I am planning on actually gardening this summer. More for food than for a hobby, but, since I'm planning on digging in the dirt, I'm also planning on doing some flower gardens as well as a vegetable garden.

I'd like to keep it organic. I really dislike using chemicals, especially where there will be animals and children present. Since my back yard borders a rather busy park, right next to the little ball field where the neighborhood parents gather their kids to play baseball in the summer, I pretty much have both around my yard.

So, I live in a flood plain, my soil is rich, black earth. It doesn't need a lot of help. I do need some help with insects, particularly slugs. Any suggestions?

I'm also wondering, has anyone planted celery before? I would like to plant it, but I don't know if its a plant (if so I've never seen any in this area but I do know its one of Michigan's primary produce) or if you start with seed. Otherwise I'm sticking to the standards, tomatoes, green peppers, leaf lettuce, radishes, broccoli, that sort of stuff. I'll have to put chicken wire around it to keep out rabbits, otherwise I'm ok there.

Also, any suggestions on dealing with crabgrass and dandelions organically? Besides digging them out myself? I really can't do that much standing and bending, nor can I do that much getting up from that low a sitting position, although I do have a little step stool I could use for this purpose. If I can lessen the stronghold of these two plants from my grass, the reel mower would be able to to a much better job, and I wouldn't have to go over the lawn 4 times!

Check out this website
You can also use Savin I think.

marigolds. insects hate marigolds.

"Organic Gardening" magazine. I'm a fairly newly minted gardener too. This mag is dynamite and is pretty user friendly for beginners.

http://www.organicgardening.com/

This is the first year in a long time that I haven't planted a garden. Very busy this summer with the kids, and we've got a long running drought.

I never use pesticides, and I haven't had many problems. I just haven't been able to grow corn without ants eating it, so I gave up trying. Supposedly, beer is good for slugs.

I do like growing some of the less common things like arugola and beets. They're great for salad. I use both the beet and the greens. Instead of head lettuce, I usually plant a mescaline mix, but I've done boston and romaine by themselves as well. I also like having fresh basil to use with tomatoes.

I grow lots of different peppers. I think my favorite so far has been serrano, the little red meat ultra-spicy bullets. Red savinas were a close second.

Brussel Sprouts are great and hardy, but no one eats them but me.

Cucumbers and sweet peas are great. I grow those on the fence to save garden space.

If you have rich soil, try yellow squash and zucchini. You'll have more than you know what to do with, but they are rather large plants.

If you want your weeding to a minimum, you might want to mulch with wheat straw too.

And be careful which flowers you plant near the vegetables. Some of them don't mix well. The best thing I've planted in and around the garden is marigolds.

Good luck. You'll learn as you go.

Bingo!

Slugs...hmm...trying to think about that. I dealt with it before when I tried to grow tomatoes in S. CA some years back. I think beer is helpful but...I didn't want to use the bait 'cause I'm not sure what is in it. Salt is something snails and slugs avoid. You might look into epsom salts. I know at least, that citrus trees (I had a key lime tree) like to be watered with water where I've added some epsom salts (Ck the package for the right percentages). But that tree never had slugs.

I'm just thinking out loud here. Not sure 'bout that.

I'm thinking of starting a little organic and hydroponic garden in the corner of the kitchen cabinet for herbs. I have them outside but they just get cooked and don't flourish. All instructions say bright sunlight but they absolutely burn to a crisp in the sun, no matter how much water and food they get.

I gave up on having any type of plant in the house with all the cats I've got. There's always one cat that insists on eating whatever plant I try to keep. If they can't eat it, they knock it off whatever shelf or piece of furniture I have it sitting on. If they can't knock it over, or eat it, they pee in the soil.

I have heard marigolds were a good repellent for fleas, wouldn't hurt to plant them around the garden. I like how they look, don't care much for how they smell but if they do the trick with the slugs.

As for beer, do you pour it into the soil around the plant? Mostly its tomatoes the slugs bother and the location I've picked for the garden is the same location I planted the tomatoes that had the slug problem years ago.

Thanks for the resource information! Those will come in handy I'm sure.

BTW, I love brussel sprouts and zucchini! Zucchini is great in soups and spaghetti sauce. Or even just lightly sauteed with onions and yellow squash.

rottmom-

Check with state and local horticultural groups. They usually have lots of useful information specific to your region.

No. I think that'd have the wrong effect. The idea is that slugs like the beer, so if you set a saucer/container with the lip at ground level, the slugs will crawl in and drown.

I use disposable types of pie pans. I simply sink them to where the edge is level with the dirt. Pour the beer in the pan so there's about an inch of beer. The slugs absolutely love the stuff. They crawl into the pan and drink themselves to death (and or drown, lol).

You can also put eggshells around seedlings. When the slugs crawl over them to get to the goodies, the shells will cut them and they die. The calcium in the shells is also good for the soil so it has two functions in one.

BTW I've also heard you can use grape juice instead of beer but I've always had very good luck with the beer. Oh yeah, be sure to use stale beer. They like it better than the fresh stuff, lol

If you still smoke tobacco empty the contents of your cigarette butts around your plants to ward off insects.

Slugs? Try eggshells. They don't like to slide across them.
It doesn't kill them. Use them as a barrier around your herbs.

I have no tips, but this is interesting, good luck Rottmom!!!

I work for Michigan State University, the first Land Grant College and originally named Michigan Agricultural College. They do have quite an extensive horticultural/agricultural department. I just can't ever figure out which department it would be that would help the general public with questions.

I can't afford to buy beer for myself, now I'm buying it for the slugs in my yard. Oh the irony!

I had a gardener who advocated saving up those butts, then soaking them in water for a day or two, then putting the liquid into a spray bottle. As you're creating a nicotine spray to discourage bugs, and it seemed to do wonders with aphids on roses, I see it as less an "organic" approach than it is one that advocates recycling.

I haven't a clue as to whether it would be unhealthy for vegetables (for the consumer, that is).

Unfortunately I quit smoking years ago. Well, not unfortunately, it was good that I quit but that does eliminate the tobacco solution. I could get my neighbor to save her butts for me though. Would be cheaper than getting the slugs drunk.

Where's your compassion. If you were a slug, wouldn't you drink, too?

That's why it works.
All things in nature abhorrer burnt tobacco leaves except nicotine addicted human beings.
It's a natural insect repellent/insecticide.

The damn slug can get its own beer! I'm not here just to supply the neighborhood slugs with alcohol!

You may have a point there.

I'm with you Rottmom. Beer for slugs is alcohol abuse.
If your gonna buy beer I say drink it with your buds, then have a contest to see who can find the most slugs.
Then squish up the slugs, mix em in the dirt, and their rotting bodies will be worm food!

If you have an insect problem, I would conclude that one is not spending enough time in the garden. Throw old bread products in the garden to get the birds to come to the garden for their food supply.

Don't kill the wasps, because they kill the spiders.
Don't kill the spiders because they kill the smaller bugs that eat the plants.
If you notice bugs, get brave and take the big ones off the plant with your hand. Then squish em.
If you grow garlic, it'll detour bugs. I grow lots of garlic. It keeps alot of bugs out.
I weed about ever 2-3 days, and in that process, I look for slugs, and grubs. I squish em.
If you see any grass hoppers, squish em.
If a worm get dug up... don't squish it. Worms are good for the garden. They eat small, tiny, midget bug eggs too.

As for ants, I tear up their dens that are in the garden and after awhile, they get the hint that this area is unsafe... squish zone.

You gotta train the earth like you do a dog.

Now see, I wouldn't get birds, I'd get squirrels and they eat my tomatoes. I'd rather not encourage the squirrels to feed off my garden. As it is I'm going to have a hard enough time with the squirrels and rabbits.

That's why you have dogs.

That's interesting.
My squirrels (Rasputin and his family)
Tend to eat my oranges and leave my tomatoes alone.
Go figure.

Actually, I only have one dog now and she's 11 years old. She isn't into squirrels, but the area where the garden will be is not accessible to the dog. That's done on purpose, she'd be walking through the middle and doing her business there instead of on the grass.

Even when I had three dogs though the squirrels would climb down the sides of the huge catalpa tree and chatter at the dogs while they danced around the tree trying to get at the squirrels. The squirrels laugh at the dogs.

I don't have oranges, maybe its a preference thing. California squirrels prefer oranges, Michigan squirrels have to settle for tomatoes.

The only thing that keeps squirrels out is chicken wire fencing.
You make a cage with openings that you can reach into but the squirrels can't.
But they're as smart as monkeys sometimes they find a way in.

You are aware, of course, that nicotine is an insecticide?

The bugs I hate most are hornworms. They'll show up on the tomatoes late in the season, and you won't even see them if you're not looking for them. Those, I'll pull off by hand, because they eat so much so fast.

Here's a pic:


- http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/archive/2007_06_01_archive.html

Or I can plant a couple extra tomato plants and share.

I used to hang suet cakes out in the front yard for the birds (because I had a pair of cardinals that were so beautiful, and it was cheap kitty TV) and the acrobatics the squirrels would go through to gain access to that suet cake was highly entertaining and very ingenious. As a rule I don't mind squirrels, but then I no longer attempt to feed birds so outside of my tomatoes, there's no source of contention between myself and them.

Live and let live I say.

I put the beer in old lids (from jars) or small plates. The slugs flocked to it....

I had a friend with squirrel problems. When I prepared my habanero's I'd give him the trimmings, along with any ones that didn't look good enough to eat. He'd chop them up and add them to the bird food. The birds don't mind, but the squirrels hate it.

Sharing is a viable option.
A win-win.

Yup..birds don't feel heat. My parrot(s) over the years have always LOVED hot peppers and hot pepper seeds. They don't feel the 'heat'. BUT .... I've snuggled my nose into their little necks a few hours after they've eaten hot peppers, and burned the hell out of my nose and eyes, just from 'sniffing' them.

Capsaicin in the eye is never pretty.

Yup. My evil ex-husband had never been around parrots til we met. I grew up with them and have had them myself for 20 years or more. So........... he insisted he give her some dried hot peppers and of course, she loved it (and him) for it. Then she came out and the minute he got a whiff of her, he almost died. What a hoot!

I strongly suggest Roses if your climate permits.

They are fickle plants, but tough. It's hard to keep them from growing.
The ranges of color are extreme these days and nothing is quite as beautiful.

Roses are like women, beautiful, graceful, a pleasure to caress and full of thorns.

Watch out for nematodes and root crops. Had a couple gardens where no problemo and then one where the nematodes drilled holes through all the carrots and beets.

Hey, I was just thinkin' you could shoot a coupla squirrels and then head over to the redneck recipe' thread, learn how to cook em and ... there you go!

No problem with squirrels in the garden. Nor much with the bird-feeder, though they still try. Great Dane discourages rabbits. Only problems: Bears with the birdfeeder; woodchucks with the garden. (They can burrow in past the fence.) Not worried much. Chain-link keeps out deer. Can't stand to touch the slugs? (We have the big spotted ones.) Salt them.

No Oranges. Short growing season. Just able to put frost sensitive plants in now...still some risk...but they should make it.

Everything organic. Raised beds very good. Putting lettuce in container seems to avoid problem with slugs altogether. Off to a slow start. Good rain. Low temperatures. Peas doing well.

What did they do with the holes? Dare I ask...

Woodchucks hey..... how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? and how does one chuck wood? and why would the chucking be necessary?

Looking for oil probably.

The squirrels here are much more interested in my neighbor's avocado tree. They drive him crazy. But the possums go for my tomatoes.

1+1=2
2+2=4
3+3=6
6+6+6=18
18/3=6
3+6=9

I had some very nice, fragrant roses at one time, then I got Damien. He was like a bulldozer when it came to plants, just walked right through and over them. Didn't have much feeling in his paws, those thorns didn't seem to bother him. I finally let someone dig up the last surviving plants (climbing roses, the rest were long dead).

I'll do roses again some day but its too soon now. Too many memories. Right now I'm working on the vegetables and either a butterfly bush or azaleas. I'll make up my mind tomorrow when I visit the nursery. The only thing I know for sure, lots and lots of tomatoes!

One of my brothers lives on the edge of town with all the wildlife in the world surrounding his yard. I remember one year he and my sis-in-law planted a huge garden and the rabbits and woodchucks got everything but the hot peppers.

Won't be hot peppers in my garden, waste of time since I'm a wimp when it comes to spicy foods.

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/f...7023830653.html
Here is a site with some solutions for killing ants in the garden.

Thanks. Lots of suggestions. I'll have to try some. I hate using pesticides with the pets and kids, and we have ants everywhere, not just the garden.

Far as I know, they ate the insides out. But sometimes, they themselves remained in the holes. not pretty radishes, carrots and beets.