Shari's Garden

Always looking forward, I am beginning to take notes on things to do in next years garden. I would forget my own name if I didn’t have it written down, note taking is something that I must do for almost everything.

Next year I will not plant so many squash plants, we have more than we are eating. I will also plant them where they are more easily tended. I put the near a fence this year, now I am having difficultly searching out squash bugs because I can’t get to the back side of the plants. Next year, they go out toward the middle of the garden.

The tomato plants are finally big enough to get some blossoms, but no tomatos yet. I started the seeds in the ground, it has been slow growing this year.  Next year I will try starting the tomato plants indoors, maybe I will get tomatos earlier.

Also, next year I will get some NoLo Grasshopper bait. NoLo bait works so well in controlling grasshoppers without poision. I have used it before but waited to late to use it this year. If I had taken notes and read them last year I would have remembered to get some bait!!

On a bad note, I got bitten by a harvest ant on my toe yesterday. How many ways can you say, "It hurts!" My foot is nicely swollen and itchy this morning. Robert says that I am allergic to the bites, I am beginning to think he might be right.

Hope you all have a perfectly, perfect day.

The other troubles are squash bugs. I had always thought they were called "squash bugs" because they live on the squash plants, but now I believe it is because you have to squash them to get rid of them. Our morning garden ritual is something like this:

1. One of the kids waters the squash plant.

2. I stand at the ready, with my gloves on, wait for the bugs to come to the surface, they don’t like water.

3. When a bug is spotted, I grab and mash. EWWWWW YUCK.

It is the only way I can control them. As for the ones that manage to lay eggs, we search the leaves for eggs and smash or tear out the part of the leaf that has the eggs. The leaf goes into a zip lock bag to be disposed of. So far we have only seen a few nymphs on the plants and they are easy to, well, smash.

Otherwise, we have a nice garden this year. It is the first we have done in many years, there is lots of trial and error but we are learning and planning on having a better garden next summer.

Here are some pictues of my youngest daughter’s flower garden, with the bird bath we set up a few weeks ago. It amazes me how much the Morning Glory and the other flowers have grown since the first pictures were taken.