The Art of Listening

Look in their eyes, hear their words, understand how they feel--give them ALL of you for that moment they speak.

More Garden Woes

First, the weight of one of my butternut squash, that I failed to fashion a hammock for in time, snapped the vine. I lost about three feet of vine and two budding squash--one medium size well on its way to the table and one strong baby.

Lesson learned--all remaining squash are in nylon hammocks and vines secured to bamboo stakes.

Second, this morning I take my walk outside to check-in with my plot. I start with the porch garden, looking in on the seedlings, cantaloupe and butternut, then the herbs, peppers. Looking good. No frog burrows this morning from our resident porch frog. Then I make my way to the raised bed--ah. Bees burrowing their little busy bodies into the succulent centers of our sunflowers--there are about 10. Beautiful. I notice an extra splash of yellow in an out of place sort of place--I look in closer, excited by the possibility that we have a new bloom. Not exactly.

The yellow splash that I spy is not a new flower like I had anticipated but the head of a mature sunflower that has been snapped in half at mid-stem, no doubt by hungry, greedy ass little squirrels feasting on the bountiful center of seed. Argh.

Upon closer inspection, I see that they have completely removed the heads of two other dwarf variety sunflowers edging the plot. Argh. Fuckers.

I have to tell my kids, these were their babies. As sad as it is, it helps them understand the anguish I feel over the worm infestation as it devastates the plants I have nurtured from seed.

We have declared war--at least a firm resistance. They are earth's creatures after all, simply looking for food albeit overeating for sure.

Cayenne pepper seems to be the go-to measure of force to deter the sneaky rats, ah...um...squirrels.

Moving forward in our experimental gardening venture, we have grown in knowledge yet again.

But really, can't we just get there already?

My Challenge to Every Human Being...

...especially the ones groaning about the costs of food, try growing it your damn self.

No really. TRY.

Asparagus cost too much for you? Grow a bundle. Better than that, I further challenge you to grow a bundle without lading it with toxic chemicals to fend off nasty critters ready to devastate your plot.

For that matter, grow anything naturally--you'll find that you appreciate the effort involved in bringing your edibles into fruition.

I have a new found appreciation, hell, it's damn near idol worship, of farmers and gardeners everywhere.

In this one week, my poor little plot has been invaded by hornworms--the tomatoes are the real victims here as those slithery little bastards help themselves minute-by-minute to their foliage, reducing it to skeletal, web-like remains.

What the hell to do? I'm gardening organically so I can't just blast the fudgers. I did find one spray at my local corporate-big-beast-we-offer-token-organic-supplies warehouse, but get this: The spray wears a label naming it "for organic gardening" yet when you peel the sticky label back to read the real-deal, it announces that the product is TOXIC TO BEES.

Really? Toxic to bees? Bees need anymore shit right now? Aren't they just trying to keep their colonies from collapsing?

So....

I take my search to the Internet and find a spray identifying itself as "Caterpillar Killer" and apparently a recommended choice of organic gardeners and, well, bees for sure :-)

I pay 12.00 for the product and $9.00 to ship it here--Jesus-freakin-Christ. I know $21.00 seems a small price but having already sunk nearly $400.00 into my gardening venture thus far, I need a fucking life boat NOT an overpriced caterpillar kool-aid.

The best part of this chapter in my little story is this--by the time the kool-aid gets here, my plants are likely to be sucked dry of their life by the hornworms. My only option to keep some sort of reign on the fudgers is to pluck the visible ones off throughout the day and slice them in half with a stick or bludgeon them with a rock reducing them to green paste and leaving them for ant food.

Yum, right?

12 hours later in my day...

Fortunately, I scoped the foliage tonight and found less than I have been finding--only two stems packed with babies, that I ground to mush, and a few leaves with mid-sizers that I sliced in half. I am, forever more, the hornworm assassin. Tell your friends you little bastards.

This makes me think that I can potentially stall their progression until my deadly, buff kool-aid arrives.

I can only hope--other wise this has been not only a painful lesson as I mourn my lost life but an expensive one.

Growers of organic food everywhere, I bow to you and will do less wincing during my market trips from here forward AND I will enjoy the fruit of your labor, forever more, in awe of your commitment and bounty.

Down by the banks...

...of hanky panky where the butternut hangs all swanky-swanky.

Yeah. So I've been having loads of hanky-panky with my butternut flowers, delicately taking the yellow powder from the stamen of the male flowers and transferring it to the pistil of the female flowers with a small paint brush. Ideally, these fancy terms I'm throwing out here are the correct names of the the parts I'm doinking on a daily basis.

It's cool though--the female flowers that I am not able to 'pollinate' shrivel and drop off but the ones that are fertilized are plumping up like a round pregnant belly.