Growing my first garden - suggestions...

but beer is more fun.

I think I will try the egg shells - I will also look out as this is the first slug I've seen around. I know my mom had issues with snails and slugs, but I haven't seen them so much around my yard before. I think I might have carried from some flowers I had - I had the herbs and flowers near each other and I had seen some slugs in with the flowers. So I am hoping this is isolated.

But the egg shells may help.

Do you meat Meta or Mega? I swear by both Meta products and Vancouver is slug country - we get them up to 6 or 7" long. The dry weather form comes in pellets and you sprinkle them around; the wet is flakes and you heap them in small piles. Works like nothing else I've used. I do like the crushed eggshells a lot, but how many eggs can a body eat?

are they not diatom earth? Thast what we had no success using.

Linkat, we don't have many slugs here, I can attest to the monsters in the Vancouver area though. Huge.
But, if I can suggest one thing, amend the soil. Put a ton of leaves, grass cutting, manure, straw, compost, whatever, just put a lot of stuff in the beds. Next year, you'll have a jungle.

You can make a sound with your lips and tongue. just move them about like youd be saying Mnyah Mnay (except your just do this silentky with your lips and tongue)

THATS what a banana slug sound s like when its sliding across the leaves at night and you have a window ajar . I had a small apartment that I stayed at in Portland (where banana slugs also live)"Jesus were they loud. Has anyone ever tried eating one of them in a garlic fond gravy?

True.

I frown, why isn't the bench in the middle, I'm prissy that way.

Anyway, in one there were irises, of many colors and blooming times, in two there were many many daylilies, screaming daylilies, also of diff times, and in the fourth, artichokes and this and that.

Why didn't I take more photos. Oh well. These bring memories..
that's (past the bed on the right) a hydrangea (forget name, light yellow green, not in the bed but by the "hedge".

Memories. I was about to be hired at the Salk Institute, interviewed by a person who was crazed (I heard) about diatoms. He liked me ok (I was just then out of a local place, Scripps, not the fancy part) but I was in a variety of messes in my life then and the one that got kicked out was thinking of myself working with diatoms.

Just think, I could bore you all now about diatoms...................................

You can fend off the bunnies if you spread a line of blood meal around the perimeter of the bed. They won't cross it and the nitrogen from the blood meal works wonders on green leafy plants.

I've used the coyote urine for deer repellent and it works fine. It don't like using it on eatables though. It works fine for things like hostas (deer candy) and other perennials/ornamentals, but I prefer shards of strong smelling soap (like Irish Spring) shaved around my eatables. For a topical spray that doesn't smell to high heaven I've switched to a product called Deer Out. It's a mint/pepper spray that doesn't smell like coyote urine and the deer leave it alone.


Have fun with your new space! Gardening out in nature can be a challenge, but it's still rewarding.

I might have to try that blood meal - also I put the urine on the rocks around the garden - but I might look for the deer out.

I just wonder who has the bad job of collecting coyote urine.

good idea - I can plan that for the fall.

Anyone had any success in keeping the locust and leafhopper populations under control in their gardens? If so, what did you do or use? Is trying to control them organically an exercise in futility?


Seems to be getting worse with every year of drought here in ABQ. They come in swarms and just strip all greenery from almost any plant except the pines.

leafhoppers are a bitch an I don't use any pesticides in the veggie garden. What I do do is to mix up a germicidal soap with a bit of homemade fertizer made of 1C Household mmonia, about a 1/2 C "Naval Jelly " (for phosphorus) and about 1/4 C of K lye (potash lye). Add the germicidal sop and the rest into a 5 gal plstic bucket and let it sit for a day (take a ph strip and get it to around neutral (add more water if its above 8 or below 6) I then add another 1/2 of soap flakes nd get it foamy or slimy. PUT THAT in a sprayer and make sure you get the mix on the leaves. Itll act as a foliar feed as well and its more organic even though its got some low concentrations of some nasty household chemicals. Ive gotten my leaf hopper problems down by collecting all the praying mantid nests I cn find along the pasture boundaries and I put em on stakes in my gardens during late winter. Now weve got bazillions of these gute little mantids. Of course mantids are voracious omnivores. They will eat the good bugs too. But, its a small price

What type of germicidal soap do you use? And, what's naval jelly? Never heard of that.

Put some beer in small cans, like from tuna, around your plants, and you will soon find out how many snails and slugs you have around--they love the stuff.

You can also sink glasses or larger cans into the ground and fill them with beer so you don't have to refill as often.

I have found beer to be very effective in killing slugs and snails, and I really couldn't smell it in the open air.

As was also suggested to you, some plants help to keep unwanted critters away from other plants. I always plant marigolds around my tomato plants for that reason.

Here's some info on what you shouldn't use if you want to keep your dog safe
http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/781/

And here's some more useful tips for dealing with slugs and snails.
http://gardenofeaden.blogspot.com/2009/01/what-are-safe-organic-alternatives-to.html

naval jelly is the common word for

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_jelly

I don't mean that sardonically, it's just pink stuff to me.

I get some stuff at the Amish Wally Mart. It is mostly a soap but with cinnamon oil in it.
Osso took care of the naval jelly. Its a great sources of Phosphoru and those 3 kitchen chemicals will mak you gallons of fertilizer soliution that will cost you about 1/10 what Miracle Grow or Ozmocote cots.
I grow my stuff as naturally as I can but Im certainly ot an "organic farmer of my crops". Out in alfalfa fields , when I get leaf hopper, I bring in the big guns like SEVEN or even tougher stuff like GRAMAXON. (I don't hve an applicators license so I rent an Amishman for a day and have him spray alfalfa as soon as we bale it after a cutting.Leaf Hoppers can cost about 500$ an acre for ALfalfa second cutting.

I'm very happy - my cherry tomato plants are growing very tall and one has three buds on it already. They seem very happy.

I haven't seen any more slugs around so maybe it was my transfering from my flowers I left sitting out in their pots too long. I hadn't seen snails or slugs around my yard. I think the biggest thing we have is spiders - everytime I go outside I walk into a spider web. I've never lived anywhere there seemed to be so many.

But I think this evening I might try the beer thing just to see if any show up. I will get to drink what is left of the beer too. I won't have enough beer there to cause alcohol poising to my dog. I wonder if he would like it. When I was kid my older brother being the cruel being he was (and still can be) - poured beer in my dogs water dish. The dog actually went and barked at it - I think the bubbles in it tickled his nose. He never actually went and drank any of it - thank goodness.

Wherever you decide to have your garden be sure the area is going to get the right amount of sunlight for what you are going to grow. Most herbs, vegetables, and fruit will need six hours, at least, of full sunlight daily; some of them may need more time. Flowers are going to be different; some need partial sun; full sun; or even shade. You can have an in-ground flower garden in full sun and a container flower in gardening northside for partial sun or shade; remember a container garden can be moved around as needed. If your garden is not going to be near the water spigot just make sure your garden hose is going to be long enough to reach. Your in-ground garden soil needs preparation as soon as the ground is pliable with plenty of compost or organic material. Good garden soil needs to have organic material added every year to keep it healthy. If you feed garden soil every year it will grow and produce everything your plants need for producing a good healthy crop or beautiful plants and flowers.

If you want to grow a garden next spring, it’s never too early to start planning. One of the best ways to “learn as you go” is to read the seed catalogs that many companies will send for free.

Make your gardening experience more rewarding by following some steps that will make your plants grow healthy.
Three factors determine what will grow in your garden.
1.Amount of Sunlight
2.Soil Texture
3.Soil Moisture