Beer totally ruins slug parties

When I was little I had two pet slugs named Beauty and Spot.  We were pretty poor back then-- too poor to afford a pony-- but Beauty and Spot were always there for me, waiting underneath the cinder block in my back yard.  I remember thinking how pretty they looked in the sunshine-- all spotted and multi-colored-- like two miniature (and very sticky) rainbow trouts.

A lot of time has passed since then, and you might say that my views on the slug issue are EVOLVING.  That's because I've recently become interested in growing hostas, which apparently fill the same dietary role for slugs that Queso Dip fills for humans.  The slugs in my backyard have been gorging themselves each night while I'm asleep, in what appears to be an all night movie binge and hosta snack-a-thon.  As I look at the decimated, hole-filled remnants of my former hostas, my only consolation is the knowledge that my slugs are probably filled with self-loathing when they consider how much they ate the night before.  I know it's vindictive, but I hope my slugs are no longer able to fit into their cute jeans, and are lurking underneath my stone-work right now with their give-ups on.

Here's what my Hostas look like now :(

It must be upsetting to think about my beautiful shade garden getting eaten, but don't worry-- I have a plan!  You know how, at a normal party (that is to say a party among humans,) when someone shows up with beer, the party only gets better? Well, I happen to know that beer has the exact opposite effect on slug parties.  Beer totally ruins slug parties!  At first it makes things pretty exciting, when one of the slugs first notices the beer.

"Hey guys! What's this over here? I think it's a buried tunafish can filled with beer!" the slug exclaims.
"AWESOME!!!!" The other slugs chorus.
And then, somebody yells "CANNONBALL!!!" And all the slugs pile in, having the most fun of their slug lives.

Then, when the first slug decides that he's swam enough and he wants to get out and eat some more hostas, he realizes that he's TRAPPED IN THE BEER.  That's when the party gets ruined.

In essence, that's what I have planned for the slugs in my shade garden. You may think it's cruel, but I actually think it's a pretty humane death.  In all honesty, if we were allowed to pick our own death's I think Sean would likely choose DEATH BY BEER. My only hang-up is the loving memory I have of Beauty and Spot. They would be so appalled if they knew what a monster I have become. So, in remembrance of them, I have decided to dedicate a small corner of my garden as a slug sanctuary, which I vow never to contaminate with slug bait and beer.  RIP Beauty and Spot.  You will be missed. As for the rest of you, I know how much you are missing your fallen brethren.  It would mean so much to me if you would join me for a drink in their honor.

RIP- Stroller Spider

A few days ago, Millie and I saw a spider as we were headed out on our walk.  A huge, hairy spider. Guess where he was sitting?  On my baby's stroller. That's right. He was sitting on her stroller, about six inches from her hand.  He was just hanging out there, blinking in the sunlight. Millie looked at him appraisingly, wondering if she should try to shove him in her mouth.

I'm no expert in spider physiology, but this spider appeared to be in a great mood.  He was probably having a really good morning, having recently found such a dry, comfortable place to live.

We noticed each other.

I snatched Millie from the stroller as quickly as possible, before anyone could shove anyone else in their mouth.  The spider bolted---running down into the cracks of the stroller from whence the seat belts came.

"I live here now." He called to me, from his cavernous seatbelt stronghold "this seems like a really nice place for a spider to live."

"You don't live here" I said back to him, "And if you don't get out of there I'm going to have to beat you to death with a paper towel."

The spider must have assumed I was bluffing.  Perhaps he could tell that I'm not the sort of person who usually beats spiders to death with paper towels.  Maybe he could sense that I'm the sort of person who catches spiders in overturned cups and releases them outside.

This is true.  In fact, several years ago Sean and I had a spider living in our bathroom who I named Mercucio and frequently saved from drowning in the shower.  Mercucio thrived, and produced hundreds of other spiders, who were also named Mercucio.  I refused to let Sean kill them, and every few days we would have to hold a "Mercucio Roundup" to catch all the Mercucios and place them safely outside. THAT'S how benevolent I am to spiders.  But, those spiders weren't inches from my baby, and unfortunately for this spider, I wasn't bluffing.  I was a mom backed into a corner. "Go ahead you spider son of a bitch," I said,  "make my day."

The Spider hunkered down, refusing to move.  I had no choice. I beat him to death with the paper towel.

I tried to make it a quick, efficient assassination, to minimize his spider suffering.  I made sure to compost the paper towel afterwards-- I think he would have wanted it that way.

When Millie grows up, I hope she's the kind of person who brakes for butterflies and releases spiders.  I  plan to teach her NEVER to kill things for no reason (with the obvious exception of fire ants,)  and to respect the sanctity of life, (unless that life is attached to a fire ant.) But, when it comes to protecting her kids, I hope Millie will fight like a tiger in a corner, and never let a pair of big, dopey spider eyes stop her from protecting her baby.

Growing Perennials From Seed

A few weeks ago, I finally got around to starting my seeds.  I do this every year, and I mostly grow vegetable seedlings because---like every other person who has ever read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle-- I am now an insufferable locavore and aspiring farmer.

This year was different however. For one thing, we haven't put in our deer fence yet, and I have nothing to protect my would-be vegetables from the posse of spoiled teenage deer that terrorize my backyard. For another thing, we are relatively impoverished, having recently gone from DINKs (double income, no kids,) to CHUMPs (Children-Having Undertakers of Mortgage Payments) and need to landscape our yard on almost no budget.

So, instead of starting vegetables this year, I bought some packets of flowering perennials, ornamental grasses, and a few annuals I couldn't live without, and decided to give it a shot.  I figured how hard can it be to grow ornamental grasses?  Really F-ing hard as it turns out. I doubt even Queen Galadriel herself could make these barren, lifeless seeds germinate. It's GRASS for goodness sake! If you took literally ANY piece of dirt, and killed all life on it, and did NOTHING to seed, water, and care for it, eventually grass would colonize it.  So why can't I make mine grow?  I think maybe they sold me a defective seed packet. Ok three seed packets. Of different varieties.  Oh hell.

So, as it turns out, there is a reason that Ornamental grasses cost $30.00 a bucket at your local garden store.  The good news is, I'm having moderate success with my other seed starting endeavors. Here's what I'm growing.

Black Eyed Susans: These beatiful flowering perenials are doing quite well.  I was very proud of this, until I learned that they are somewhat invasive, and that it probably does not indicate any sort of skill on my part to produce healthy seedlings.
Purple coneflower- These flowers will help me acheive the "cottage garden" look I am going for in front of the house. They too are doing quite well.
Blue Fescue- This is one of the smallest of the ornamental grasses, with a bluish tinge that looks great along borders, pathways, and rock walls.  Needless to say, it is not growing at all.
Deschampsia- This is my favorite of all the ornamental grasses that we failed to grow. It clumps nicely with a purplish haze at the top, and tolerates partial shade.
Pony Tails- This bright greenish/yellowish grass would have created a soft, feathery look for the window boxes I have planned. Instead, it mocks me from the attractive, beautifully clumping photo on the cover of the seed packet.  No ponytail seedlings have emerged so far.  
Poppy- The variety I am growing is called "oriental Red," and it's a gorgeous red flower with a dark, almost black center. I had under a 50% germination rate with these seeds, but luckily, I don't hold my seed packets accountable to the same high standards that I have for my heart surgeons, seat-belts, and parachutes.  I'm ok with 40% germination in these beautiful flowers, and it was well worth the $1.29 I paid for the seed packet.
Delphinium- Oh my god I love Delphiniums. Their beautiful tall spires will look great in my cottage garden out front, and I'm happy to report that, of the 5 containers that I started, 2 seeds germinated.

In other news, Sean is still dreamy and handsome.  Here is the coldframe he built for me to start my seeds in.  The high back creates easy access for watering, and can be flipped open for ventilation on hot days.  We just cover it at night with a plastic drop cloth to protect from frost.

So, for all you other CHUMPs out there, I'd definitely recommend growing perennials from seed as a way to get more bang for your landscaping buck. In fact, to help you get started, I've got some ornamental grass seeds you can borrow. Happy growing!

Hugelkultur

When Sean and I first bought the house, there was a giant cottonwood tree that had fallen in our backyard. When I say giant, I mean GIANT, and if you don't believe me, check out these pictures of a few cross sections of the tree, which we now use as benches around our fire pit.

This behemoth of a tree posed several challenges to us right off the bat.  First of all, it had fallen directly into the drainage ditch that ran across the back of our property, turning both our backyard and the yards of our upstream neighbors into a woodland water-park/mosquito brothel. The other big problem was that the tree had fallen directly on top of the only spot in our yard sunny enough to be a vegetable garden.  

So, we knew we'd have to get the tree out of there, but that wasn't as easy as it sounds. In order to remove it, Sean had to first chainsaw it into pieces, bravely removing poison ivy and other hazards as he went. Then, he chopped it up BY HAND. Let me repeat that. Using only his brute strength and a new axe he ordered on amazon, he chopped up this entire tree by hand, achieving the same approximate level of burliness as Paul Bunyan, and the same level of attractiveness as Ryan Gosling.  Because I was extremely pregnant at the time, and because I wielded an axe with the same approximate dexterity as Babe,  Paul Bunyan's giant blue ox, I stayed in the house, and avoided the ordeal altogether. Here is Sean, pictured with the remnants of his vanquished foe:

So, as you can see, we still had one major problem-- our backyard was now a giant woodpile. What to do with all that wood? We thought about burning it, but most of the wood was so old, buggy, and waterlogged that it was useless. We couldn't grow edible mushrooms on it, because it was already full of mycelium from god-knows-what kind of fungi. Desperate for ideas, Sean ran into our friend Glen one day and asked him for advice.

"Hey Glen, you don't know of any uses for about a dump-truck's worth of chopped up cottonwood tree, do you?" said Sean.

"You could always burn it." said Glen.

"Nope." said Sean.

"You could grow mushrooms on it." said Glen.

"Can't." said Sean.

"You could always try Hugekulter." said Glen.

"Bless You." Said Sean.

But, as it turns out, Hugelkultur is a farming technique, not a sneeze.

Here's how it works.  Apparently, Eastern European farmers needed a way to grow potatoes in climates so cold, that even the reindeer were all like "I'm freezing my balls off up here!" What they did is built mounds using rotten old trees, sticks, and other decaying wood, and then piled dirt on top of that.  As the mounds decayed, the heat helped to heat up the dirt in the mounds, allowing them to extend their growing season.  One other advantage to this method is that you hardly ever have to water it, since the old wood absorbs so much water.

To us, it sounded a lot like the method of raised bed lasagna gardening, which is currently so popular.  We had gotten excellent results with Lasagna gardens in the past, so we decided to give it a shot.

Here are some photos of the garden site getting laid out.  This was extremely satisfying, as the whole thing went together in a single day.

Here is the final design.  We came up with this shape so it would be easy for us to run drip irrigation continuously throughout the beds.

The next step is for us to pile more manure, dirt, and compost on top of the beds.  Then, we will rock in the garden beds using stone, and cover crop it for this year.  The last step will be to build a VERY tall fence, because unfortunately, the deer here in Ohio are NOT freezing their balls off, and there is a rapidly reproducing herd of them that patrols our yard.

So far, we are really happy with the results of our first foray into Hugelkultur.  The neighbors are happy because the tree is gone and the mosquitos have decided to host Spring Break Panama City on someone else's street.  The passers-by on the bike path are happy because it no longer looks like our backyard is inhabited by a moody, out-of-work beaver. And, most of all, Sean and Katie are happy because we are one step closer to a Paul Bunyan sized harvest of fresh, delicious vegetables, right out of our own backyard.
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Update!  The fence went up, and here is what our garden looks like now!

Worst Permaculture Guild Ever

In permaculture, there is a term called a guild—a grouping of plants that interact together in a mutually beneficial way. The most classic example of a guild is the three sisters: corn, beans, and squash planted together.  The corn stalks provide a trellis for the beans to grow up, the beans help to fix nitrogen in the soil, and the squash plants spread out, covering the ground with lush vegetation and shielding the soil from evaporation. All three plants benefit from the neighbors around them.

When we bought our house, we didn’t initially notice that there was a thriving guild on the hillside immediately adjacent to our future garden spot.  However, once we set to work clearing it, we noticed that our hillside was dominated by 4 plants--- which seemed to be working in tandem to squash out all other life on the hillside, and to increase our misery by constantly trying to take over our yard.  These four plants formed an elegant guild:

Upper tree Layer: Black Walnut- The beautiful assassin of the plant world.  Black Walnuts look gorgeous, but they emit a toxin called juglone which, kills all other life including tomatoes, asparagus, puppies, and pretty much all worthwhile living things. Ruefully, poison ivy is immune to juglone.

Secondary tree Layer- Buckthorn-The Jar Jar Binks of the plant world. This small tree pops up everywhere.  It is obnoxious, and absolutely no one likes it. Buckthorns make approximately one ga-jillion berries per small tree, which fall into my lawn in such abundance that instead of grass, we just have tiny buckthorn trees coming up everywhere. I’m not sure which I would rather run over with a lawnmower—baby buckthorn trees, or Jar Jar Binks himself.

Shrub Layer- Multi-Flora Rose- The Sitcom Mother-in-law of the plant world.  You know the show Everybody Loves Raymond? Multi-flora Rose is kind of like the Mother-in-law from that show. Sure, she smells kind of good, in a floral old-lady sort of way.  In fact, you may even want to invite her over, but pretty soon she becomes invasive—not respecting your boundaries, and criticizing the way you load your dishwasher. It’s best to eradicate her immediately.

Vine Layer- Poison Ivy- The Poison Ivy of the plant world.  I gave it this title because I can’t think of anything worse than Poison Ivy.  Let’s be clear. Poison Ivy is the ABSOLUTE WORST.  I hate everything about Poison Ivy.  If I could obliterate poison ivy from the face of existence, I would do it without a second’s hesitation. When I was a little girl, I got poison ivy in my EYEBALLS.  One of my husband’s many charming qualities is that he doesn’t get poison ivy, and he can go before me into the fray, wiping out any poison ivy in our path and clearing the way for me to do yard work. He is a total hero. 

The way these four plants assisted each other was really quite impressive.  The Black Walnuts released juglone, which cleared the understory of any competitor plants.  The multifloral rose created a thicket of inviting bird habitat for the feathery invaders that gorged themselves on buckthorn berries and dropped the seeds across our lawn. The poison ivy provided a calf-high groundcover that thwarted any enterprising young home owners who foolishly dreamed of cleaning the area up.

That is, until Sean entered the picture. I'll never forget the sight of him--in his carhart overalls, charging across the landscape with his chainsaw and his work gloves, and his beard blowing in the wind.  He chopped, sawed, shredded, and dug-- looking exactly like Hercules-- and protected his sweet wife (and her eyeballs) from the perils of the monstrous poison ivy and it's botanical cohorts. Maybe the plants will move on this Spring--seeking out backyards with less rugged heroism and fewer eyeball vendettas-- but maybe they won't be so wise.  Maybe they will come back, and if they do, we'll be ready for them. Oh yes, we'll be ready...

Here is the hillside when we moved in. I know it looks lush and green, but literally everything living on it had to be destroyed.

Here is the same hillside now pre-spring.  We've planted paw-paws, mulberries, redbuds, wildflowers and much more to replace the invasive buckthorns and roses.

Nesting

I don’t know if this happened to anyone else, but early in my pregnancy, I developed an unhealthy interest in throw pillows.  Seriously.  I thought about throw pillows all the time. And slip-covers. Good Lord.  What the fuck was wrong with me? I looked at slip-covers on Amazon AS A LEISURE ACTIVITY.  If had some free time in the day, I would think to myself “oh goody, I can put in some hours on Amazon researching slip covers.” Thankfully, Sean recognized this as a nesting activity and didn’t divorce me, but we did have some hard conversations where I tried to make him care about the throw pillows.  Sean’s studied indifference to these important decisions made me realize that, if the baby was going to have a proper home (one with decent upholstery an accent decor) it would be up to me to make it happen.

I continued nesting hard-core throughout my pregnancy with activities that included painting a mural in the baby’s room, knitting probably 20 different baby hats, and scrubbing every stain in our carpet with a toothbrush and a peroxide solution. But, at around 8 months, my nesting hormones made it absolutely clear that the thing I needed to do right then, THAT VERY MINUTE, before any more time was lost, was landscaping.

We live in Ohio near lake Erie, or, as it’s also known, Practically Canada. So, as you may imagine, January is not the time of year when most people focus on yard work.  However, Sean had spent a lot of time this last Fall clearing the impenetrable thicket of poison ivy, buckthorns, and multi-flora rose off of our hillside, and I was anxious to get the area cleared of sticks before this year’s batch of tender young poison ivy popped up.

I devised a method of building beds LIKE A GENIUS that allowed me to dump all of our assorted sticks, bark, and general wood debris into one place and build some natural looking curved beds. (A friend of our hilariously pointed out to us later that they look like actual nests.) I waddled up and down that hillside hour after hour, dragging sticks, and hammering in wooden stakes to hold the beds in place until the nesting hormones were satisfied.  Afterwards, we reinforced each bed with 2.5 ft. sections of rebar. The next step will be to fill the beds with dirt, leaves, and compost and plant them with daylilies, chives, and strawberries.

Now that the baby is here, my nesting hormones are extremely satisfied with my January landscaping efforts.  I stare out the window at them all the time as my baby sleeps screams contentedly in my arms. To Sean’s enormous relief, I am back to my normal state of not giving a shit about throw pillows, although I still can’t stop knitting baby hats. I’ll keep you posted on the hillside “nests” as we plant them and post more pictures soon!

• We ended up buying the Surefit stretch slipcover in a minty green.  It looks pretty good because the seat cushions are in their own case, so it acts more like a normal couch.  It does show dog hair, but this may not be a problem for those of you who have well behaved dogs that can be trusted to stay off the couch.
• The throw pillows have down feathers that poke through their cases and stab us (and the baby) whenever we’re on the couch.  We hate them.

Here are some photos of the "nests" at the top of the hill...