Well, we’re down to the following:

A window box of strawberries
A self watering windowbox of lettuce — probably won’t survive
A rosemary —the new growth doesn’t look great, but I’m hoping it will survive
Mint
Basil — still iffy
Sage
Thyme
Oregano

Well, I have a hideous fungus gnat infestation. I figure I need a plan for handling this, so I’ve typed one out below.

1. Stop panicking.
2. Prioritize plants to save(everything else is either already dead, or really sickly):

Rosemary
Banana
Strawberries
Mint
Basil if possible
Lettuce box 3, if possible
Thyme, oregano, and sage if possible

3. Empty out and sterilize containers that currently hold dead/sickly plants.
4. Continue using sticky traps.
5. Apply DE to soil of banana and rosemary and perhaps also the strawberries if it’s not to hard.
6. Apply BTi drench to plants I wish to save. (Basil and lettuce box 3 are self watering containers, so I’ll add the BTi to the water reservoir and keep my fingers crossed.
7. Repeat steps 4-6 until the pests are gone. Repeat step 3 as needed.
8. Make soilless mix and replant what needs replanting. Also transplant rosemary into a bigger container with soilless mix at this time.

It’s possible that using DE and BTi is overkill, but right now an aggressive plan of attack makes me feel better.

I’m definitely going with a soilless mix in the future. The gnats got in through contaminated potting soil. I just hope a soilless mix really will be pest free.

I’m trying to decide of I want to use coir (coco peat) instead of regular peat. There seem to be advantages and disadvantages to both, though i hear coir has fewer problems with fungi and fungus gnats. Either way, I need to find a good potting mix recipe. I’ll be adding some container gardening books to my library request list, and taking copious notes.

My review

From the Ground Up: The Story of a First Garden by Amy Stewart

rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book. Stewart takes us through the first year of her first garden—every mistake and every triumph—in a voice that is engaging and entertaining. There are a lot of moments that made me laugh here, and one or two that made me tear up.

I highly recommend this to anyone interested in gardening or who just wants a good read. It’s especially good if you’re having trouble with your garden. It’s reassuring to see that other gardeners started out the same way you did: by making mistakes.

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I’d like you to meet the slime mold that did in my lettuce box. It showed up on Thursday night, a.k.a. a few hours before my trip to Boston. I wound up getting rid of everything that was in the window box, since I didn’t want it spreading spores.

I have two other troughs of lettuce, but one just isn’t growing and the other has all sorts of creepy crawlies in it. I’ve identified the fungus gnats. The other two are too small for me to get good pics of.

Unidentified pest #1 is an insect that looks to have a body segment up front that’s rather rigid, and then a longer body segment that’s wiggly. Total length is about 2 to 3 mm long It is colored dark brown, so it’s camouflaged well.

Unidentified pest #2 looks like an itty bitty white worm, and it wriggles and moves in sort of an inch worm fashion. I don’t know if it’s actually white, but it is light colored. Total length ranges from 1.5 to 2.5 mm.

I’m considering sprinkling diatomaceous earth on top of the soil. I’ve already added a bit of chili powder, since I don’t think it will hurt the plants, and it might hurt the pests.

A recent study found that the disparities between boys and girls in math are related to gender inequality. The article is available for free if you follow the link provided on the abstract page.

Of course, you should have known that already.

This post refers to:

Janet S Hyde and Janet E Mertz, “Gender, culture, and mathematics performance,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 106, no. 22 (June 2, 2009): 8801-8807, doi:10.1073/pnas.0901265106.

I’m sure some of you knew this already—perhaps better than you wanted—but in some areas, wildlife is making a comeback and occasionally becoming a pest in human developments. According to the article, you can put chicken wire around trees to help keep the rodents away.

If you’ve already been attacked, you can get new trees at local nurseries and garden centers, various online nurseries, or the Arbor Day Foundation. If you get fruit trees, remember to check their pollination requirements and to invite me over to help with the eating.

This post refers to:

Dean, Cornelia. Return of the Once-Rare Beaver? Not in My Yard. New York Times. June 8, 2009.

My review

The Edible Herb Garden by Rosalind Creasy
rating: 3 of 5 stars
I skimmed this and got some good ideas for things to do with herbs. I’m eager to try the herb butters. I also finally understand the difference between regular chives (a.k.a. onion chives) and garlic chives (a.k.a. Asian chives). I happen to have seeds for the latter, and now have some ideas on what to do with them when I regrow them.

As with all of Creasy’s books, the photography is beautiful—and as an added bonus, I found I can now identify Nasturtium leaves by sight, although they are rather distinctive.

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The Bugs

The chives mentioned above had a bug problem. I doubt the bugs were beneficial, and they were creepy, so out they all went. I plan on trying to replant them sometime.

I do wish I had more space for bigger pots, or an outdoor area that wasn’t so high up.

The New York Times has an article today on the gardens around Philadelphia. It turns out that there are a lot, and several of them are either free or have fairly cheap admission. Somehow, I haven’t been to any of these, which is really rather sad. Oh, and if you happen to have a SEPTA pass, you can also get a discount at some of the ones that do charge admission.

You probably know that cows are big producers of methane, which tends to trap heat much more efficiently than carbon dioxide. That makes cows rather environmentally unfriendly as far as global warming goes. Well, it turns out that changing cattle feed may help reduce bovine methane—which, it turns out, is actually released as burps. This finding comes from Stoneyfield Farm, whose yogurt is pretty tasty and good in cooking, incidentally.

This post refers to:

Dobrzynski, Judith H. Philadelphia’s Gardens of Delights. New York Times. June 5, 2009.

Kaufman, Leslie. Greening the Herds: A New Diet to Cap Gas. New York Times. June 4, 2009.

“It didn’t occur to me that… that gardening, like music, could demand practice, patience, a willingness to make mistakes.”

—Amy Stewart in From the Ground Up

I’m currently reading From the Ground Up—Amy Stewart’s book about her first garden. It’s an entertaining read, and it has some good advice in it. I like the quote above. It makes me feel a bit better about my current container gardening mistakes.

So, I think I have powdery mildew, which is affecting many things in my poor container garden. That, or some other type of moldy thing. There are some bugs there too. Since the plants are all indoors, I may look into getting Neem spray, though I could also try solutions of baking soda or skim milk. The baking soda might burn the plants though. The easiest may be Neem. I’ll just have to be sure to rinse things well before I eat them.

The problem seems to be partially be related to my terra cotta pots, so as I scale up certain plants, I may use pots made of… stuff that is not terra cotta. Said pots will probably be self-watering, which I have heard is a way to keep container plants from getting too much or too little water. My reading suggests that watering issues are the root cause of most container plant issues. Unfortunately, self-watering containers are pricier. I do also plan on cleaning and treating my terra cotta pots.

I currently have a ridiculous collection of herb varieties:

1. basil
2. rosemary
3. sage
4. mint
5. chives
6. dill
7. oregano
8. thyme
9. coriander/cilantro
10. parsley
11. catnip

To be honest, this might be too many. I’ve more or less ranked them in their order of importance to me. I have seeds of most of these varieties, so I’m not too worried. If I screw up, I’ll just start over again—though since I don’t use the last three too often, I may just let them go.¹ This is a learning experience, right? And hey, at least it has the potential to be a delicious one.

The one thing that sort of bugs me is that I probably can’t reuse the potting soil if it is powdery mildew. Still, it might be worth it for successful container herbs.

1. No, I don’t cook with catnip, and Bella is not too keen on it either. She thinks it’s nice to have around, but she’s fine if it’s not there.

Fresh Food from Small Spaces: The Square-Inch Gardener’s Guide to Year-Round Growing, Fermenting, and Sprouting by R.J. Ruppenthal

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
This book is a good introductory work for people who want an idea of what’s possible. It certainly won’t tell you everything you need to know, but it’s a good place to start.

I particularly liked the discussions of container edibles, backyard fruit varieties, sprouting, yogurt making, and chickens. The sprouting and yogurt making are of particular interest to me since I learned to sprout mung beans from my mom, and my dad used to make yogurt at home. The book often recommends against using metal containers, but for some reason, I recall both my parents using metal containers for whatever it was they were doing, and I do my sprouting in what is quite possibly the same stainless steel bowl my mom used to use.

The book encouraged me to sprout more and to try self watering containers and other container vegetables besides my leaf lettuce. I’d recommend reading this book to get a taste of what you might be interested in trying should you want to grow/make your own food. At the very least, it’s an informative read.

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