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The Garden of Stress
Catherine Kitcho
I had always wanted a back yard big enough for a vegetable garden. So when my husband and I last went house-hunting 16 years ago, that was a top priority. When we first saw the house, the back yard was certainly big enough. There was a little L-shaped patch in the corner of the back yard, hidden behind the privacy fence surrounding the hot tub and redwood deck. This little patch looked a little neglected, with a few stray flowers and many weeds. We made an offer on the house, escrow closed the beginning of May, and we unpacked the last box just before Memorial Day. Just enough time to maybe plant some vegetables in the tiny patch for a summer and fall harvest. I went to the local nursery, bought my little packets of seeds and little gardening tools, and started in on preparing my "farm".
Adobe Clay
The soil in this garden is what is known as adobe clay. Read: building material. Yes, it's one and the same, ready for floods, fires or mild earthquakes. Once it's dry, it doesn't move - at least not with human force. It takes machines, like massive rototillers and earthmovers. On a sunny morning, I took my little hand spade and seed packets, ready to break ground. It was like trying to break up concrete with a dinner fork. I went to find other tools in our garage. I tried a larger spade. Even with me standing with my full weight on the spade, the ground did not even dent. Finally I got a large pick-axe, and started swinging and hacking, humming to myself "I've been working on the railroad…all the live-long day.." My husband came out and asked me what the hell I was doing. I just looked at him. He suggested renting a rototiller, but I was determined. Our nice neighbors on both sides of us finally felt sorry for me and told me that you have to wet the clay first, and then you could break it up. Oh, of course! They also suggested going out to buy some sand, and some redwood compost and anything else that I could work in to lighten up the soil. Three weekends later and 20 soaks in the hot tub, the soil was ready for seed.
Snail Habitat
I applied fertilizer to my nice soft soil, and then planted cute little rows of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, and radishes. I watered everything with a hose, making a mental note that it would be great to have an automatic drip irrigation system someday. But, for now, hand watering was it. Within a week, the lettuce and radishes started sending up little tiny green shoots. I was so excited; my garden was taking off! I was picturing my first salad directly from my garden and my first green beans. The day after I saw the first green shoots, I came home from work and raced to the garden to see how much they had grown. All the shoots were gone. Gone! Stolen! I was in shock. Who could have stolen my plants, just like that? And in one day? I was miserable. I talked to my neighbors and friends. They gave me a knowing look, and said one word: snails. I had snails. I asked, "How could snails just come in and eat all the green stuff all at once; what do they do, have little snail radar and call in all the snails in a 10-mile radius and have a party back there?" My friends said no; all it takes is one and they can clean out a garden in no time. That was especially true in northern California; it's a regular snail habitat. They told me to try a number of things: snail bait, beer, or Deadline. So, it was back to the nursery again for more seed and I decided to go for the mother of all snail weapons: Deadline. I planted the seeds, put Deadline around the planting area and waited until it was dark. I went out with a flashlight and watched about a dozen snails crawling toward their little snail salad, worried that it wouldn't work. The next morning, I went out and saw those dozen snails stopped in their tracks and deader than a doornail. I got rid of most of them, but left one or two as a lesson to the others.
Whitefly Fog
Safe from the snail invasion, my plants grew like crazy. The green beans were thick with leaves, and the tomato plants were big enough for tomato cages and had lots of blossoms. I went out one day to look for green beans. I parted the leaves, and a cloud of white stuff came up, swarming around me and everything else in the garden. Now what??? I looked at the back of one of the leaves, and it was covered with little white spots, like large pieces of dandruff with wings. I broke off a leaf with these spots, put it in a Ziploc bag, and took it to the nursery. They said: whiteflies. Use these little sticky traps. Just hang them up in your garden; they attract the flies, they get stuck and then they die. I was in the killing business again. First the snails, and now the flies. And all I wanted to do was grow things I could actually eat, not kill things!
The Corn Experiment: Aphids and Ants
I learned a lot that first garden year, and we actually had quite a few salads and some edible green beans. I tried planting carrots, but the clay was still too heavy and I only got some fat, stubby dwarf carrots because it was just too much work for them to grow downward to a nice pointy shape. So, scratch the carrots for next year. In the fall of that garden year, we put in an entire irrigation system: front yard, back yard and most importantly, my garden! I got a drip irrigation kit, complete with tubing and overhead sprinklers and drippers and the whole works. I did a complete design and layout. I ordered seed catalogs and seeds. When spring came, I paid to have someone rototill the soil; I did learn my lesson. I kept the snails and whiteflies away and we had a bountiful harvest of all kinds of things: squash and potatoes and chard and turnips and of course the usual salad vegetables. So, my husband suggested reclaiming another patch of the unproductive lawn that was adjacent to the garden and we planted sweet corn in it the third garden year. The sweet corn did quite well, reaching heights well above our backyard fence. The time came to pick the first ears of corn. I went to a stalk and broke off a nice, plump ear and peeled back the husk. I was expecting nice, yellow pale kernels, but instead it was black: covered with ants! I didn't know ants ate corn; even one kernel had to be 200 times their body weight! So, it was back to the nursery again (by this time, I'm sure I was the subject of much discussion among the employees). They said the ants don't eat the corn, they eat the aphids that are eating the corn. Aphids are after the sugar in the corn, and it gets into their little intestinal systems and the ants eat the aphids! So, just spray this organic stuff to rid of the aphids and you'll be fine. Now I was in the aphid-killing business.
Demon Squirrels
The next few garden years were relatively pest-free. One year, I decided to plant more varieties of tomatoes just as an experiment. They all did quite well, and the beginning of August, we started eating them. Unfortunately, the relatively aggressive squirrel population that run along the fences and utility lines started eating those tomatoes, too. They would get a gargantuan tomato in their mouth, eat part of it, and leave parts along the tops of the fences. Hmm. How to keep squirrels out. This time, the nursery people were stumped. They didn't have any suggestions for me, other than maybe some type of fencing around the plants. So, I built a plastic cage around groups of plants, complete with little doors so that I could get in to harvest the tomatoes. No squirrels for about a week, and then they started leaving tomatoes on the fence again. They had chewed through the bottom of the fencing, came up through the plant, took their tomatoes and were on their way. The varmints!! Now, squirrels are just a bit large to kill, unless you happen to use a gun, which is probably not a great idea in a suburban area. So, I had to figure out a way to deter those squirrels.
Over the winter, I did research on the Internet and elsewhere, and I finally found a solution: ground mustard mixed with water and sprayed on the tomatoes. Supposedly, squirrels don't like anything hot and spicy. Okay, that was worth a try! So, I waited until I had nice plump tomatoes on the vine and I sprayed the tomatoes. It worked! One attempted bite, and their little squirrel lips became hot, resulting in the immediate release of the tomato (albeit with some teeth marks). So, the squirrels took their hot lips elsewhere - to my neighbor's yard. I did share my mustard secret with him, though.
Rats!
Eventually, we re-landscaped our entire back yard, and I had my dream garden: raised beds! They were constructed with paving stone walls, and are the perfect height. I had a new irrigation system put in, too. Now I had a professional-grade garden. It was a joy, and the vegetables are just great because they are a little higher off the ground and closer to the sun. The first year I had the raised beds, I didn't even have to use Deadline; the snails couldn't find the garden at first because they weren't used to looking up! Eventually they found it, though, so I had to resume my killing ways. All was well until the summer of the rats. There are two things I cannot deal with: snakes and rodents. I went to harvest my abundant green bean crop, and found the pods eaten off, with about 1/4" left on the stalk. I had never seen that before. At least two pounds of green beans had vanished. Back to the nursery again with a sample. They had a couple of people look at it before they figured it out: rats! They suggested a rat trap or rat poison. I tried a rat trap and put peanut butter in it like they suggested, but it didn't work. After all, why should they eat the peanut butter when they can go nibble on nice fresh green beans and luscious cherry tomatoes that were hanging right there in front of their snouts? However, the rat poison did work. I was in the killing business once again.
Epilogue
I'm not sure what I'll see next in my garden, or what manner of fauna will want to eat my nice tasty vegetables and that I will have to kill or deter. However, as long as I have my hot tub next to my garden of stress, I can handle just about anything.
Catherine Kitcho : Pele Publications
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