Juli Lawrence – Rakish Gardening

June 30th, 2008

Well, I bit the dust and squooshed a lot of aphids on the butterfly weed today. It was just getting out of control, and unless I bought and released a batch of ladybugs, I don’t think my population could keep up. I left a few stems loaded to provide some food for the many beneficials I have. But I donned a latex glove and just ran my fingers along the stems, squishing as I went. Very nasty and I think it had a bad smell. That could have been my imagination.

The squirrel struck again, this time breaking off two stems of one of my dahlias. I have plenty, so it’s not the end of the world. I did sprinkle a small amount of Shake Away. I didn’t realize they went after dahlias, too, but I googled it and apparently they do. What a little SOB this guy is – it’s like he’s taunting me.

But he’s not digging holes anymore since I started the Shake Away, and I hadn’t sprinkled around dahlias because it never occurred to me. I remember reading some of the less humane ways to destroy squirrels (the most humane would be a bullet to the head, and I wouldn’t be opposed to it, but it’s not legal in town). One woman had caught one in a butterfly net and was going to drown him, but then he looked at her and she didn’t have the heart. So she poked at him with a stick for fifteen minutes and then freed him.

That may be kind of mean, but so much better than poisons and these crazy drowning pools. If I caught one in a net, I’d probably just yell HOW DARE YOU a few times.

I’ve got some tiny cucumbers on my County Fair. They’re about half an inch long. And I’ve got flowers on my Israeli melon, lots of flowers on the squash. I squirted the bases of the squash stems with a solution of water and spinosa, which is a fermented bacteria. Similar to BT, but better. So they say. I bought it last year, didn’t use it. This is a preventative against squash vine borers, which killed the Blue Hubbard last year.

In memory of my Blue Hubbard, who gave its life as a trap plant. It served the garden well. Moment of silence.

But this year, I’d like to eat one. We actually ate one last year, not knowing it was an infant. I cooked and cooked it and it was crunchy and not good. My mom, DH and I all tried to convince ourselves it was delicious and lied to one another. “Oh, this is so good,” we all said. Later I found out it needed about three more months to get ripe. Now we laugh about trying to pretend it was good.

I just realized I don’t have any volunteer plants growing out of the compost this year. That means I got a good temp going. Woot!

• Squirrels from hell
• Squirrels eating the tomatoes!
• Squirrels again
• Squirrels are still behaving
• Update on my squirrel problem

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