Attitude Adjustment

So I was talking to a couple of friends about the weather the other day---and of course when I say “talking” I mean I was complaining at length---and was surprised to find that my perception of the recent weather and their---clearly erroneous---perception of the weather were completely different. They didn’t seem to find May nearly as cold and gloomy as I did.

Huh. Perhaps a change in my attitude would help. And—just for arguments sake---let us imagine that I was in fact correct and May IS cold and gloomy---how should I best make peace with a month that is less than it could be, weather-wise?

So I made myself a mental list of all the positive things about a gloomy, damp misty May:

1) Little time spent watering my newly planted flowers

2) My sunscreen budget will not need to be increased

3) Great excuse to not mow the grass

4) Perfect slug picking weather.

Into each garden a little slug must crawl...
Got salt? (and yes, I know that's a snail)

Slugs. UGH.
This time of year the little slime-ers can lay waste to a flat of marigolds in short order. I have an on-going battle with the wee beasties that spans decades and resort to chemical warfare only as a last resort. I’ve been known to chop them in half with a         garden  trowel or poke them with a garden stake, but the best, least gooshy way to deal with them is salt water. Mix a half cup of salt water into half a gallon of warm water and shake. Be sure to repurpose an old milk jug for this task. Keep the jug with you   as  you work around the garden and simply drop any slugs you find into the briney mixture. A damp day is perfect slug picking weather because they will venture out from under the leaves and can be easily plucked from your plants. And when the jug is full,   just cap it and drop it into your trash. Easy-peasy!

Straw Bale Gardening

I have a friend who has recently become enamored of straw bale gardening—you know, planting veggies on top of bales of straw instead of tilling up the soil and planting seeds in the ground, the cold, wet, muddy ground as God intended. And like all good, newly-converted enthusiasts she couldn’t wait to bring her subversive literature over to my house and attempt to convert me.

The book that stared it all

Now, I’ve seen it done before and my reaction has always been WHY? It just looks, well—MESSY. Green plants sprouting out of shaggy, slowly decomposing bales of straw, not at all attractive to my eye. Then she handed me her propaganda, a book filled with various sized gardens and all sorts of cute configurations—there was even a straw bale garden in a shopping cart. The literature claimed amazing results with little effort—that’s sound good, right? And the small footprint such a garden would require could be easily and inexpensively fenced to keep those pesky elk at bay. I have to admit that at this point the entire idea was starting to sound pretty enticing.

It seems rather straightforward to get started: buy some straw bales—straw, not hay. Hay seeds will sprout and, unless your goal is to grow a bale full of hay, nobody wants that. You will also need some potting mix or garden soil, soaker hose, and fertilizer. Along with seeds and/or seedlings, that’s all you need. Before you know it one of my sons was interested in the whole process and started thumbing through her propaganda and that’s all she wrote.

I’ll let you know how it goes.