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Teasers, Agitprop, and Funnies
maxwell at cowgirlfunk dot com
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Wednesday, September 30, 2009
In Which I Plead Ignorance and Ask the Internet for Ideas
Part of my dream of moving to Austin entailed wider, more open spaces and growing my own vegetables. We still live in a fairly urban environment but I had dreams of moving towards a life less on grid. There are plenty of accomplished urban gardeners in New York, so it's hardly an excuse, but my ability and experience keeping plants alive was limited to whatever grew in our window and didn't die when we left for longer than a week. I had Animal, Vegetable, Miracle dreams whose reality reflect The Poisonwood Bible. It has been a study so far in discovering my own ignorance, which is humbling but has its uses.  In the beginning of the summer we had a few tomatoes and the biggest obstacle was convincing our daughter not to pick them green. Then the pinworms came. Pestilence, weather, and my own gardening ignorance continued to ravage the little plot of land I tended. I haven't given up. I saved seeds from various heirloom tomato plants I hope to grow next season. We have a small lemon tree bearing fruit. The jalapeno plant, after losing every single leaf and bloom over the hottest part of the summer, has revived and there are even a few tiny peppers growing. This brings me to aphids, which have been making a scene all summer but now seem to be in full out riot mode. At least so far these aphids are not being herded and milked by ants like the full working ranch we had going on an earlier pepper plant. I planted marigold seeds and little marigold plants are growing...but that has not helped yet. Understandable. Yesterday a kind ladybug stopped by to eat a meal. Hooray. I transferred a marigold plant nearby and today I found that some of the aphids, instead of being repelled by it, have migrated to it. It's too hot to ship ladybugs, which may not be a good or green idea anyway, and once they are released I have no way to contain them. Any ideas? |
