Wordless Wednesday from Oregon

Slug & Earwig Control

It's been a very wet summer here in Wisconsin. With all the moisture my worst garden enemies have found their way into my garden. Who are my worst enemies in the shade garden? Slugs and earwigs. Eeverything is so wet and it rains practically every day, there is really no good way to control them this year. So what are some ways to control slugs and earwigs?

Slugs-
non-chemical - 1. You can put shallow dishes of beer in the soil, which you will have to empty in the morning. 2. Some claim that copper tape keeps slugs off of hostas. 3. You can go outside at night with a flashlight and find them, throwing them in ammonia or smashing them (I like to feed them to my pond fish)..  4.You can spray a 10% ammonia 90% water solution on your hostas on and on slugs.

Chemical- You can use sluggo, which is supposed to be safe with children and pets.

Earwigs-
non-chemical - earwigs are hard to get rid of in the garden. 1. You can do things like bury old hoses or rolled up damp newspaper, and in the morning you will find all kinds of earwigs which you can shake into soapy dish water to kill.    2. You can pick them off your plants at night and throw them into soapy water.

Chemical- 1. I have used a solution called Monterey Insect spray in the past. It contains spinosad, which is a naturally accuring chemical. However it is known to be harmful to bees, so either don't use it or be very careful to spray while bees are not around.   2. I have not used Sluggo Plus or Sevin, but either of these products is also supposed to work with earwigs.

Cheesehead Gardening Episode 6 - Lilies

Wordless Wednesday -Daylily Mania

Juneau, Alaska warmer climate than Wisconsin?

I was very surprised last week when I visited Glacier Gardens in Juneau, Alaska. Japanese maples in the garden, in Alaska? Japanese maples are marginal plants here in Wisconsin, so I didn't expect to see them in Alaska. Yet here they were. So here I was in Juneau, Alaska standing in the midst of a rain forest surround by upside down trees with beautiful gardens built into their old roots.

One of the women working in the greenhouse was originally from the Southern Wisconsin area.  I asked her about how the winters in Juneau compared to Wisconsin winters.  She said that the winters were milder in Juneau.  Another worker told me that they received more rain than they did snow in winter.  He said they might receive an average of 100 inches of snow each winter, but most of the snow was washed away in the rain within a day or two.  He told me they could grow plants in zone 3-6.

We left Glacier Gardens that day, and we drove about 8 miles down the road to Tongass National Park. What's in Tongass National Park?  The Mendenhall Glacier.  From rain forest to glacier in only a few miles, how cool is that?

I certainly had thoughts of moving to Juneau after learning of their warmer climate.  Just not sure if I could deal with the 50-90 inches of rain yearly, or the fact that Juneau is land locked.  Our bus driver told us that they only way to get to Juneau was by boat, plane, or birth canal.

Highlights from my trip to Alaska

Seed GROW Project July Update

My nasturtiums are getting bigger.  No blooms just yet.  The red things you see in the background are actually my first tomatoes from my garden.  I just returned yesterday from 12 days in Alaska.  It was beautiful there, sometimes I had to pinch myself to remind me that everything around me was real.  The photo below was taken outside of a lodge near Mt McKinnley.  I was there right after summer solstice, so they had almost 24 hours of sunlight.  Combine that with cooler weather (60-70's) and they grow some very large plants in a very short amount of time.  I would ask what certain plants were, only to find out they were the same thing I had in my own garden...only super sized!

"I'm growing Nasturtium "Spitfire" for the GROW project. Thanks, to Renee's Garden for the seeds."