Hosta to Replace Romaine Lettuce

A rope placed around the garden will keep out snakes or in warm climes, planting lemon grass, Cymbogon, will achieve the same. Forget it--neither work. Nor will placing plastic jugs of water keep dogs off lawns or sprinkling sugar or baking soda on the soil produce sweet tomatoes. Down Under, Australians have recommended boiled onions to cure worms in children--see your family physician instead. And French-Canadian lumberjacks believed that any woman who passed near a jack pine, Pinus banksiana, would become permanently sterile--but there remains no shortage of Quebecois.

Diversion No. 1 One thing about your garden that is used by burglars to target your home, revealed The Daily Express: If the lawn is freshly-mown and weed-free, then burglars will question whether a house is in fact vacant, residents on vacation. How far back do your veggies and herbs date? At least as far as the Emperor Charlemagne, who instructed the managers of the royal estates in Capitulare de villis on vegetables for "Salads": cucumbers, melons, lettuce, parsley, radishes, celery along with "Roots": carrots, parsnips, onions, leeks, garlic and "Pot-herbs": mint, chicory, endive, savory, cabbages, beets But you have no veggie garden and are missing romaine lettuce, another possible toxic offering from south o' the border? Try crispy, crunchy--and edible--hosta, as suggested recently by Jack Wallington in The Sunday Telegraph. No wonder slugs and snails love them he says, while also recommending beating them to it by picking a third of emerging shoots like asparagus in spring leaving the rest for the yummy foliage. Diversion No. 2 In one Vermont village bordering Canada, the Trump-Trudeau rift has been jarring. Residents spend their lives straddling the border, and many like it that way. On Church Street in Derby Line the Canadian birder is delineated with nine pots of pink and purple petunias and a sign order people not to cross, The New York Times reported. The idea of an underground or pit greenhouse received some prominence recently with the news that some Bolivian farmers on high plains are building these. Known by the Aymara Indian word walipini, a place of warmth, it also describes a more modest earth-sheltered cold frame or pit frame. The latter probably more amenable to upholders and protectors of municipal bylaws. Essentially it is an excavated growing unit covered with sloping glass or translucent plastic frame that is finding some favour in northern climes.

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Diversion No. 3 Dogs can detect agricultural diseases early, reports the journal HortTechnology. Laurel wilt disease has had a devastating effect on the avocado industry in South Florida in past harvest seasons. Early detection can be instrumental in deterring widespread infection. The use of scent-discriminating dogs has shown to offer the avocado industry legitimate signs of hope in the fight against the spread of the disease through their groves. A broth made from tomato leaves was used in 19^th century to destroy aphids and bed bugs. It may still work--but rather unsurprisingly, for the foliage is poisonous. So will be the saucepan it is prepared in. If you need a natural herbicide and live surrounded by olive trees, you are in luck though. Unprepared raw olives are inedible. Bitterness in olives is due to an evil-tasting glucoside called oleuropin, which, since the days of ancient Rome, has been leached out of the fruit by prolonged soaking in a lye solution, explained Rebecca Rupp. The extracted oleuropin was used by the Romans as a weedkiller, a leather lubricant, and axle grease. Diversion No. 4 Japanese knotweed 'can be eaten into submission' suggests The Daily Telegraph. Despairing homeowner should stop laying down weedkiller and instead create some tasty knotweed recipes, advises former Gardeners' World presenter Alys Fowler. "Japanese knotweed is edible. In Japan it is a delicacy," she said. July is supposedly Horseradish Month, the news of which may leave you breathless. Specific days include Build a Scarecrow Day (2^nd), Carnation Day (4^th), Don't Step on a Bee Day (10^th), Mango Day (22^nd) and, no joking, Take Your Plants for a Walk Day (27^th). Tell an Old Joke Day falls on 24^th, complimenting International Joke Day, the 1^st July which Canadians celebrate as Canada Day, the date back in 1867 when the Dominion of Canada was created. And let's not forget 'Tell an Old Joke Day' on 24^th July:

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Old gardeners never die, they just spade away, although some throw in the trowel Old gardeners never die, they just weed away Old gardeners never die, they just go to seed Old gardeners never die, they become old rakes Old gardeners never die, they just become non-compost mentis Then again, it has been said . . . Gardeners are like doctors--they can bury their mistakes Gardeners don't grow old, they go to pot Gardeners have the best dirt Gardeners are expert in beds Gardener are expert propagators Gardeners are experts in many fields Gardeners till it like it is Gardeners enjoy a hoe-down Gardeners rake it in And of course there are garden implements . . . Ivanhoe: Russian garden implement Enough you cry . . . so why did you click in to start with? More terrible puns follow!