Soothe the Itch with Plantain
Now that the weather has warmed the insects have come out as well. Here in Maine they come in droves at certain times of the year, at the moment black flies are biting like crazy. They don’t stop my from working outside. For the most part insects don’t bother me too much, but I do get bit on occasion. When I do I grab a leaf off a broad leaved plantain, pop it in my mouth and chew it for a few seconds, then I put the poultice on my insect bite.
This works like a charm every time, it also works well for bee and wasp stings. If you’d like to read a fascinating collection of the historical uses of plantains head on over and check out this article.
Do you have a tried and true way to dealing with insect bites?
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Flowering Almond
Last year I noticed this lovely shrub blooming by the back porch. I had never seen one like it before, but it sounded like what I had read about flowering almonds.
After a little research on Google that’s what it turned out to be. It’s quite lovely when it blooms, the long open stems are covered in blooms all the way to the tips. When not in bloom it looks more like a small tree with long open branches.
The lovely pink blossoms don’t last long, only about a week before they are all gone. Now that it’s finished blooming I plan on taking a bunch of cutting to propagate many more. I’m thinking I might try to make a hedge of these somewhere on the property.
What’s your favorite flowering shrub?
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A Little Something Festive
Way back when I was going through my Christmas decorations I found a box of grapevine stars that I no longer used. I thought about sending them off to Goodwill but decided to hang them outside in the summer for festive decor.
Yesterday I hung a few grapevine stars and a few strands of white lights in the apple tree right outside the front door.
I’ve been wanting to add a little eating area in the garden with a string of bistro lights. It will be a few years before I can realize that dream, this is almost as good.
I’m quite pleased with the results, it’s very nice. I think I might put a dimmer on the lights to make them a little less bright. Too bad the bugs are so bad or we could sit out under the tree during the summer for an evening cup of tea.
Do you add any kind of decor or fun things to the garden in summer?
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Will Work for Food
This is our second year raising pigs. One of the main reasons we got them last year is to put them to work. Our back garden was overgrown with tenacious weeds and pigs are one of the best ways to deal with issues like this.
As you can see above, the pigs were put into a very weedy section of the garden. Below is what the garden looks like this year. The far right side was sod last spring. The pigs did such a great job rooting up and eating the vegetation that not very many weeds have grown back this year. Only a few perennial weeds and a few annuals weeds have sprouted. I’m pretty pleased with the results.
Here’s another example of the back garden last year with pigs and what it looks like this spring.
This year I’ll be putting in the pigs in the grassy area around the garden first, they should eat the vegetation and root it up. Later this summer I will mulch it heavily and hopefully next year we should be in business for planting hedges and perennials beds.
The best part is that they do all this while depositing their rich manure. The chickens come along behind them and work it in. I end up not having to do the work (except for moving fences) and I get ham and sausage out of the deal. I’m all for using animals to do chores so I don’t have to. I’m in the process of setting up a composting area in the chicken run so they can turn all my garden waste into compost for me.
What garden chores do you wish you could relegate.
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Grafting Tomatoes – Will It Work?
On Tuesday I grafted my first tomatoes. It should be an interesting experiment. The grafting seed stock was purchased earlier this spring and the seeds were started at the same time I started all of my tomatoes. You’re supposed to wait until your tomatoes have two sets of true leaves, which mine finally grew.
It’s really not difficult to graft tomatoes since tomatoes seem to want to live. I used this method from Herman’s Farm, I replanted a root grafting tomato and an heirloom tomato in the same pot. Then I simply cut the top off the grafting rootstock at a 45 degree angle and then cut a slit in the plant I wanted to graft and slid the rootstock stem up into the slit. I taped it with medical tape and in a week I’ll cut the stem of the heirloom tomato from the roots. Some methods have you cut the top off the heirloom tomato and graft it to the rootstock. This method seemed like I’d have better success for my first go at grafting.
After grafting all of them I spritzed them with water and down into the basement on a heating mat they went to give them the warm dark environment they will need. I also put a clear plastic tote over them to hold in the moisture. They were left in darkness for a day and when I checked on them yesterday they had all perked up and looked great. Today the grow light will be turned on and hopefully they will start healing their wounds.
I’m planning on planting these grafted tomatoes side by side with their own root counterparts in the garden. This will give me a good idea of how the grafting affected both disease resistance and fruit production. Stay tuned, it should be an interesting summer!
Are you doing any interesting garden experiments this summer?
