Thinking Aloud; About Water

“People mistakenly assume that their thinking is done by their head; it is actually done by the heart which first dictates the conclusion, then commands the head to provide the reasoning that will defend it.”

Anthony de Mello quotes

Whenever I spend quality time in the big outdoors, either walking around my neighborhood or a local park for an hour or so, I seem to garner a sense of purpose and clarity and, inevitably this leads to a nugget of a good idea. Since I don’t walk with my iPod, I am not distracted by my favorite tunes and notice things I would otherwise “tune out.” 

Today the “Friends of Jupiter Beach” (FJB), organized a “Beach Clean Up Day,” and so my youngest son and I volunteered to pick the trash up off our local beach. Having gotten fitted out with long tongs, gloves and plastic bags, we set off on our mile trek along the beach working as a team, and within a team, to pick up plastic caps, cigarette butts, bottles and goodness knows what else other folks cannot be bothered to take home with them. 

For our efforts, the wonderful people of FJB - who have been organizing this monthly event for 16 years - hosted a great breakfast and lots of coffee. The coffee was very welcome since it was a mite chilly on the beach at 8am this morning. Here in South Florida, we are having some blustery weather (no rain unfortunately), and the sea was crashing about bringing all sorts of debris up on shore.

When I got home at 11 am, I noticed my in-ground and potted tomatoes were drooping with thirst. I had only watered them the day before yesterday! Since it is our dry season until about May, this should come as no surprise to me. My hose however is a 50 foot monster to wrestle into the vegetable garden, and I really need to get with the program and install a real water system to collect roof run-off. With the exception of my vegetables, I mostly stick with Florida friendly shrubs and perennials that don’t need 5 gallons of water daily to survive our dry spells. 

For a while now, I am in the habit of burying an inverted, plastic, pint size, drinking bottle when I plant a new pepper or tomato in a pot.  Cut the bottom out and facing up, (neck down) with only about an inch of plastic above the mulch line. When the plant gets big enough and the roots deep enough, I water it via the upturned plastic bottle, that way I don’t soak all the leaves (which can lead to leaf mold/fungus) and, I know the water is going to the roots directly; plus I can control the level of nutrient solution.

The plants in the ground are more difficult to do this for. The squirrels, critters and my dogs are always prowling around and before I know it, the upturned bottle has been either disturbed or just plain hidden with mulch, bird seed and dirt.

After I gave the in-ground tomats and peppers a good soaking I was horrified to see how much run off had leached into the surrounding soil. We don’t irrigate our lawn, it’s one of our peeves that such a prolific waste of water is used on lawns to keep them green. But there’s my environmental rant out the way and onto my idea. 

Almost out of sight

Two holes in the seam

So how to reduce water wastage, and try to give the plants enough time to absorb the water? I took a gallon milk jug and poked two holes in the crease of the bottom seam. Then I filled it up about an inch with marble rocks, but you could use old marbles, lava stones, gravel, grit or even shellrock to get the same filtering effect. I placed the jug as close as I could to the stem of the tomato and I used some bricks to keep them in place - although the rocks weighing the jug down should help. I mixed up a nutrient solution and used a funnel to pour the water/nutrients into the neck of the jug. It took about a minute for the water to disperse out of the bottom of the jug. The reasoning behind this idea, was that I am hoping the dripping effect allows the plant time to soak up more water; as opposed to most hose water running off our sandy/dusty soil. The more holes in the bottom, the quicker the dispersion. After a week or so the leaves will mostly cover the jugs so they are not so conspicuous. 

If you have any thoughts or have tried this and can improve upon it let me know!

Hanging Basket

I use this drip method but on a smaller scale for my hanging baskets, one of which is filled with Purple Petunias, Nasturtians and Giant Snowflake (Sutera cordata). See the yellow in the middle of the basket? It’s a painted, paper cup with holes in the bottom. I water the basket via the paper cup on a daily basis. The basket is lined with plenty of newspaper to help keep some moisture and the potting soil in place.

Who Needs Violets When You Can Have Lettuce?

Last but not least, I needed the potting soil space where some of my lettuces were. A lettuce root ball is only small so I moved them to jelly jars (with the soil still attached to root ball), and they are on a shelf in my sunny laundry room. I will continue to feed them egg shell water until I want to harvest them. I do not know which variety they are because they came in a pack of Burpee Organic Mix. None of the pictures online match with any of the lettuce shown here. Could be dandelion for all I know, but they are still great!

Egg-Shell Water is empty shells (not washed out), crushed and submerged in regular tap water. I pour very hot water over fresh shells before keeping in the fridge, but the lettuce don’t mind the cold, eggy shower each day!

Gone...... in 96 Hours

Ok, not quite the movie "Gone in 60 Seconds"- but 96 hours is how long it took for the nocturnal nosher to munch, his or her or their way through my 6 cabbages and nibble the tops off the broccoli, 4 nights. All Gone. See previous blog "Oh Cabbages," for my woeful story.

As Yoda might say "Dejected, I am." Putting it mildly, I am or even "Got the scarecrow, I should have."

I have been so absorbed looking for the owl statue we used to have, along with trying out my homemade recipes to keep the critters off my vegetables, I forgot about my blog and how you might have been on tenterhooks (joking here) to see if the latest mad experiment of garlic pepper, hot pepper flakes etc., worked....well it didn't. Back to the drawing board, or potting shed methinks. It has been quite an exciting two weeks, what with the leak behind the dishwasher ruining the gypsum wall, and the lost dog we found.

If that wasn't enough she·nan·i·gans: as in: Secret or dishonest activity or mischief;

for one gardener to handle, all the nasty, little, lubber grasshoppers hatched, and when I say I have   had about a hundred.........kidding I am not.

Those Little "Lubbers"

I was determined not to use toxic pesticides in my garden and so I poured vinegar on them, then doused them with the hose set to "JET" stream, and all to no avail. They bounced right back, all perky and determined to eat my broccoli, potato, spanish needle, peppers and Crinum Lillies, I swear I heard them chuckling and one of them even winked at me in contempt, or maybe it just had a little bit of vinegar in its eye....

In case you are not familiar with these delightful insects, they eventually morph into something that is at a minimum 2" long, and that's just the male Lubber, the female can get to 6". When they are full grown they are invincible and nothing appears to eat them - apparently they give off a bad odor and hiss at their attackers. Check out this link for more info.

http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/orn/lubber.htm

Here is another useful website for you all, for identification of pests, advice etc.

http://davesgarden.com/

Wednesday morning and at least 30 baby lubbers (a riot almost) had taken up residence on my Bell Pepper, complete with large chew holes.

Anole Lurking for Lubbers

I know that the anoles and other lizards snap them up, but they will do so much damage by then. You know I need that food for my family (Publix has a nice line of organic veg, but I worked for this). Putting my squeamish side, well um aside, I devised a solution to my problem. Dark humor here folks. I filled a very large bucket 1/3rd way with water, and just scooped them in where they swam (breast-stroke I believe it was) and tried to climb out. Sorry guys and gals, that is not happening. So I am ashamed to admit that I did actually add a little bit of Borax laundry powder (this is war after all and we all know Cockroaches and Fleas also hate Borax). And ....for good measure I gave it a vigorous stir. Well it does not give me any pleasure at all to say they were all dead within an hour. These little pesky beasts will eat EVERYTHING they can until they morph to the next stage.

There is a lot of hype about Borax out there on the web. For sensible and useful tips on Borax: http://greencomponents.com/2009/04/23/eco-friendly-borax/

Tomats on Window Sill

On a brighter note, the 20 various tomato plants are doing well - both those in pots and in the ground. The only problem is 50% of the 50 ripening tomatoes have little peck marks in them. Since this is a yearly occurrence, I usually plant twice the number of tomato plants we actually need. I know the birds are hungry and are beginning the nesting ritual, but at this rate I'll have nothing left. So I remove some of the larger and still green tomatoes and put them on a sunny windowsill to redden up. Problem solved. Once the birds have finished nesting they slow down pecking the green tomats........................ and immediately start on the red ones. Also the sugar snap peas are doing really well, I think they are so graceful.

Sugar Snap Peas

 I did find a way of keeping the nocturnal visitors off the rest of the garden. I placed used aluminum pie dishes filled with stones here and there. When the critter steps on the pie dish it makes a rattling noise and scares them off. Then of course........there is my secret weapon. A bobcat has just been spotted today in our yard. Last May I saw a really big one jump the fence, the little one we saw today might be a yearling. Very exciting stuff!! Have a wonderful weekend.

Oh Cabbages!

I have two updates and a new finding to share with you.

The first update refers back to my previous blog A Special Avian Visitor and Two'fers - here. In the content of that blog I mentioned that, by only removing the outside leaves of red leaf lettuce, you might prolong your harvest, and prevent bolting. Since then by following my method, I can share with you a picture of lettuce I snipped for lunch today. 

5th Harvest

This is my fifth batch of fresh lettuce from my original and still thriving 7 plants. I also learned that the other benefit of this method appears to be that, although lettuce has a compact and shallow root system, the mature lettuces can go 3 or 4 days without needing additional water, vs. coaxing along additional baby lettuces. Just a thought.

Patio Salad Bowl 

I also have a salad bowl of the varieties: Grand Rapids, Red Salad Bowl, Oakleaf and Prizeleaf.  I am experimenting with them in the same way as the red leaf. PS. The red tag in the photo is a potato plant, and a reminder to myself not to add those  leaves to our salad anytime soon.

The 2nd update pertains to my blog on saponins and Quinoa  - here. A gardening blogger asked me to update my findings. The results were that using the water soluble, bitter, trace elements of the grain Quinoa did seem to prevent caterpillar damage. Unfortunately, the rabbits or raccoons were not deterred and actually had the cheek to chomp a couple down to stumps, along with my six fledgling broccoli plants.

My new finding: As dusk settled on the garden I was racking my brain for a quick fix to the nocturnal feastings. I grabbed the garlic powder, paprika and hot, red pepper flakes and liberally sprinkled this on the leaves of the remaining plants. Two days later those plants remain intact, but we will see if that continues to be the case. If anyone has any additional "Bunny-Stay-Off" remedies, I would be thrilled to hear about them. My husband suggested a scarecrow! Eww.. too creepy!

Chomped To A Stump!

The Remaining Crop

Lemon Boy

The Lemon Boy tomato shares a 25 gallon container with a Bell Pepper. When I planted these 2 little sprigs it was almost a joke that something 3" tall would grow so gigantic and spill over the sides of the container. My not-so-secret was this. I did not have enough Miracle Grow potting mixture to fill this container. 25 galls is a LOT of container space. I did have a duplicate-size, half filled, compost pot, comprising of both freshly discarded vegetable stumps, leaves etc., along with completely rotten vegetables, egg shells and newspapers. So I just used that (compost pot) and topped off with the potting soil. The tomato has dozens and dozens of flowers and very healthy leaves. Note to self: do this more often.

Last but not least. If my links to previous blogs do not connect you, I do apologize - I am still a fledgling blogger and cannot get my blog page to behave itself sometimes!

Rain.......At Last!!!

Designer Rain Buckets

I was very happy to hear yesterday that we could expect some rain. A couple of times I saw huge black clouds closing in only to watch them waft away further east. Then finally, yesterday afternoon it poured. Luckily I had put out my designer rain buckets to catch the overflow from the roof. I know ....... I really should invest in a proper rain bucket, but in the meantime these will have to do.

Before the rain came, we had a little excitement here in the garden. If you read my previous blog, you will know all about my "prettying" up of my pots and wicker chair. At that time, my son and I wanted to paint the butterfly puddling dish, that the butterflies have never used for puddling purposes. However, when we turned the dish over - what do we see?  The dish is located right next to the Butterfly Weed.

What Have We Here?

We carefully replaced the dish and I took a daily peek until it turned almost purple on Weds. I don't know much about butterfly life cycles but I was pretty sure something was about to happen. And Thursday...ta dah! We took lots of photos quickly and left the poor little thing alone so it could dry its wings and be on its way hither and thither. And, I guess I will leave the dish alone and just enjoy its um, rustic charm as a butterfly nursery.

Newly Hatched

Drying Wings

Something Old, Something New, and Something Blue Sky

Ok, who pushed the Spring Button? Here in South Florida, Spring is trying to make an appearance and nature being well, uh natural, is responding to the siren call.

Marglobes

Late Friday afternoon, I am buzzing around in the car with my 14 year old son and the radio is all yackity-yack, so, he says “I have a song I know you’ll like mom,” and he plugs his IPod into my car’s system (inward sigh here). To my surprise the oldie by George Harrison “Here Comes The Sun,” begins to play, and you know what it’s soooo good to have an IPod sometimes - in addition to an intuitive kid.

Singing along to this 30 + year old tune, I gradually felt an increased spring in my step - which resulted in the car lurching forward a few times, but it was in time to the music so that's okay. My spirit was lightened, and the New Year yawned before me with fresh gardening projects, healthy resolutions and, naturally, the inevitable spring cleaning of house and yard.

Saturday morning dawns clear, cool and fresh.

Here Comes The Sun!

 After the pre-requisite 2 cups of coffee I am newly enthused with cleaning the stucco of our home, which is supposed to be a pale Saffron color, but now the scales have fallen from my new, spring eyes appears to be almost Buttercup yellow. The flower bed bordering our front porch withers under my glowering gaze. With the invasive Mexican Petunias and leggy Pinwheel Jasmine, I just know it is time for a change.  5 hours later with the stucco scrubbed, the windows sparkling and a bare flowerbed with a lone Pinwheel and Sky Vine remaining, I am bone tired but uplifted. I did manage to find the energy however for an immediate check on our budget to see if more spring fever impulses are able to be funded.

Lemon Boy

Sunday morning arrives and my back aches but hey, I have to drive my kid and his friend to play paintball out west, 40 minutes away. On my way back home, “ELO” (that’s Electric Light Orchestra for you guys and gals under 30 years of age) is on the radio singing “Mr. Blue Sky,” which quite obviously is a subliminal message to take a detour to the big outlet and get a couple of hanging baskets to hang on my sparkling, light, saffron colored porch. While I am there,  without any additional musical prompting I might add, I pick up some trailing, scented, blue petunias and a couple of cans of blue spray paint to gussy up my tired, old planters and maybe the old wicker couch we have out in the yard on one of the meandering pathways in the back yard.

Looking Good

Later that afternoon, with a limp in my step, a worn but satisfied spirit and a definite crick in my back, I am sitting on my back patio. The birds are competing for air wave space with their singing and cheeping, complete with the weird bamboo-sound rattling from Mr. Blue Jay gang  (who can imitate the hawks as well), and lots of “cha, cha, cha,” (exclusive to the Woodpeckers) and, while I am watching them chasing each other around in the yard, over nesting boxes, territory and food, the radio begins to play a Bill Withers song that I have not heard for a very long time; “Lovely Day.” 

Fellow gardeners and bloggers alike, I rest my case. Have a wonderful weekend.

A Special Avian Visitor and Two’fers

Here’s a quiz for you. What bird is a petite 4 inches long, has a bright blue head, red belly and a lime green patch on its back? No, not from your 6 year old niece’s “Painting By Numbers” book. Answer: A Painted Bunting. Last week, just as it was beginning to get dark, a male Painted Bunting arrived to feed. When I saw all the bright colors I could not believe my eyes. It took my youngest son to track down the identity of this elusive and shy little bird on Wikipedia. Although the Painted Bunting is a native of North America and belongs to the Cardinal family, it is sadly near threatened due to loss of habitat. The Painted Bunting likes to eat millet, small seeds but will also nosh on spiders, caterpillars and other insects. Much to our delight, he comes back everyday now and, although I couldn’t get close enough to take a decent picture, you can go to the Wikipedia link to check out this gorgeous little fella! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painted_Bunting

I will hotly refute any suggestion that I am a cheapskate or anything, but I am mildly frugal, and I especially like getting two for one. “Two’fer” examples in my gardening world are quantified as getting two or three harvests from one plant (duh! not beans or tomatoes) or using something for a nifty gardening purpose when it was purchased as something else. Money saving examples that gardeners in S. Florida, currently growing lettuce and broccoli, can take advantage of are as follows. I planted leaf lettuce last November and all plants have matured. Can we eat 8 lettuce heads before they all bolt? Here is the solution. When making salad take leaves from around the outside of the lettuces and maybe a few inside leaves, use scissors here for sterile cuts. Leave 4 little biddy leaves at the heart of the lettuce and continue watering. Within a week you will notice that those 4 leaves are beginning to grow with another cluster of smaller leaves inside and you will have a 2nd harvest, and maybe even a 3rd!

2nd harvest lettuce

Same deal with broccoli folks, when you have harvested the head don’t compost the whole plant yet. With just the stem left the broccoli will develop broccolets (a made up word) from the side stem which are tiny offerings for your stir fry. Wow! are we saving some money here or what!

broccolets

Who needs peat pots? Not I. Try cardboard egg boxes with holes punched in the bottom filled with some nice cheap perlite and mix in some potting soil. Put the seeds in and water with a home made watering can. My light and oh so portable “watering can” is a sour cream container with lots of little nail holes...works like a charm. When the seeds develop into sprouts transfer to larger pots with a plastic spoon, or grandma’s best silver if you prefer. And talking about seeds and sowing, guess what is super handy to keep seeds dry and will also dispense one seed at a time.......a toothpick dispenser. Dixie brand works for me. 

And finally, mad scientist that I am (not really), I recently became enamored with Quinoa - a delicious grain that the Inca civilization cultivated. The package instructions direct you to wash the grains really well - because apparently Quinoa has a coating substance called saponin, a bitter tasting compound that repels insects from eating the grain. Really? Bitter tasting insect repellant? So, when I washed the Quinoa grains I just happened to have a handy-dandy pot underneath to save the water soluble saponin. Then, because the white cabbage butterflies loitering in my garden have not escaped my beady eye, I sprinkled this water over my fledgling cabbages to see if the worms and caterpillars will be repelled. I will keep you posted on my progress fellow gardeners. Have a great weekend.

Now It Makes 'Scents!'

Crinum Lily

Today, I was reminded that long forgotten scents can and do evoke powerful memories. While walking I detected the sweet and pleasantly, pungent smell of warm hay and horses. Curiosity piqued, I took deeper breaths and remembered my horse orientated childhood, then I turned the corner and saw a horse happily grazing in a front yard. 

Walking home I reflected on the memory trigger. Do garden lovers unconsciously choose scented trees, shrubs, annuals and perennials in their yards that might not have the identical odor, but come pretty close to that linked to a pleasant memory?

7 years ago I was given a Crinum Lily which we planted and forgot. One day I could smell something amazing in the yard and re-discovered the thriving Crinum with a towering and magnificent, pink colored flower. Its delicious combo-aroma of honeysuckle, rain and pears transported me back 35 years across the Atlantic Ocean to an urban garden with a mature, rambling honeysuckle. The Crinum was promptly replanted closer to the house and we have had many ‘pups’ from that one plant. After a good rainfall, the flower stem almost appears overnight and its scent is both sweetest and strongest at night, which might suggest it attracts bats and moths. 

For a long time resident of Florida, the ultimate aroma-induced happiness moment has to be the heady-sweetness of orange blossoms. For me the scent of those white, waxy blooms wafting from our tree, conjures up earlier years of summer vacations. Back then we travelled north on I95 with our young boys and past the miles of acres of orange groves in Martin County. And, although I have not seen a bluebell patch in 25 years, in a quiet reflective moment I can still recall the heady and deeply soothing aroma of those residents of England’s deeply shaded, and damp woodland glades. I am not likely to find a bluebell patch in sub-tropical Florida anytime soon but I’ll keep my nose to the ground and hold out for a scentsational-double that can hold its own in my garden of aromatic memories. Having said that I can assure you I won't be getting a horse anytime soon, they are just too expensive to feed!