Old as Dirt? Get Yourself Some New Soil, 'Dig'?

You've probably heard the expression "old as dirt." Since true soil or "dirt" is mostly weathered rock with some well-rotted plant material mixed in, you can understand why that expression came into being. Now Florida doesn't have much weathered rock or soil, but it does have a lot of sand, as you can see just beyond the boundary of the vegetable garden. The veggies in my garden this year consist of a few scatter-planted green beans, some cucumbers, onions, tomatoes mostly in pots, and various herbs for seasoning everything. Since we moved back in mid-March, I didn't have enough time early in the spring to properly prepare the ground for summer planting. I needed some real dirt real quick, or the garden would fail just as miserably as in years past.

Our decision to attend church at the same place we used to go when we first moved here proved to be more fruitful than I could have imagined. Thanks to good friend and fellow gardener with a business, Cliff Martin, we now have some real dirt. He "makes" the stuff himself with mostly cotton seed hulls and other organic goodies. He won't give me the exact recipe for it, but maybe if I come up with an interesting name? It certainly could be Cliff's Compost Heaven.

I decided to conduct some very unscientific testing on the dirt by adding it to the front half of the garden, the part you can see first as you walk by. Just a few weeks have passed since those handfuls of dirt were casually pitched at the plants, and you can easily see how vigorously the plants have grown. The Homestead onions (another one of Cliff's specialties) have really shot up, and I've harvested several pounds of beans already from this tiny plot.

So what about the back 40 (inches or so) of the garden that didn't receive the good dirt? The plants are puny, the leaves are yellow, and the beans are not as bountiful on this side.

The beans aren't the only lucky plants to receive Cliff's Organic Wonder Soil. This Floradale tomato in a pot--purchased at a plant sale from another plantsman, our pastor/PSC math professor--received a top dressing of the good stuff. I had already potted it in some garden variety garden soil before we got a truckload of Cliff's Miracle Mix. If it sounds like I'm thrilled with this new dirt, I am, strange as it may seem. Even an old-as-dirt gardener like me can "dig" some new soil.

NN/SOTS: Festival of the First Fruits (of the Summer Season)

I found these bugs having a party, a festival, yesterday afternoon on the first fruits of my yellow pear tomato plant. At first I thought they were assassin bug nymphs--something I've posted about before--which are beneficial insects for the most part, eating pests that chomp on my veggies and flowers. I say for the most part because they also fancy a fine meal like Caterpillar a l'orange Dog, and I now know that those bird-poo-like caterpillars are something special and not to be destroyed. At the citrus seminar I attended in Crestview several weeks ago, when the speaker suggested removal and disposal of the citrus-loving caterpillars, our extension agent spoke up for the poor things and suggested donating the orange dogs to the Panhandle Butterfly House. They grow into those magnificent giant swallowtail butterflies and are expensive to purchase. The speaker was surprised and a bit amused to hear that the Butterfly House would be thrilled to receive what most citrus growers consider a threat to their crop. As you can see here, citrus isn't exactly a trouble-free thing to grow. To get back to what I thought were assassin bugs, though, something did not seem right about these bright red bugs hanging out together and not trying to eat each other. I left them alone for two good reasons. One, it was getting ready to storm, and two, I didn't want to assume that they were on my plants for some evil purpose without doing a little more research.

I know what this stink bug can do to a plant. It will suck the juices right out of it, leaving nothing but dry bones. Would those bright red bugs take care of it for me? Not a chance. They are nymphs of the leaffooted bug, Leptoglossus phyllopus, not a good thing to find in the veggie garden, especially when I'm ready to start enjoying its first fruits of summer in this fine month of May. If I can't control them by picking them off one by one or shaking them en masse into a pan of soapy water, I guess I'll be sharing these first fruits. Of course, if you have any other suggestions, please share them with me, and we'll have something to feast on...

 

Green beans...

Bell pepper

I'd rather not use pesticides to control the pests. There are other assassins which visit the garden--besides the obvious ones--like my spider friend here. I hope she enjoys her own festival of first fruits and that she brings lots of friends to celebrate.

Happy Shavuot (Pentecost)!

Please visit Ramblingwoods.com for this week's Nature Notes/Signs of the Season post and links to other bloggers' nature-related posts.

Noxious Veggies? 'Peas' Say It's Not So!

TOUCHSTONE: "I remember, when I was in love ... the wooing of a peascod [pod] instead of her, from whom I took two cods [pods] and, giving her them again, said with weeping tears, 'Wear these for my sake.' We that are true lovers run into strange capers; but as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature in love mortal in folly."

ROSALIND: "Thou speak'st wiser than thou are ware of."

TOUCHSTONE: "Nay, I shall ne'er be ware of mine own wit till I break my shins against it."

--from William Shakespeare's As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 4--

Our bounty of snow peas lately has SAM filling his pockets full of them when he goes out to the garden. We have been eating them every day for the past several days and sharing them with son and his family. Since I like to know the "skinny" on living lean (i.e., staying healthy in this sick economy), I thought it best to do some research on the benefits of what's been filling our bellies. If you can believe it (I'm still having a hard time digesting this information), certain veggies may be hazardous to your health! They naturally contain chemicals like toxic alkaloids and oxalic acid which interfere with metabolism and upset adequate absorption of vitamins and minerals also present in the veggies. I can still remember my parents insisting that I eat things like brussel sprouts and broccoli (apparently not noxious at all), but no, I would be obstinate. I didn't mind tomatoes, peas, and potatoes, especially fried. If I'd only known then what I know now! Still, I don't think I'll be tearing down my pea or tomato vines, at least not until they're done bearing fruit, and I've already unearthed some potatoes. We had them steamed and served with parsley butter for lunch today. Delicious! I'm inclined to think those noxious veggies might have some good purpose for us. I've been known to have a darker side, but silver linings have always appealed to me.

Last summer SAM and I were fortunate enough to attend an Insect Awareness and Appreciation Day in Illinois and learn from various bug experts who were kind enough to bring along some "props." Monarch butterfly larvae favor milkweed plants for good reason. Asclepius keep them supplied with cardenolide alkaloids which can sicken most vertebrate herbivores that try to feast on the larvae and butterflies. Yes, even though the butterflies eat nectar from a variety of flowers and not milkweed leaves, the toxins are stored (sequestered) in the bodies of the larvae which metamorphose into those beautiful adult forms. Those youngsters are protecting themselves and their adult selves from most predators. I hope my preference for noxious veggies when I was young has that same effect for me now that I'm more "mature." I like to imagine that pathogens (swine flu?) and other noxious elements don't stand a chance.

Ethel Gloves in Training

A very nice gift arrived via the UPS man yesterday afternoon. It had been awaited with much anticipation. Mr. Brown Thumb surprised me a couple of weeks ago with an announcement in one of his posts. He let me know in my comment section that he had something special waiting for me on his blog. A link to one of the Spring Fling sponsors, Ethel Gloves, provided a hint. Wow. I hadn't even entered a contest. The last time I won something was about 20 years ago at a school carnival fundraiser. It was a cake in a cake walk, and I had to buy a ticket to participate. Mr. Brown Thumb's prize sure has that other one beat. And it didn't cost me a thing. He said he wanted to share his bounty of gloves from the sponsor with me and some other bloggers because we had encouraged him in some way. Mr. Brown Thumb had no way of knowing what was going on in my life, but his gift came just in the nick of time. My other gloves had worn out, dry-rotted, and my state of mind recently has been a bit shakier than usual. Maybe it's starting to dry-rot too.


It's funny how things have worked out for me since I started the blog a little over a year ago. Some of the things I had planned for my life did not happen the way they were supposed to. Wah! Okay, enough of that nonsense. Some things did happen that were unexpected but wonderfully so, like the gift from MBT and another one from a special lady in Tennessee. Tina from In the Garden gave me one of her handmade garden markers when we met in New Harmony, Indiana, last autumn. We shared a special afternoon together with our husbands and her son. I'm not sure which gifts I treasure more--the items you see here or the encouragement, friendship, and support they signify.

Since I want these gloves to feel right at home, I took them for a little excursion around the garden. I thought I would ease them in by letting them get a feel for the kind of work they'll be doing soon enough.

These gloves do look like they're capable of withstanding some tough tasks, but the length might not suffice when rose trimming time comes. Most of my roses are the shrub variety, like Knockouts, and here in Florida they require a good haircut at least twice a year. I gave them all a crew-cut back in December when we were home for what we thought was going to be just a visit. June will probably be time for the next round of haircuts by W2W, the local rose barber. And there will surely be bloodletting, only the blood will be this barber's instead of the clients'. Marnie of Lilacs and Roses has a funny post about rose trimming time. She is all too familiar with the havoc those thorns can cause.

The gloves will have plenty of quality time pulling weeds in the flower bed on the east side. They'll also be deadheading these Gerbera daisies every few days. I'm collecting the seeds and hoping to spread them about in various beds when the weather cools off in the fall.

Our baby grapefruit trees probably won't require much glove time. I just thought I'd show off the blossoms which will be finished in a few more days.

Now it's time to get serious with the gloves. It will soon be time to add a new layer of pine straw to the berry patch, and I really hate getting that sticky resin all over my hands. Gloves, I hope you're up to the task.

I love tomatoes, but for some reason I do not like that green plant juice that gets all over my hands when I'm picking the fruit. It stinks and makes my skin itch. These pretty gloves will not stay this clean for much longer. The tag says they're machine washable. I hope so because after a few weeks in the garden they will need it.

There is nothing better than freshly cut broccoli; unless, of course, you don't care for cruciferous vegetables. I seem to remember a recent President had a problem with broccoli, among other things.

The gloves didn't seem to mind taking a tour of the garden and getting oriented to the kinds of tasks they'll soon be assuming. They look so nice right now, I almost don't want to get them dirty. But they look like they're made of sturdy stuff.

"Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education."

--from Puddn'head Wilson's Calendar in Mark Twain's Puddn'head Wilson, 1894--