Body Concepts Inc

Archive for the ‘Gardening’ Category

The gosh darn moles have taken another pea plant, so Rob and I are stepping up our offense.  We are making big raised boxes, lining them with double overlapping mesh and placing them on top of the mesh we already have in the garden.  The difference now is that the little critters will have to crawl up the side of the boxes in full view of the pair of hawks that live on our property to get to the veggies.  And moles do not like to be above ground.  Wish us luck, the summer garden and all its bounty lie in the balance.

Hello fellow gardeners.  Garden update:  My seed starter kit should arrive on the 10th.  I am very excited.  This summer I will plant from seed several varieties of tomatoes, Carmello is my favorite, yellow bellpeppers, poblanos, pole beans, cucumbers and jalapenos.  My snap peas are still climbing and just now producing flowers after the last mole massacre.  My arugula is abundant and delicious.  Life is good.

Well, just two days after I put down my last offensive against the moles, voles and mice, they came and sucked two of my pea plants underground.  No tendrils left on the trellis and they back filled the holes.  It was like my plants were never there.  Rob wants me to bomb them, but I refuse to use chemicals in my organic garden.  Besides, I am actually having fun.  It feels like the Bugs Bunny vs. Wile E. Coyote cartoons.  Although at this point I feel like the Coyote.

Well, a couple of days ago I fertilized my Snap Peas and Arugula and the few Swiss Chard seedlings that have popped up recently.  Then, Rob and I put MoleMax(caster bean based mole repellent) in and around the garden and the recent rains have watered everything in.  So far no more new mole tunnels!  I will keep you posted on the garden front.

Well, the moles and voles are still preying on my garden.  I am going to put down a five foot wide swath of MoleMax around the garden and get more of the little noice makers to put into the ground to annoy them out of my garden.  They have taken two of my eight new Sugar Snap Pea seedlings and burrowed right underneath my arugula, left the plants in place, but ate all the roots, so my plants just wilted right in front of me.  Suggestions welcome!

Rob and I took a little break from blogging, but we are back!  Look for cycing race team updates, Linda’s gardening progress, rowing adventures, and general BC news.

Yes indeed the circle of life continues in our garden (photos below).  Yesterday, the first day of Fall, a bee and moth lost their lives, and on that very same day butternut squash pushed through the earth and sprung into the light.  The bee and moth died at the hands of a crafty praying mantis and the butternut squash seeds were placed into the ground with Linda’s loving hands.  Something is always going on in the garden.  I love gardening!

A couple of weeks ago the below HUGE tobacco hornworm lost its life not from eating the jalapeno, but from the loving hands of Linda.

I thought that my record 11 tobacco hornworms in one day massacre was the reason that I have not seen the hornworms lately, but no; it was not my doing alone.  While trimming the basil for some wicked delicious pesto I make, I saw an old friend hanging upside down:  a praying mantis.  I named the first praying mantis I ever hatched, Sydney, so all thereafter have born that name.  I have seen two others hanging on the tomato plants and their larvae love tobacco hornworms.  The circle of life continues.

Mole update:  I think they are finally gone.  The true test will be when my butternut squash and snap peas start to sprout.  I will plant the seeds this weekend.  Wish me luck. 

How does your garden grow?

Linda

Just a little update on the various vermin crawling in our garden.  I had a record find of 11 tobacco hornworms in a twelve hour period.  I had trimmed the tomato plants several days ago and was more clearly able to see some completely denuded branches.  I knew there had to be some big hornworms in there somewhere.  As my favorite teacher of all time Doctor Jerry Langham (my college botany professor) knows, I can really spot a tobacco hornworm.  It didn’t take me long.  I found 6 in the evening and 5 the next morning.  They were all 3 inches or bigger.  I tossed them over the deer fencing so the birds could get them.  Cycle of life, man, cycle of life.

As for the mole problem.  Although I appreciate the moles providing me with a lovely underground canal system for watering straight to the roots, I don’t appreciate them eating my earthworms (their favorite food) and destroying my plant roots in the process.  A client suggested MoleMax, a non-toxic, organic caster bean product, which is safe for dogs and humans, but moles, gophers, voles and skunks hate the smell.  Well, the morning after I sprinkled and watered in the MoleMax I went to the garden.  It looked like the ground was boiling there were so many mole trailings.  I guess as the moles try to leave the area their activity increases.  Yikes!  After a week the activity has drastically decreased, but has not stopped completely.  I might have to trap the last ones if they don’t leave of their own accord.  Gabby can’t wait to get out to the garden every morning.  She goes straight for the new mole activity and listens with her big Chihuahua ears, then starts digging.  Then she stops, listens again, digs, listens, goes to the other end of the trailings, listens, then digs.  It is hysterical.  Makes my morning!

Tomatoes, and herbs are still going strong.  Have prepared one of the beds for a fall planting of Snap Peas and Butternut Squash.  Happy Gardening!

If anyone has any advise on moles, please leave a comment.  Or just tell me about your garden.

Well, despite our efforts, vermin have attacked the garden.  My Blue Lake pole beans started to wilt, then the cucumbers next to them.  Something was going right down the row.  Rob suggested something was attacking the roots.  I had nightmares all night that something had sucked all of my plants underground and my garden was left bare.  I woke up this morning to find that one of my cilantro plants had indeed been sucked underground.  Nightmare!  Not a shred of the plant remained.  I had stopped watering both of the cilantro plants because they had already bolted and I wanted to let the seeds spread.  There were two small holes next to where the plant used to be.  We tried to drown the little critters out, but to no avail.  I will get out my animal tracking book to identify exactly what kind of vermin we have.  Any ideas on a nonviolent way to get rid of them?  Rob’s idea is a shovel.  He is an animal!