Dang it all - what to do about flea beetles?

[Lady Lilya]

It is harder than I thought to apply diatomaceous earth powder to my cat.  He was afraid of it.  I got a little on him, and then the next day a little more.  He still has mites.  The strong prescription stuff I ordered (before I decided what to do) arrived, so we will probably catch him tomorrow evening and apply it.

[Dame]

I also applied eucalyptus oil to all the bedding in the house, and that has dramatically reduced the number of mites I have found on my own body.  Eucalyptus is way too expensive of a solution to keep bugs off of crops. 

Pillow slips filled with wormwood, rosemary, lavender and possibly a few other herbs would likely also work for mites.  Whichever is your preference and grows easily. 

If it is ear mites that are the problem; 1 part 3% vinegar to 9 parts warm water as a gentle flush a couple times a day for a few days works.  Massage gently to loosen the mites and debree and wipe with a clean piece of gauze to remove.  

[Beeherder]

Hi Dame,

My parsley gets to 40 inches high about now. After the seed head matures I just bend them over to where I may want some more to grow next year. I used to try and keep it trimmed short but there is soooooo much to do that one kinda falls off the end.

Last year I tried Borage for the first time (honey production). Fairly aggressive reseeding on its own, out competes the small stuff or stuff that comes late like echinacea but those little blue star shaped flowers are kinda cool. I see Borage Oil in the women's health section of my local Health Food Store. Don"t have a clue what why its found there.

So it that's a health food store what are the other places selling?

[Dame]

For some reason cilantro is as tall as the asparagus when it comes out into flower.  Maybe I could try bending it over as well.  Out, away from the asparagus bed so it does not grow right in the bed next year.  Unfortunately it is upwind.

As for borage.  It tastes quite like cucumber in spring salads when it is in 2 and 4 leaf stage.  Later the leaves make an excellent tea hot or iced, quenches thirst better than water.  The leaves dry well and easily for storage and the tea, once cooled is a good eye wash.  The flowers also work in salads.  And, unlike the cilantro weeds out easily when there is an excess.

If it is too concentrated in the honey it is difficult to get out of the comb.

[Beeherder]

Lady Lilya, how did it work out for kitty?

Dame, around here the asparagas grows best in the cool shady places along the irrigation ditches, whereas my 32 inch cilantro with the 3 inch bright white seed heads likes it best out in the bright sunshine. Since there are no irrigation ditches (darn) on my property there's no asparagas. What's an asparagas beetle?

Wow more thirst quenching than water, who knew? I've used the flowers to garnish and spice up salads but had no idea. Anybody else notice how much better the greens taste if there are some other colors in the bowl?

[Dame]

Beeherder, a story here about the asparagus. 

Shortly after moving to the farm, I set out to put in an asparagus bed.  Read a bunch of books etc.  It said:  mark out the bed (I chose 5'x20' in full sun, close to the house); remove the top soil one spade deep to one side; remove same depth of sub soil to the other side;  mix the subsoil with 1/2 rotted manure; mix the top soil with 1/2 rotted manure; return the mixed subsoil to the bed and water in until the level is 1' below finished bed surface height and place the 2 year old root; put 1" to 2" of mixed subsoil on top of the root and wait for it to grow; spend the first growing season replacing first the subsoil and then the top soil as the plants grow to keep some of the green above the soil level.  At the end of the season after a killing frost, water well, clip and burn the top growth, mulch well for winter.

Needless to say this exercise predated my decision to adopt a lazy gardener methodology.  The asparagus is doing well, supposedly it should continue doing well for anonther decade.  I would not do it this way again, much easier to simply plant more asparagus somewhere else more often.  Most everything likes growing in my asparagus bed as a result of all this work, so I do a lot of weeding out there.  Good thing I am fond of both celantro and coriander.

[Beeherder]

I usually have at least a pint of cilantro/coreander seeds every year. The mortar and pestle turn them into nice seasoning for my SW spicy green chili dishes and also in some soups. What do you use it for?

[Dame]

I cook with my nose, particularly when using seasoning.  So here goes, I use corriander in meat balls (any red meat will do), sweet spiced pasta dishes (corriander, anise, cinammon and sweet basil, sometimes with garlic, sometimes not), fruit pies, fruit cakes, compotes, stir fried vegetables, especially cabbage (along with pepper(s), cummin), curries and maji teas.

[Beeherder]

Dame,

That's A LOT of work. I can only eat maybe a pound or two (well maybe more if it was really abundant). Once when fishing a public lake with nearby running irrigation ditch, it was hot, the fish weren't interested in what I had to offer so I went over to rest in the shade of those tress along the ditch. I must have been there 30 - 30 minutes and was getting up to go when I put my hand directly on a young asparagas shoot. Gee says I, that looks like nice skinny little shoots of asparagas all around me. What to do, what to do. I bet you've never seen a fisherman with a creel overflowing with asparagas. Must have been three pounds, so the fishing pal took half and we called it a day. So would that be guerilla gardening? BTW everything in the area was publich except the actual ditch and the water in it.

Saw these bumper stickers on two different cars at the same intersection going in opposite directions:

Know Farmers Know Food

No Farmers No Food

I'm not makin this up it really did happen.

[Lady Lilya]

Lady Lilya, how did it work out for kitty?

Ideally, we will apply the prescription (Revolution is the brand name) in our own yard with my husband holding the kitty and me applying and the toddler distracted by some toys, and then we can let the cat go and he will run away and we can go wash our hands.

We haven't had an opportunity for that lately.  My husband has been busy and out later than usual, or the cat has been not around.  Today I saw the cat while I was walking with the toddler about a block away.  But, no medication with me, no other adult to help, and no way to contain and distract the toddler. 

Maybe tomorrow.

[Lady Lilya]

Forgot to say: No, they aren't ear mites.  Those are a lot easier to deal with.

[MountainMeg]

Well since asparagus came up, Dame and Beeherder, where is the best place to plant it?  I have a bunch of Mary Washington asparagus shipping to me so I can establish it in a bed for next year -- but where to put the bed?  Part sun/part shade by the strawberries, full sun, or the small part of my yard with full shade?

[Dame]

Mine is in full sun and doing well.  I suspect it would fight with the strawberries; they tend to invade when you aren't looking.  Lettuce goes around the strawberries, probably because lettuce gets picked daily and you can pull the escaping strawberry runners while you are there anyway.

The companion planters say parsley, tomatoes, and celery like asparagus.  I can vouch for the tomatoes, they do well around the asparagus bed, that is until the cilantro got so weedy. 

I tried once in fairly dense shade (in the city) and the asparagus did not survive the first winter.  It is really hard to say the shade was the problem as it was not secured from the kids who "really like asparagus" and may have eaten it to death or the pets, or any number of other hazards I may not have noticed.

Getting it started is the hard part.  My brother-in-law says that they did not cultivate the asparagus when he was growing up because the roots would drag around and the asparagus would turn into a weed.  A local farmer had 160 acres of the stuff and could not find the labour to harvest it and had a devil of a time getting rid of it so he could use the land for something else.  It is now the local air strip.

Beeherder will need to comment on semi-shade, haven't tried it.

[Dame]

More about the asparagus.  Next time I will be digging down one spade depth and one spade width in two parallel trenches with one spades width between.  The asparagus will get planted at the bottom with minimal manure, only kind of mixed in maybe, and covered over the course of the season with the dirt I took out and maybe some manure or compost, kind of mixed in. 

I do not particularly mulch for the winter anymore either, I prune 2 or 3 branches off some shrub or tree and throw it over the bed to hold the snow. Done till spring when I clear, rake, weed and water once, fairly early, add some new mulch (so the first harvest does not freeze and get tough), maybe a couple of inches and wait to start eating it. 

[Beeherder]

Beeherder has never tried to grow asparagas but he does like to find it where it grows in places I can legally and ethicly access. Some things don't like the high desert, I think this would be one of them. Never seen anything like it growing near where I live.

Now lettuce seems to me like it would be a natural guerilla gardening choice. Since I usually let the stuff I plant go to seed, I like seeing the volunteers come up the next spring. And if I'm on top of my game (not often enough) I plant some new lettuce seeds when I see the volunteers start to show. So if I was walking down by the creek some beautiful spring day just after the snow has melted under the north side trees I might look for a place to put a few rows of lettuce. Not long rows, and not all at the same height above the running water so that if its a big runoff year the top row would not be washed away and if its a dry year then the lowest row would be near the water. Seems like if you did this right you might find lettuce growing there for years without ever doing anything except walking down by the creek. Like I said, I haven't actually done this but it seems like it might work to me.

If anybody does give this a try please let us know if it works.