According to late owner of the famous Victoria, B.C., garden Princess Abkhazi, “There is a Chinese proverb which says that to be happy for a week you take a new concubine. To be happy for a month, you kill a pig, and to be happy all your life you build a garden.” She concluded, “ I can't vouch for the first two, but the last is true.”
Then along come the slugs of your salad days.
Hairy chinch bug damage usually peaks in late July to mid-August, warns turf expert Pam Charbonneau. In a cool August, hairy chinch bugs will move to their overwintering sites by mid- to late-August, she says, but if the month stays warm, it could take until early September for them to start their winter migration.
Alas and alack – what to wallop them with, now not only many a municipality, but the entire province is about to become suppressio veri to dread chemical pesticides?
St. Augustine once asked, “Were Adam and Eve troubled by passion before they ate of the tree of knowledge?” Likewise, were gardeners pothered by pests and pathogens before the advent of powerful pesticides?
Natural solutions, naturally, cry acolytes from the feet of St. Suzuki led by the High Priest Dalton McGuinty. Many and wonderous are they, the natural solutions that are. Crush raw garlic, blend with water, strain through coffee filter paper; no, you musty boil the cloves for an hour first claim others. Beat hot jalapeño peppers in the blender, strain and spray is another solution. Adding a few drops of pure dishwashing soap such as ‘Ivory Snow’ will make any spray ‘stick’ better, we hear elsewhere. There are even some who claim this diluted with water is an acceptable substitute for commercial insecticidal soap. In fact old granny used to throw the cooled dishwater over aphid-infested roses – and it worked, especially on the cats beneath.
Seekers of the truth will be happy to know all these work to deter and destroy pests. And beneficial insects, also. Just like many of those now verboten chemical concoctions. Squishing aphids and similar oft-bodied intruders between thumb and forefinger is environmentally sound, as is sucking the little brutes off with a hand-held cordless vacuum. Pruning off diseased growth is equally satisfactory, also.
But if you seek ‘natural’ DYI controls, check out those listed below, gleaned from files old and new. Most actually seem to work. For a while.
Planted a vegetable garden this spring? Round about now you will doubtlessly be in one with Ogden Nash, who observed that he, “On bended knee, perspiring clammily/I scrape the soil to feed my family.” Did he know a few little tricks with tomatoes? Add saved eggshells to water in the blender and reduce to slurry. Poured just once around each tomato plant, it will reduce the risk of fruit suffering calcium deficiency, which results in the disorder ‘blossom-end rot,’ a corky patch around the end each fruit.
Feeding each plant a teaspoonful of Epsom salts every second week will supply much-needed magnesium, a vital element in photosynthesis. Sprinkle carefully on the soil and water in carefully, avoiding splashing the foliage, which will turn a deep, rich green as a result.
Lastly, tie stems just below each fruit truss to a sturdy supporting stake. Discarded pantyhose are splendid in this recycling role although how bachelor gardeners obtain such is best left to their natural ingenuity.
Bugs seldom seriously bother healthy vegetable gardens. Leave Ogden Nash to ponder that “jeering insects think it cute/To swallow my spray and spit my fruit.” He was, as he observed, a horticultural ignoramus, whose garden would never make him famous.
Summer is known in the newspaper trade as the Silly Season. All kinds of weird and wonderous things reportedly happen. This year, even before summer had officially begun, the backcountry of B.C. came through with a whale of a tale.
Failing to find solace with the local human rights commission, a local ethnic group took to taking strange and terrible revenge. Their victim, a visiting eastern interior decorator (VEIC), was accused of defaming a guest of the group, a gardening expert of great renown. Spread-eagled face down betwixt four stakes, the VEIC was forced to watch a wonderous and rare local B.C. growth, whose sharp and fast-growing tip would soon stab his sternum. Botanists have named it Uncus horribilis but knowledgeable gardeners prefer Mark Cullen’s Revenge. At the time of writing, threats are being made to take the whole matter to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Summertime has also been defined as the season when there’s nothing much on radio, TV or most girls at the beach. Or for that matter on the gardeners’ minds as, with most chores complete, they can lie back in the seat, beverage at hand, and contemplate life. Unless they are from Vancouver – there, they don’t tan in summer.
They rust.
