Belly down in my garden this morning weeding with a pocket knife and fork as i slithered through the maze of tomato plants and gigantic potato mounds I realized that my avocation may be in control now. Last week i met the compost cult again for lunch.
I traded some hybrid bell peppers (the strain produces incredibly sweet virtually year round) I've developed over the last two years for a spicy Anaheim chilie hybrid strain that's supposedly is very sweet, plus i bout a couple of 8-inch tall Goliath tomato bushes that the grower says are "great producers."
Like he'd tell me, "these are horned worm magnets." I admit I'm a novice member of this cult and that I lack the appropriate reliquaries and talismans I see among these avid gardeners. For example, these men were aghast that I don't have a "seed safe" or a wheeled seed insertion tool that plunges tiny lettuce seed exactly one-half inch into prepared soil.
When they chided me for not having a seed safe my mind went into full blown la-la land and conjured up images of a giant hermetically sealed Mosler safe that would keep my hybrid seeds safe against an organic apocalypse. What I use to keep my seeds safe is a box designed to keep indexed 3x5 cards neat and free from the ravages of Coca Cola drips, errant cheesy pizza crumbs and the like. Being ever so clever though, I do keep a couple of bags of dissecant tucked against the lid of the box, Which I keep safely stored in a cubbyhole over my desk. i keep the seeds in carefully closed tiny wax paper containers like t hose used to package peppers at the deli.
Truth be told, I steal mine from a drive through restaurant in Glendora that's renown for its Pastrami sandwiches. I don't feel the least bit guilty about taking the little wax bags for my own use. What the hell, i just pile the chili preparados on my plate, saving the wax bags for another, more noble purpose. Right now I have a collection of 55 packets of seeds, mostly tomatoes that produce fruits larger then one pound in under 90 days from the time they're planted. I also have five strains of quick growing peppers that are guaranteed o set you on fire, from one end to another, but which taste better and grow more reliably than any other Chile I've tried to cultivate down here in San Diego. but the real pride of my seed stash is a hybrid cantaloupe I've grown for three seasons. It germinates quickly and rapidly throws three-pound fruits that I have for lunch on hot summer days.
Oh i was thinking about how naive I am when compared to other members of the Compost Cult. They all have a wide assortment of tools clipped or pouched on t heir belt. I have a 5" citrus knife i bought for $2 at the local fruit packers but carry a sterilized pair of surgical scissors, a small container of root hormone and a sterile pot as well as a liter of water should i see a plant that I think is begging to be collected or evaluated as an addition to my garden. Despite almost primal urges to snip a few plants, I've been a good boy so far, although there is a strawberry patch filled with sequoia sets I've had my eye on when I take my micro dog for his afternoon walk. Truth be told, I go my first sequoias down here by cutting and rooting four plants. Those four original plants have multiplied to more than 100, and are spread out now in my upper and lower gardens.
When it comes to strawberries, i rule.
Of all the vegetables and fruits i grow, strawberries are the most labor intensive. Weeds erupt at the base of the plants overnight, and there's no end to the list of critters that pillage strawberry beds. The list includes not only the hated western pocket gopher but also the mischievous common field mouse and it's much larger and extremely funny relative, desert kangaroo rat. For the most part, I'm not about to begrudge the infrequent field mouse an occasional run through my strawberry buffet, and i don't even mind if he or she comes back for seconds. Gophers are a different thing altogether. The Indolent pests will waste an entire row in one or two days, then come back and destroy the roots.And kangaroo rats may be the funnies pest of all, particularly if you find one of their nests, which are laden with bright shiny things they pick up in fields.
This potato thing is very interesting. I've got vines a plenty, growing mounds and little white flowers beginning to form on the vines. I've run out of dirt and while having lunch with the compost cult, I happened o mention my problems with gophers. One of the old guys at then table jumped up," If you have gophers, you're in luck, collect the soil they've excavated an use it to top off your mounds. It's already been sifted by their little clawed feet, so it should be an ideal layer."
Made sense to me, so this afternoon I carefully scooped up three five gallon plastic containers of gopher dust and carefully added it to my mounds. It beat stealing dirt from a construction site or old grove. And then a couple of hours ago, I saw a little brown figure down my hill, standing tall on his mound, taking deep sniffs. Before i could grab my trusty Beeman pellet rifle, he was gone. Then, I my way down to the store I saw two gophers hauling up the hill, pausing frequently to sniff the air.
That's when it hit me, the dirt I collected was probably pawed up by an estrous female.
Oh great, I just turned my most vigorous potato mound into a chemical beacon shouting to every gopher within miles "Gopher girl, looking for Affection, Hie Thee Quickly to the Ziggurat of Love."
Sometimes you win, sometimes you Lose. Sometimes you sit out in your garden at sunset with a scoped Beeman pellet rifle, protecting your crops against your own mistakes.--Jim Forbes, from rural northern San Diego County, guarding my potatoes against pheromone crazed mail gophers.
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