Question from Forrest:

Btw, if you know anywhere I might be able to buy or try such winter squash, I’d love to know-especially Marina di Chioggia or any of the Aussie Blues!

Answer from Pat:
Thanks for your kind words. There is a catalogue for heirloom vegetables including many squashes—Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds http://rareseeds.com/ They carry Marina di Chiogga. Send for a copy of their wonderful catalogue. You will be able to find Marina di Chiogga, Australian Butter (though not blue) and dozens of other exciting heirloom varieties with extraordinary shapes and colors. The photographs are a delight. In Rancho Santa Fe a friend of mine grows the handsome and delicious Musquee de Provence but I am not sure if the weather is warm enough on Mango Drive to get a good harvest. It’s worth a try however. Bees are very important for pollination. Be sure to watch my video on that.

Winter squash grow wonderfully well in Del Mar. I have often grown them myself. But you cannot grow winter squash in the winter. Despite their name, all winter squash varieties are summer vegetables. Not simply a summer vegetable either, but a vegetable that needs to be planted when the weather has gotten somewhat warm and then it must have a long warm season with lots of sunshine in order to thrive. The variety I grew in Del Mar with great success was “Sweet Mama” I tried some other varieties but this one did the best and gave me the largest harvest of good flavorful squashes. It was an All America variety and these are pretty easy. But those old European varieties taste the best and are far more handsome and exciting to grow. Most of them need a long hot summer. Maybe where you live a bit back from the beach, and with more sunshine up on the mesa you will have greater success than I did.

The reason that winter squash bears that name is not because it grows in winter but because it keeps through the winter. People used to harvest these squashes in fall and them store them in root cellars and eat them all winter. Plant winter squash in well prepared soil in April in full sun. All summer vegetables need full sun and correct spacing. Winter squashes grow on big vines and need plenty of room. Follow package directions. Water deeply and not too frequently and you should have good success. March is the first month in which to plant summer vegetables but too early for planting winter squash.

Related posts:

1. Winter Squash
2. Heirloom Tomatoes
3. Problems Growing Squash in Containers

Question from Robin:

Answer from Pat:
Corn Gluten Meal works well as an organic product to use as a pre-emergent weed killer for use on lawns. Now several companies are making it. All of them work equally well as far as I can tell. They are widely available at nurseries and farm supply stores, especially nurseries that carry organic products. This usually cuts out the big box stores. Look in fine nurseries. Or simply Google the product and find a mail order source. But I have found this product in a bright yellow bag, with or without organic fertilizer added, in several local nurseries, including a well-known chain nursery only a mile or two from my house. Look among the products for lawns. I think the message here is when you have a generic product that can be copyrighted but not patented, sound alikes are fine. All these companies are using the same technology, and my experience is that if you follow the directions properly, it works.

Related posts:

1. Shrimp Shell Meal
2. Vegetables in Raised Beds: Problems with Yellow Leaves
3. Corn

Question from Ica:

Answer from Pat:
Spent brewery grains are an excellent additive to the compost pile, but they vary in characteristics. Some beer companies are learning to use them to make compost and other companies are also recycling them for use as mushroom compost. They can also be used to feed worm bins. Composted brewery grains are one of the ingredients in Milorganite and contribute a lot of its nitrogen.

Most spent brewery grains when used in the compost pile can be classed as a nitrogenous waste (a fast, hot, “green” ingredient, like grass clippings). Layer with some carbonaceous materials such as dry leaves to make a nitrogen-rich compost. Brewery grains can be especially beneficial if you have a bin composter since they are nitrogenous and are easy to compost but need tossing to maintain their warmth. You may have to add some wood shavings to keep the compost from getting too smelly. Brewery grains are likely to be very smelly already when you first pick them up, so get them as quickly as you can after use. Some grains also have allelopathic qualities, that is, like corn gluten meal, they can prevent seeds from germinating. Composting them may not kill this action. Thus I would use this compost in areas of the garden where you don’t intend to plant from seeds and where you would like to prevent weeds from growing. Before using this compost in the vegetable garden, try planting some radish seeds in a container of potting mix mixed with the compost to make sure the seeds germinate easily.

Spent brewery grains are not a good material for mulching due to the fact that they are too smelly and also attract animals. Spent brewery grains that are very soft, wet, and smelly can be dug directly into the soil, as you asked, since they are already well on their way to breaking down and will release nitrogen in the form of gas directly into the ground in a form that plant roots can absorb. On the other hand, spent brewery grains that have been allowed to dry out or cake and get hard should not be added directly to the garden soil. These would subtract nitrogen from the soil in order to rot. Also they will act more like carbonaceous waste in the compost pile. You will need to add water to them so they can puff up again and get going. (When brewery grains are hard and dry some gardeners even recommend layering them with grass clippings to add nitrogen to them, but this does sound odd since the grains themselves are classes as nitrogenous. Under normal circumstances the grains should provide the nitrogenous waste and what you would need to add, if anything, is carbonaceous waste.)

One easy way to compost these left over grains and increase the organic matter in your soil is simply to dig trenches, for example between the rows in your vegetable or cut-flower garden, pour the grain in there, cover it over with soil, and let the worms do the composting.

Related posts:

1. How to Create a Hot Compost Pile
2. New Gardener – Composting for Two
3. Horse Manure Compost

Question from Tom:

I am comfortable with pruning and watering the trees. What nutrients my trees need is a mystery to me. I am not sure how much fertilizer to use and I am confused by all of the micro nutrients such as iron. Currently I have been using a Kellogg organic fruit tree fertilizer in late spring on the stone fruit. I use Vigoro citrus fertilizer every 2-3 months on the citrus. I sprinkle a few small handfuls under the drip line and water during application.

My citrus leaves have a tendency to eventually become yellow and or pale. Some of my stone fruit leaves have purplish red spots and leaf edges (not curl). My bareroot cherry trees have some yellowing leaves that have been randomly dropping like they would in the fall when going dormant.

My soil is about 70% sand and 30% clay with varying amounts of organic material depending on the area of my yard. By itself my soil has a tendency to dry out in the summer and become as hard as cement. I have placed about 2-3 inches of mulch to keep the soil moist. The soil pH ranges from 6.5 to 7.0. I am concerned that my soil may be part of the problem.

Does it sound like I am fertilizing enough? I am considering hiring a consultant to analyze my situation. Do you have any recommendations?

Answer from Pat:
Fertilizing citrus trees is a big topic handled in depth on pages 63, 64, and 65 of my new organic book and in all my previous month-by-month books. There are several ways to go and choices to be made according to the needs and likes and dislikes of the gardener. Basically, citrus are big feeders and need up to 1 pound of pure nitrogen per year for a mature tree and proportionally less for smaller trees. They also need phosphorus, potassium, and trace elements in lesser amounts. Since I have covered this topic in such detail and length in my new organic book, and because without copying those three pages here I cannot provide all the details I must suggest you refer to this book, either your own copy or go to the library and read it there. Suffice it to say that most home gardeners starve their citrus trees, but also that there is no way or need for an organic gardener to exactly translate one pound of actual nitrogen and other requirements into products you buy on a shelf, though technically that would be one way to go. The real task for the organic gardener is to build up the organic content of the soil which in turn creates the microbial action to create and release natural nitrogen. Many suggestions for what to use are given on page 63 and 64 including the fact that many organic gardeners simply mulch their trees with a layer of horse manure under the canopy and drip line and beyond with horse manure and let the rains wash it in. (Don’t pile manure or mulch against the trunk.) Beginning this late, you have lost the chance to fertilize prior to February bloom. Organic fertilizers take time to work. Nonetheless, mulch the trees and fertilize now with the organic products you have, using more than suggested (of organic fertilizers, only, not of synthetic fertilizers), water in deeply, and continue to feed through the warm seasons of the year.

Regarding deciduous fruits, the jury is still out on feeding these and this is why so little information is out there for gardeners to access. For many years I have been investigating the results of agricultural experiments and trying to translate the best practices of commercial growers into language and methods for the home gardener and arranging it month-by-month as you need it. Fertilizing and mulching deciduous fruit trees is covered in my book on pages 86 and 87. Basically they are much less hungry eaters than citrus trees. Deciduous fruit trees should be fed lightly and never given too much nitrogen or you will get all leaves and little or no fruit, but they appreciate a deep organic soil as explained above. The time to give nutrients is when the buds are swelling in early spring, but with organics, except for fast-acting ones, you can apply a little earlier since they take time to work. See pages 86 and 87 for suggestions of what to use. Be very careful not to over-fertilize. Unless in extremely poor soil they will be fine, so I think what you did by fertilizing with organics in early spring was fine. I wouldn’t overdo it. Water deeply and infrequently rather than shallowly and often, as apparently you are already doing. Next year feed them in early February so the fertilizer will be working by the time buds are swelling and flowers opening.

Pale or yellow leaves dropping leaves on citrus or stone fruits means that you haven’t given them enough nitrogen. Apply a stronger, faster-acting nitrogen fertilizer such as blood meal or guano and water it in thoroughly. Chicken manure would help too since it contains phosphorus and potassium. Purple spots on leaves could mean lack of potassium or lack of trace elements. Nutrients are sometimes locked up in saline soils. Make sure your trees have all the nutrients they need. Apply John and Bob’s, humic acid, kelp and also to increase drainage in heavy soils products containing Yucca schidigera to increase drainage. Please see the chart on Generic Organic Fertilizers and Soil Amendments under Fertilizers on this website for what to use. Additionally, in this rainy year we have had some diseases proleferated. Curling leaves on peach and nectarines might mean peach leaf curl. See the Q & A on that subject on this website, also see the section on peach leaf curl 384 and 385 in my book and other pages given in index. Use dormant sprays in winter. If disease is a problem now, try controlling with Serenade (trademarked organic product.)

Problem soils can gradually be fixed by adding organics at regular intervals. You don’t need to hire an expert to tell you this, besides an expert might be a guy who learned all about synthetic fertilizers in ag. school and might not be on the organic path. Instead, use your time and money to gradually build up the organic structure of your soil with annual applications of horse manure in fall and your problems will be gone. I know because I’ve seen it work. But make sure your tetanus shot is up to date. Sand and clay together, unless naturally occurring, can lead to something akin to concrete, but even in that case organics can cure the problem. It just takes time. Fertilizer alone won’t do it. The worst soil in the world can be fixed up with organics and the very process of plant roots going down into the ground helps break up soil. For a full lineup of organic materials to use and how to use them see the chart on page 28 of my organic book. Also apply gypsum every two years. See the opening chapter in my book for full explanation on pages 21 and 22. This will help increase drainage. Good luck. It may take you a few years to correct soil problems but persevere. With diligent applications of organic materials, especially manure, and the help of slow natural rot and earthworms who will appear like magic, you will win out in the end. Try to get horse manure from a good horse owner who picks up daily. This will avoid the salts from salt licks. Read the opening chapter of my book beginning page 16, you will learn a lot. There are so many good things like humic acid, seaweed, and alfalfa that you can use. Some of these things can work real miracles. Also encourage beneficials to clean up the bad bugs.

Related posts:

1. When to Feed Apple Trees and When to Thin the Fruit
2. Dwarf grapefruit tree overpruned
3. How to Make a Pomegranate Tree Bear Fruit

Question from Jeff:

Answer from Pat:
I am delighted to hear that you read my brief history of the poinsettia in California and you are absolutely right the kind you purchase for Christmas do not grow well outdoors. The old varieties were a total joy here and it’s sad they are so seldom found. There are even better ones than ‘Hollywood’. I suggest you ask at botanical gardens for this plant. The best way to start one is from a cutting taken in spring. I got a cutting last year but it was given to me by a garden club in January and this was the wrong time of year to plant it, not warm enough. Besides, it was already too dried out when I got it. So it doesn’t appear to be growing. If I find a source of these outdoor varieties of poinsettias I will let you know. I have heard that there are several fine poinsettia trees growing outdoors in Encinitas and that the owners are happy to give cuttings in spring but I have not yet found them. If you ever see one of these  plants growing in an old neighborhood, ask for a cutting in spring and go back and get it then. Any time between March and May is a good time to start them.

Related posts:

1. Chryanthemums: How to Grow Year-Round in mild-winter climates

Answer from Pat: No. Do not dig chipper materials into the ground until they are fully rotted, which usually takes a year or two and often even longer. Chipper materials from tree trimmers make excellent organic mulch for covering bare garden soil, but all raw woody materials, such as sawdust, wood chips, or shredded wood, will rob nitrogen from the soil in order to rot. If you dig chipper materials into the soil of your vegetable garden it could kill your vegetables or at least give them yellow leaves.

Here is a list of organic substances that you can safely dig directly into garden soil:

• commercial organic soil amendment intended as planting mix
• bean straw
• apple or grape pomace
• homemade well-rotted compost
• fully composted wood shavings
• grass clippings
• green manure
• ground carrot, apple and vegetable fibers
• kelp and seaweed,
• leafmold
• aged horse or cow manure
• rabbit manure
• rotted hay
• sludge
• wet and sloppy vegetable and fruit leavings from your kitchen or supermarket

After chipper materials have been lying on top of the ground as mulch for a year or two, during which they have been frequently moistened by rain or sprinklers, most of the woody product will have absorbed enough nitrogen from the air in order to rot and will thus become like compost and can be incorporated into garden soil. This is the time to add more fresh mulch on top. Even after a year or two you may find that some big chips of wood or leaves have not composted enough to be combined with soil. Rake these bits aside and let them sit longer with your next load of mulch until they too have fallen apart and become indistinguishable from soil. Then you can safely dig them into garden soil to build its humus content.

For more on this subject, please see page 22 in my new organic gardening book, lower left hand column. Please also see the chart on pages 28 to 30 for an extensive list of organic soil amendments and an explanation of how to use each one. This chart will tell you which substances you can mix into soil and which should not be mixed into soil without adding nitrogen. It also tells you how much nitrogen to use.

Another chart on generic fertilizers was accidentally omitted from this printing but will be included in the next printing. (See this website under Fertilizers for that chart.) I suggest you download it, print it, and stick it in the back of your book. And thanks for writing me to ask such a good question.

Related posts:

1. Chipped Eucalyptus Wood and Leaves from Tree Trimmers
2. Alfalfa as Mulch
3. Chicken or Horse Manure

http://www.agriserviceinc.com/index.html

Meghan also swears by alfalfa for mulch and I think I heard you say you didn’t recommend this. Can you explain?

Answer from Pat:
Robin: Thank you for attending and enjoying the talk and for the information on top soil. People often ask for good sources. I am intrigued in what you told me about using alfalfa for mulch and want to hear more about it. First to define the term “mulch”:  Mulch is an organic or inorganic material placed on top of the ground to help maintain moisture in the ground and cut down on weeds. Organic mulches gradually break down and eventually when thoroughly rotted improve the soil. Inorganic mulches such as black or red plastic can be used to heat up the soil and the air in cool coastal climates and increase yields of certain crops such as melons. Organic soil amendments and aged compost are different. These are well-enough rotted to be combined with the soil without subtracting nitrogen from the soil in order to rot. Alfalfa is in this category since it is a legume and thus has a high nitrogen content. For example, alfalfa can be grown from seeds planted in spring as a warm-season cover crop and dug directly into the ground in fall to improve the soil.

Because of its high nitrogen content I am sure that alfalfa used as mulch would quickly break down and then could be incorporated into garden soil, but some might dry out on top of the ground thus allowing some of the valuable nitrogen contained in it to escape into the air. (This can happen with any fertilizer left on top of the ground and not watered or cultivated into the ground.) Baled alfalfa seems like an expensive material for mulch when much cheaper or even free organic materials make excellent mulch. Baled alfalfa is a commonly used food for horses and other domestic hoofed animals. Moldy alfalfa hay, however, would make horses sick if fed to them, so it can often be obtained free if one can find a source.  Ground alfalfa meal or alfalfa pellets are used as rabbit food and also as an organic nitrogen fertilizer which one can work directly into the soil. (For more details, see my book and the chart on generic fertilizers on this website.)

Another reason one would not normally think of alfalfa as a mulch is because it is a legume. Leguminous plant materials, such as bean straw and green alfalfa, can be dug straight into the ground since they contain enough nitrogen to rot quickly in the ground. Alternatively one can layer alfalfa with a manure, such as clean horse manure as I suggested last night to make a very nutritious compost and do so amazingly quickly, within a month or two, without tossing and turning. (See the detailed explanation on pages 35 and 36 of my organic book.)  Another reason that I would be a little hesitant to use alfalfa hay as mulch is that alfalfa left lying on top of the ground near stables, for example, has the tendency to attract rats, opossums, racoons, very hungry coyotes, rabbits, and other animals who like to eat it. (Dogs and cats, however, can keep pest animals away.)

I would like to know more about why Meghan likes using alfalfa as mulch and what her experiences are. Perhaps there are no animal pests where she gardens or perhaps there are other factors involved that I’m not taking into account.

Related posts:

1. Right Mulch for Beach Plants
2. Horse Manure Compost
3. Avocado’s in Spring

Question:

Answer From Pat:
If you have already read and are following the instructions on compost in my book (pages 97 to 99 and other references in index. Also the chapter in my memoir “All My Edens” called “Romancing the Compost Heap”) and composting still doesn’t work for you, here is my estimation of the problem. First it really would help if you gave me a little more information on such items as the size of your compost pile (for hot compost 3 feet X 3 feet x 3 feet is best) and your method of composting or what you have put into the pile. Without knowing all that it is a little difficult for me to provide accurate advice, but I certainly can guess what the problem might be. So here goes:

If a gardener has a compost pile that never heats up nine times out of ten the cause is one of two problems. The first problem is that the compost pile is being kept too dry or too wet. Wet sloppy piles cannot heat up. Wet piles are sometimes putrid and smelly. This means too much nitrogenous waste has been added. Fix this by adding a few wood shavings (carbonaceous waste.) But dry piles without adequate moisture can’t heat up either. You need to keep the pile properly moist and spongy, not soppy wet. Also, a dry pile that is moist on the inside and cooking on the inside can catch fire so one does need to monitor compost piles and toss and turn them so you put the dry stuff inside and mix the inside to the outside again to cool the pile and keep it cooking.

Another major problem folks often have is that the pile contains too many dry woody ingredients (carbonaceous materials) and not enough nitrogenous waste. Nitrogenous waste is like sloppy garbage left from veggies and fruits at the kitchen sink or it is manure or grass clippings or wet green stuff from the garden. (For more details see my fertilizer chart on my website and also my soil amendment chart on page 28 of my book.) Woody ingredients are dry wood, dry leaves and twigs and left-over plant materials like corn cobs. (These are difficult or impossible to compost). All the leftover at the end of the veggie season, the plant matter may be dry by the time you pull it out, chop it up, and compost it. You will need a lot of nitrogenous ingredients, like soft green leaves of tomato plants, to heat up these layers of carbonaceous ingredients.

Then if you want to create a hot pile and not a slow pile you also need to toss and turn the pile to keep air in there, to cool the pile if it gets too hot or to heat it up again if it begins to cool down. This is a lot of work and I personally can’t do it myself, so there are other ways to do this, such as the drums companies sell for composting. When you use a drum you need to follow the instructions that came with it exactly and also you need at least 2 of them or even 3 of them or you will be continually adding more ingredients while it’s cooking. That’s not the right thing to do. When creating hot compost the fast-composting way, you want to make just one pile at a time and then let it work.

Slow composting is different. You just pile stuff up and keep it moist and make sure there are no tree roots in it and eventually you will get lovely compost out of the bottom and this kind of pile can be any size. I have written about this many times. (See both books and other places on this website.)

If the problem is too much carbonaceous waste and not enough nitrogenous waste, and this is usually the problem when compost doesn’t “cook”, my recommendation is to use human urine to heat up the pile. Just pee in a bucket and pour it straight onto the compost and keep the compost damp with water from the hose and you will get a nice hot compost pile. Then toss and turn it. Human urine is clean healthful stuff and a great source of nitrogen. (It also contains phosphorus and potassium. See comments on page 32 of my book and on my fertilizer chart.) Just pee in a bucket or (If you are a man) straight onto the compost and that will heat up the pile eventually. This is the organic way. (The inorganic, synthetic fertilizer way is to add sulfate of ammonia to compost to heat it up, but as organic gardeners we don’t use synthetic fertilizers.) Of course, you could use blood meal, but blood meal comes from cattle and some folks don’t like using it. Also it’s expensive. Why spend money when you are throwing a perfectly good, free nitrogen source down the drain? Urine contains salts but you will be adding enough water from the hose to wash out most salts. And by the way, human urine makes great rose fertilizer. Just dilute it 8 or 10 to one with water. Pour it on the ground, not on the foliage, and continue to irrigate roses regularly to wash out the salts. You will have super roses. (You can use the stuff straight as a weed killer so remember to dilute it well when using as fertilizer.)

Related posts:

1. Spent Brewery Grains as Compost or Soil Amendment
2. Compost Pile Too Hard to Turn Over
3. Horse Manure Compost

Question from Chris:

Answer from Pat:
Thanks so much for writing. First, I want to encourage you in your desire to get an internship in Panama on a new sustainable community.

A glance at the site indicates that this community may be early in its development, may offer great learning and service opportunities, and may be an exciting adventure as well as one of lasting value. When and if you arrive there, you will doubtless have opportunities to learn a great deal about the area and the work required of you to make your 5 acres into a productive farm or garden while growing plants adapted to the climate in Panama and recycling back into the land all the organic waste products from the animals you raise and the plants that you grow.

I’m sorry I do not know of other organic farms in Panama, but once you arrive there I would suppose you will have the opportunity to meet other gardeners and learn from them the rhythm of farming and gardening there, what crops to grow, and when to plant and harvest. Every climate offers its advantages and drawbacks, but timing is all-important. The best way to learn these things is to talk to long-time organic farmers in the area. If there are none then you will have to rely on books and scholarship to know what to do when. In the 1940′s, my mother purchased and then ran an organic farm mainly by reading “Rodale’s Organic Farming and Gardening Magazine” and also a current, multi-volume encyclopedia of farming. Then she would have us all do exactly what that magazine (which was very good in those days) and also the encyclopedia said to do. She also wrote lists of tasks and then crossed them out as we accomplished these items. Another way she learned was from the County Agent, which was the name in those days of the Farm Advisor. I doubt you will have anyone like that in Panama, but it is important to listen to experts whenever you can and to learn from them.

When we had our farm we were living in a cold-winter climate. You will be in a tropical one and tropical gardening offers totally different and new challenges. In Africa several years ago I flew over a large area of small individually farmed and owned “strip farms” Each one was about an acre in size. These were hugely productive, but this one area (near Lake Victoria) had a nearly ideal growing climate with ample year-round rain. Torrential rains can ruin crops and rot seeds and roots, just as longtime drought can kill crops also. Dealing with insect and animal pests and plant diseases organically in Panama may also present challenges and be quite different from anything you have faced prior.

You say the soil is good and that is excellent news, but your task as an organic gardener will be to put back into the ground at the end of each season and before the next season, whatever nutrients your plants subtracted from the soil. In this way you can eventually leave it even better than you found it. You also have a chance to learn the economics and time management of farming. I wish you good fortune in all these endeavors.

With good wishes for your success and happiness in this project.

Related posts:

1. Vegetables for Southern California
2. Raised Bed Planting
3. Companion Planting Has No Scientific Basis but Planting a Wide Range of Crops Works

Question from Tressa:
I love your month by month gardening book and have read it almost cover to cover.

My problem is armies (literally of snails) I live in Claremont, Ca. (new Pomona not San Diego) in the foothills and have snail attracting ground covers which I can’t easily remove. I have tried every organic method – my favorite was trays of beer which everything but the snails liked. I can pick buckets of snails every time I water. Sluggo works somewhat, but everything is eaten up. the only thing that really works is deadline or something other strong poison which I don’t want to use. do you have any suggestions?

Answer from Pat:
I am very familiar with Claremont, California and wonder if you live in Padua Hills? I graduated from Scripps College after four memorable years and a great college experience. (I was an English and Art Major.) My husband whom I married on graduation day, and I later lived in Claremont for a couple of years, during which I returned to Scripps as the Teaching Assistant in Freshman Humanities. (The History, Religion, Literature, Art, and Culture of the Ancient World, a double-credit course.)

I agree that organic controls for snails are not totally successful, whereas Deadline is highly successful, but I hasten to say I’m with you. I don’t use it any more. A few years ago before I returned to my roots and became so totally organic as I am today, I used to put one drop of Deadline on the base of every cymbidium flower spike as soon as it had grown tall, just before the buds opened. (Cymbidium blooms are a magnet for snails.) Also I climbed around in my large drifts of clivia (Clivia miniata) and put one drop of Deadline at the base of every bloom stem before the flowers opened. Dogs and cats did not come into contact with the Deadline since it was deep within the leaves, not in a place frequented by animals, but by doing this once every year in late February or early March, my snail problem was largely solved for the entire year. Since snails love cymbidium and clivia blooms better than almost any other plant, they acted like a traps, attracting snails from the entire garden. Deadline cut them off at the pass. Getting them early is what counts.

People who have an orange grove have an opportunity to use the trees as an organic trap. In areas of seasonal frosts every year, such as where you live, the snails on orange trees all congregate in winter in the center of the tree. If you have an orange tree yourself, just take a look in the crotches of the branches in the middle of the tree in December or January. This is where the snails go to hibernate, protected from freezing by the foliage surrounding them and by each others shells. Sometimes there will be fifty or a hundred snails or more all congregated together in the center of the tree. It is not a pleasant or easy job, but go in there wearing gloves and carrying a large sack, pull them off the tree, bag them, smash them, and send them to the dump and snail problems on orange trees are done for the year.

I do, however, have another suggestion of an organic control that really works, but I am not sure if you are going to like it, and that is ducks. Ducks eat slugs and snails by the thousands and then you would collect the eggs. (I find the eggs too strong for my taste, however.) But ducks are messy and they do want a bit of a pond to splash around in. Slightly less good as slug and snail control but almost equal to ducks at eating slugs and snails, and a lot less messy and noisy, are chickens. These days you can even purchase an inexpensive, ready-made, moveable chicken coop designed for moving around on a lawn, but why not on ground cover? Or make your own enclosure out of chicken wire. You would just move it around on your ground cover and the chickens would clean up the snails and give you simply delicious, nutritious eggs in return. If your ground cover is inside a fenced yard you let the chickens run free.

People these days are learning that chickens make very nice family pets. Children love them but so do grownups. When you are home you can let them out and they gladly clean up all the pests in the garden and give you delicious eggs to eat yourself and share with friends. Many good types are appropriate for family use. Rock Cornish hens are among the most popular right now but there are some other incredibly beautiful ones besides these and you can have lovely green and blue eggs from Araucana chickens if you want. If you introduce the chickens as chicks and keep them penned at first, smart dogs and cats will learn they are part of your pack. (Or at least they should. Only a very dumb dog won’t learn this, and unfortunately years ago I owned such a dog and lived on a farm so that dog had to go.) Also the coops with tops on them can protect your chickens during the daytime from hawks and such that might attack if you aren’t home. At night lock them into a compact but stoutly made chicken house so they are safe from foxes and coyotes. Chickens come home by themselves in the evening, since they can’t see at night. Kids love them and you will too.

Keeping a few hens is fun and is all the rage right now among organic gardeners and with people who believe in eating healthy homegrown food. There are many books on keeping a few back-yard chickens and there’s loads of free and helpful information on the internet. You might even find helpful club in your area of chicken owners.

Related posts:

1. Baby snails killing our Blue Star Creeper
2. Snails
3. Tree dahlia (Dahlia imperialis) with leaf miners