

So it was that I indulged my daughter when she asked me recently for her own garden.  The proud parent within immediately agreed and started working on her very own partition.  I selected a full-sun and rather barren section of the yard, near my own vegetable garden.  After some digging and hauling of recycled bricks (retrieved elsewhere from the yard), I bestowed upon her a section of earth, prime for cultivation.  Unlike my own parents, however, I forked over a few bucks and filled it with a commercial potting soil, since we lack rabbits.

Then it was off to Lowe’s.  I don’t know who Lowe was, but I’m guessing the patron saint of suburbia.  Hail, St. Lowe!  Feeling my mother’s pain, I tried my best to remain silent as we accumulated a cartfull of mismatched plants.  Ultimately though, this is a lesson in gardening, which will require some failure.  Still, it turned out well, and complete with lawn decoration, represents a utopian model of suburban flora.

I do still have her pick up the dog poo, and even though it doesn’t go into compost, it sort of counts.

–Simon