Multiple Defenses

I just returned from the farmer's market with a lovely little gem of wisdom. Plant collars work pretty well but aren't a surefire defense against cutworms if you put it on with a cutworm sleeping at the base of the plant, which is what happened to another plant last night. I discovered that cutworms cut down a plant by circling the base. If you put a toothpick or scewer at the base of the plant, it can't fully circle it! Problem solved...now I need to find out what is stripping the leaves off my pepper plants.

Lipstick and Rouge

Our neighbor, Dock, gave us this chair last year. I am enamoured with the aging process of things that rust and get round with time. However, rust has a way of making things fall apart. Rustoleum to the rescue!


I was afraid to sit in this chair in clean clothes, but now it's my favorite seat in the garden.

Garden Tea

Last summer, during a dry spell, the plants' main water source was city water. Although they were grateful for some moisture, they didn't look too healthy - with all the chlorine and hard water stuff...especially the rhododendrons. Lately, I've been researching compost tea which gave me a great idea. The instructions state: if you are going to use city water, set it out for 24 hours to let the able chemicals evaporate - like chlorine.

There was a small pale of water that was brown due to the leaf litter steeping in it for a few days. Instead of throwing it out, I watered a nearby plant with it. It seemed to REALLY like this brew...so I found a bucket and filled it with water and leaf litter to set out overnight. Every morning I'll give the herbs and veggies a cupful of water...they have responded amazingly well!

Not only am I conserving the amount of water I give them, I'm giving them a mild nutritional boost every morning...like a power drink. (post note: the mosquitos REALLY love the tea too, so put a wet towel or a screen over the bucket so you don't have to share your yard with blood suckers)

Simple Solutions.....

...that make me feel silly for not thinking of them sooner.

Last year, I went to war with what I finally discovered to be a cut worm. This is a completely illogical creature as it only cuts off stems. It does not eat anything...it just enjoys destroying property. Like this:

So I called Mike McGrath from "You Bet Your Garden" on NPR and he suggested 'plant collars', which is a can or plastic bottle with the top and bottom cut off and buried halfway in the ground around tender, young plants. I have been having friends save bottles for me and I've tediously repeated this 'plant collar' process on dozens of my vegetable transplants.

This morning I was planting new lemon and spicy globe basils to replace the ones that were stripped (because I DID NOT put collars around them) and I decided to used some of the little plastic pots that have been piling up under my garden bench. As I was cutting off the bottom, I glanced over at the new plants to realize that I would be taking the plants out of one plastic pot and stuffing them into another - damaging the roots in the process - and it occurred to me: "why not just cut the bottom out of the pot it's in and bury that one?" Duh.

A cut worm barrier needs to be a minimum of about 2 inches above the surface and two inches below. After I cut the bottom out, I gently pressed the plant down a bit:

After planting it, I sprinkled a couple of tablespoons of pre-minced bottled garlic around the outside and spritzed the plants with the soap/baking soda/olive oil soap spray (last spring blog entry) with a bit of fish emulsion mixed in for good measure. I will keep you posted on how that works.

The collars reduce the amount of water it can soak in from the surrounding soil, so it is important to mulch with well crunched up leaves inside the collar (making sure you don't create a cutworm bridge) and often check the inside soil for dampness. Once the plant matures, you can cut the collar off with a pair of shears. Another option I read about is to affix two Popsicle sticks around a stem with twine. I'll try that out and keep you posted ~

A trellis for our Tomato Tree

Jason and I found a HUGE young tomato plant at the Cleveland County Farm Market today. As I was carrying it around, people came up and asked "What kind of tree is that?". I've been learning about how to prune tomatoes to create a thick bushy plant and felt like this would be a great one to prune. Jason wasn't too keen on the idea and our tomato cages were not big (or pretty) enough to cage this beauty in so I told him I wouldn't prune it if he made me a trellis tower...so he did :)

Serendipity

Jason and I went out to a little town near Lake Eufala - Checotah - to do a sign installation. I've been through this town many times and never saw the town until today. While Jason went to work, I decided to walk around the neighborhood and check out the front and backyard gardens scattered around. One garden really pulled me in...I stood at the fence for quite a few moments soaking in the roses and vegetables and statuettes and other bobbles and ornaments decorating this back yard. An older man turned the corner from a hidden part of the yard and saw me gawking at his space...he invited me in to take a look AND BOY WAS IT AWESOME.

I followed him around, asking "what's this?", "what's that?", "what does this do?", "what's that for?" He was so gracious and come to find out he is a master rosarian who is (or was) president of the Tulsa Rose Society. After 20 minutes or so of him showing me around, Jason pulled up to the yard and joined in on the tour. Other than rose gardening, Troy (that's his name) had quite a vegetable garden...here is what I found so exciting...all of the vegetables were covered in these jars:

These are gallon size glass pickle jars that he cut the bottoms out of. Once he planted the seeds, he put the jars on top to create a micro climate. He was taking all of the jars off today, now that the last cold spell is behind us. I don't know if you can tell how big the tomato plants are in the picture, but they are twice as big as they would be - even if they were started in a greenhouse at the same time!

I CAN'T WAIT TO GET AHOLD OF SOME JARS AND TRY THIS OUT!!!

Green house

I have been trying to post for a month and could not find the time! So, I will be retroactively filling in the gap between here and the February post. The biggest upgrade so far this spring is the addition of our greenhouse...this will be a lengthy process and may not be complete until it's time to take the plants in for the fall, but it is already becoming a functional staging and storing area for spring gardening. We bought a metal greenhouse frame last fall, but recently decided to create a wooden frame around it to hold windows and the awesome door we found at the Cleveland County Habitat for Humanity Re-store when we went to pick up the two pallets of re-purposed bricks....here is the inspiration: The greenhouse will be attached to the east side of our workshop in front of a window that is near the workshops gas furnace so we can easily warm the plants during the super cold nights. The north side will have no windows (which will help keep the brunt of the winter wind from getting in) and will, instead, have hangers for 'shovels and rakes and other implements of destruction' (name that movie). The south side will hold a very open screen door that lets in ALOT of light with a clear plastic insert for the colder months. The east side will have a bank of four windows that we will be scouring The Restore for and the ceiling will be framed in corrugated plastic sheeting. Enough of the explanation...here's our progress:

It was so hot Saturday before last that we decided to start the digging after sunset...

The next day we put in and leveled the gravel and sand, then laid the landscape fabric...

We started laying the bricks last Saturday night...

and finished on Sunday afternoon...

by Sunday evening, we had the inner frame set up and all the pots, soil and amendments set up in their new spaces....

Next up is the stem wall and frame :)