What did you do in the garden today?

[urbanabanana]

I think my house was built on an ant hill! It's spring here, and they're sending scouts to my kitchen!

Oh my goodness I was afraid I was the only one!

 

[chickadoodles]

Quote: I have been watching them grow. It's wonderful! Everyone keeps talking about ending world hunger but we have so many right here in our country and it is so sad. We need much more of this going on all over the country.

 

[Beekissed]

I have been trying for 2 weeks to get ants out of a large pot so I can plant some potatoes in it. I just poured hot water in the soil to try to kill the ants that are left in the pot. I guess I could through away the new potting soil I had just put in the 10 gallon pot and start over.

Try a little lid full of cornmeal or grits. They will carry it away to their colony and every ant feeds on it. It's pretty corrosive to their digestive tracts and they die from it. Every year we get ants in the house~not the tiny sweet ants, but plain ol' ants~and we use this little trick. In 3-4 days, no ants. During the season we will keep a small lid of this stuff on the counter all the time, just in case a new colony makes an incursion into the interior.

 

[OrganicFarmWife]

Try a little lid full of cornmeal or grits.  They will carry it away to their colony and every ant feeds on it.  It's pretty corrosive to their digestive tracts and they die from it.  Every year we get ants in the house~not the tiny sweet ants, but plain ol' ants~and we use this little trick.  In 3-4 days, no ants.  During the season we will keep a small lid of this stuff on the counter all the time, just in case a new colony makes an incursion into the interior. 

Yes i have heard of this too

 

[lazy gardener]

I make a simple ant bait out of Borax, sugar, and boiling water. But, this recipe with syrup may be even more attracting. It does work!

http://boraxantkiller.com/step-by-step-instructions/

 

[FridayYet]

Thank you for posting that link, LG. I usually purchase the pre filled borax-based ant baits, but this looks better and much more economical.

 

[chickadoodles]

Thank you all so much for these great suggestions! These sound a lot better than ant spray all the time.

 

[MrsMVP]

Today I strung fishing line above either side of my garden to hawk proof it. I am enjoying keeping my chick-teens (1 month and older chicks) in the garden. They are eating all the bugs and they are small enough their poo isn't bothering my plants. A hawk swooped down in our yard between my 7 month old son and I. We were playing in the spring grass and the hawk was chasing a mockingbird!

 

[Beekissed]

Finally getting something more planted in the garden. Today doing several hundred sweet onion~from seed~garlic, lettuce, carrots, broccoli, asparagus, sugar snap peas, and spinach. From here on out I'll be doing succession plantings of lettuce and carrots, lettuce, spinach, etc. I want to grow enough for our consumption, for extended family and also for giving away.

It's almost 70* here today with breezy to gusty wind, so not too bad of planting weather. I'm loving the soft, dark soil under the wood chips and leaves...such a HUGE difference from our usual tan, hard as a rock clay structure. You can clearly see the line where the wood chips and leaves are being composted and pulled into the soil by earthworms, making that layer more crumbly, darker and less compacted. Each year that should be a deeper and deeper layer of loose, rich soil as these chips continue to break down.

And worms....I've never seen so many worms in a garden in my life!

I'm sure that folks out there with good soil are used to seeing a lot of worm life when they dig in their gardens, but I'm not used to seeing this number or size of worms in this soil. I can lay my hand out on the soil and be on top of ten worms, most of them large but some smaller, half grown worms. Every scrape of the hoe to move the chips back is cutting worms, which I hate to do but I accidentally left my rake at my son's house and had to resort to using a hoe today.

I'm really loving this BTE garden method and I'm loving planting with the use of these homemade seed tapes...what a breeze!!!

 

[Beekissed]

Got a very late start due to being old, but managed to get a few things done today that's been nagging on my mind. Got the rest of the onion seed tape planted....that's three sides of the garden and two rows in the garden of mostly onions, with little blocks of garlic every 10 ft. or so.

Got broccoli, sugar snap peas, asparagus, one row of lettuce/carrot seed tape( I want to do succession planting of the lettuce and such this year), and one row of spinach and radishes planted. I'm trying to stack crops this year, so I planted the onions, lettuce and carrots below the tomato trellises, as well as some onions, snap peas, radishes and spinach under the trellis. None of these crops should feed at the same level as the tomatoes, cukes and beans I place on those trellises later on and some of those crops will be done by the time these other plants are big enough to need space. Some of these shorter, earlier crops will benefit from the shade the later, bigger plants can provide.

Now we just need a really nice, soaking rain to get these seeds off to a good start.

I know I keep saying this, but I'm just super psyched over the number and size of the worms that are under these chips.

I'm just so tickled over it and amazed, that I can't stop talking about them!!! I could have just saved my money on those sickly little red wigglers I bought...they truly look anemic and anorexic compared to the huge, fat worms in my garden. My native worms could likely have those wigglers for breakfast and not even pause for air.

I feel so very, very blessed to have evidence of a better soil structure under these chips and leaves....those worms are evidence of a growing web of life in that soil and that can only get better from here on out. I was just praising God all day for the worm load in the garden, for the fungal growth I could see in the chips, for the dark, moist layer of compost being deposited on top of my horrible clay soil.

Now...it's time for that excruciating wait and the inexpressible joy when I see the first seedlings appear.....