Tag Archives: garden

Garden, June 20, 2014

Garden, Pests, Weeds, , ,

DSC03122 Garden on day of summer solstice, with the same things, but some seeds harvested, and no new plantings.

It is  easy to keep this garden weeded,  because the weeds simply do not grow in it very fast.  Therefore what was and is growing in it is quite hardy.

AND, the lead free “soil” that we got last year must not have been very good.   It was a mix of tree shreddings and sand, according to the business that dug the garden and delivered the soil.

Perhaps the lincreasing shade did not help either, but weeds grow well in greater shade.

Soil building has come to the top of my garden to-do list.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Visiting Our Compost Pile

Garden, Uncategorized, , , , , , , , ,

DSC02160 Mr. Possum came to eat from our

compost pile.

DSC02162 Sometimes he did not look  friendly, and I thought about what he could be carrying in the way of noxious microbes and parasites, so I decided to discourage him.

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I remembered a safe formula for discouraging cats and dogs from entering a garden in this book, and thought it would work for possums, so I looked it up.

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Here it is!  DSC02171  I made a quart of this by blending up a whole head of garlic instead of using the garlic powder.  I added the 1/4 cup of Tabasco sauce, a 1/2 teaspoon of vegetable oil, and  shook it up in the one quart spray bottle.  The spray mechanism did not get plugged with the garlic at any time.  A very small residue on my hands did not hurt my eyes when I rubbed them.

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I squirted a couple of squirts of this into the compost, and lifted the sides off of the compost.  Mr. Possum went scampering down the alley.  I hope he will not return.  I sprayed by far the most of it around and into the garden to discourage cats and dogs from entering our garden.  We’ll see how long the spray effects will last.

Garden, March 29, 2014

Garden, , , ,

DSC02147 Garden from the south side.

DSC02159 Garden from the north side.

Some things have glowered, bolted, started going to seed.  The two cabbages that had been going to head, are flowering.  The head never got very big.

DSC02148 The cabbage flower clusters almost look like brussels sprouts.

DSC02151 Our beautiful yellow broccoli flowers (back), and white flowering greens(front).  The red cabbage (middle) is beginning to form heads.  We’ll see how that goes!  Dr. Johnson said in his Galveston Daily News column that the cold snap which we had in the late winter can make broccoli flower.  (I  image that can go for some other things, too, like the cabbage. )  Not shown here are cilantro and tall lettuce which are also in the process of going to seed.