The Garden Becoming a Closed System
A few happenings of note in the garden. Words will have to suffice, because I am not going out there into the furnace again with a camera. I did my time with hose in hand. I fed and watered the chickens. Watered the parched carrots. Picked lettuce for a big salad (the dressing of which I dripped all over the front of my shirt). I took in the laundry (in the hopes that it might rain). Oh shoot. I should have left the laundry up! Then it would pour buckets.
Anyway…it’s hotter than blue bloody blazes (as my mother would say), and I’m now inside the soundproof cocoon of my house, with the air conditioning at a comfy 78 degrees.
Aaaaanyway…
- Remember the Fava Beans that I so eagerly planted, at least four weeks late? They’re flowering like crazy—have been for two weeks—but they’re not forming beans. They are, however, host to about a gazillion aphids. When I noticed this I reached out to yank one out (with the rest to follow, to feed to the chickens). But seriously? A small voice tinkled in my ear. I’m not writing euphamistically. I mean a tiny, high voice said right in my left ear, “Don’t do that! Let them have it!”
Don’t worry, I’m not going to go all faerie on you, here. Well, not really. I mean, I won’t try to convince you that beings exist on other planes and that they visit and help when we’re open to the input. That’s totally up to you to decide. Let us not judge one another. So, this voice in my ear—whether my subconscious, or a brain fart, or a green-tightsed, winged being the size of my finger—its message made a whole lot of sense. Every other plant in my garden is free of aphids. As a matter of fact, the rest of my garden is positively thriving. I had a picture of what would happen if I took away the aphids’ current, happy environment. Goodbye to the rest of my plants, ones that are already bearing fruit and have no other issues.
- Remember that rabbit problem? I haven’t seen any around lately, and the chard hasn’t been touched by anyone but me (and a few beetles, bastids) in weeks. Yesterday during Lila’s birthday party, an enormous hawk landed in the oak directly behind the garden.
Probably no need to explain that one.
Isn’t nature grand?
"In summer we live out of doors, and have only impulses and feelings, which are all for action, and must wait commonly for the stillness and longer nights of autumn and winter before any thought will subside; we are sensible that behind the rustling leaves, and the stacks of grain, and the bare clusters of the grape, there is the field of a wholly new life, which no man has lived; that even this earth was made for more mysterious and nobler inhabitants than men and women. In the hues of October sunsets, we see the portals to other mansions than those which we occupy."
~Henry David Thoreau
July 10th, 2007 at 4:41 am
I think I just read something about that in Mother Earths News, you plant a decoy plant or something like that to attract pests to that and they l leave your others alone! Sounds you inadvertly did that!
July 10th, 2007 at 7:32 am
I’ve got a weed thats covered with aphids and I don’t dare pull it. Not an aphid in sight anywhere else in the garden.
July 10th, 2007 at 7:38 am
Steven, last year I had a patch of Goldenrod on the edge of the yard that was completely covered with aphids…and I left it be and had none anywhere else in the yard. Towards the end of July we got a ton of ladybugs, and boy did they have a feast.
July 10th, 2007 at 8:05 am
Decoy plant! I’d never heard of that but dang but that it doesn’t make sense!
July 11th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Kelly, that’s cool… what a timely voice to whisper in your ear.
I have heard of such things being done (I think that the books call them “trap crops,” but I like “decoy plant” much better) but haven’t seen it at work in my own garden much. Unfortunately, the aphids seem to go right for the heart (my new ‘Dortmund’ rose!) here.
July 12th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
Okay, I have a sea of six foot tall weeds that are covered with both aphids AND hundreds of ladybugs!! So far my flowers and vegetables are not being bothered, so I had the same thought, minus the voices, and realized that while I need to control the weeds a little better, right now they are providing a great diversion. I love nature!
July 15th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
we lost most of our cabbage to the aphids this year. plenty for the bugs and chickens BOTH.
am TRYING to stay real local but I don’t know what I’d do in my kitchen without GINGER and ORANGES. I slice fresh ginger into a half-gallon of filtered water and squeeze a couple of oranges into it, and then add a dollop of local honey to taste.
We drink this out in the field in the hot sun and it sustains us.
Overall though it’s been a moderate summer here this year. still waiting for the dog days to set in.
made a photo entry on elljay if you want to see how the dry farm crops are coming along.