Do you see those lovely, lovely zucchini?  Are they not the most lovely zucchini in the whole, wide, freaking world?  They are to me and I will tell you why.   Because I grew them in my very own garden.  I can hear what you are thinking, “yeah, you and everyone else.  I get so many of them that I grow them like baseball bats just so the kids have something to play with.”

I know that everyone and their cousin Bob can grow zucchini, but up until this year, I have not yet been successful with this seemingly easy plant.  In fact, I have not been able to get a squash plant of any kind to for darn near 8 years.  How crazy is that?

The reason was vine borers. Every year those insidious little fuckers would invade my squash plants like Russian spies in the American suburbia.  Quietly and stealthily they would bore into the base of the squash plant,  and run a destructive gauntlet down the hollow core of the plant.

I tried the covering, I tried the surveillance and seek and destroy, but every time they got past me.  But not this year. This year I had a secret weapon and that was neem oil.  The best damn pesticide I have ever, ever used.

Ah, right now so many of you are scurrying to the bottom of this post to leave a comment that starts with “But Hanna” that I can hear the collective squeak of mouse roller balls.  But if you don’t know about neem oil, you need to finish reading this post.  I swear you will be amazed.

You are thinking how could I use a pesticide on my garden.  Think of the bees. Think of the butterflies.  How could I be such a ruthless bitch all for the sake of a few zucchini. Ah-ha! I will say back to you.  I am not.  (Ok, maybe you were not thinking that. Maybe I am just paranoid.)

#1 most awesome thing about neem oil – it only kills bad bugs and does not harm good bugs (or people or pets for that matter). 

As a matter of fact, bee keepers have been experimenting with neem oil to try to treat mite infections in bees.  They found that you had to use a high percentage solution of neem oil to even start to hurt bees.  Neem oil is typically sold at a high solution percentage and then diluted to a very low solution percentage before being applied.  Even extension services say that neem oil application in the home garden is safe for bees at any time.

#2 most awesome thing about neem oil – as mentioned, it is safe for people and pets. 

Don’t believe me, just go ask the approximately 1 BILLION Indian people who have been using it in cosmetics, medicines and as a contraceptive for generations. Studies have been done and the most dangerous thing they can come up with is that if you eat a lot of it, over a long period of time, it may cause liver damage.  I don’t need to eat it.  I have my wine to help me with my liver damage, thank you very much.

#3 most awesome thing about neem oil – It works systemically.

All those other insecticidal oils wash right off if it rains or you water from above.  Neem oil gets into the plant.  Which is why it worked on my vine borers.   Any part of the plant becomes dangerous to the bad bug, inside and out. So where normal pesticides would fail, because they only stay on the surface, neem oil can succeed because it moves through the plant.  So very cool.

 #4 most awesome thing about neem oil – It takes care of other gardening problems too.

Neem oil is also effective as a fungicide and a miticide.  All your gardening pest needs rolled into one.

I have to say that the only thing that neem oil lacks is that visceral satisfaction you get when watching harmful pests die.  Neem oil is not an instant kill pesticide.  It works like the Pax on Miranda.   For reasons science is still not clear on, they don’t fall over dead, they just “stop fighting…and then they stop doing everything else. They stop going to work, they stop breeding, talking, eating.”  Except about bad bugs, instead of innocent people.

Still, I can live without the quick kill as long as it works.  And, as evidenced by the fact that I now have more zucchini than I know what to do with, it does work.

P.S. Still waiting on ripe tomatoes.

We’ve covered the fact that our gardens are essentially a botanical brothel. There is enough flower power sex going on in our yards to make Jenna Jameson blush.  But, there is one kind of plant in the vegetable garden that is like a nightclub without a cover charge, age limit and free drinks for the ladies and that is the Cucurbits (kind of like the Kardashians, but without the money and thinly veiled poor taste).

Cucurbits are a family of plants that include melons, cucumbers and squash. They produce flowers that are either male or female. And just like a nightclub (at least the straight variety) where things don’t really get going well unless you have a little bit of both the XX and XY action going on.

But, there is a reason that nightclubs have ladies’ nights (and free libations for them).   Because the male of the species is a bit more motivated in the sexual area than the female. Ever go to a nightclub early in the evening?  You will look around and you will see a dozen or so over eager guys sitting around waiting for the action to begin.  Yes, the guys are losers and clueless, but there they are. Sipping drinks, eyeing the competition, perhaps sipping a bit more quickly than they should due to the need to build up some courage.  Next thing you know, the ground is littered with drunk guys about 2 minutes before the ladies make their grand entrance.

Your cucurbits are no different. 

Many male blossoms show up early.  Too early to really catch the wave of women flowers coming their way, they normally fall to the ground, spent and useless and mumbling something about an ex-girl blossom they need to call right now.

Shortly after this, all the single lady blossoms show up, the cooler, more suave male flowers saunter in, and you have a bona fide cucurbit orgy going on in your garden.  (This will explain the teeny-tiny popcorn boxes you see next to your tomato and lettuce plants.  They are just enjoying the free show.)

I think one of the most common questions I answer at my other job at this time of year is “Help! All the flowers on my squash are falling off (or are being eaten, and a spent male blossom does look like it has been bitten off).  How can I stop it?”  You can’t. You just have to wait for the pretty ladies to appear, and as we all know, we ladies like to take our time and make a fashionably late entrance.

Note:  if you are looking for something to do with your loser male blossoms, you can make a tasty treat out of them, so that they don’t get completely wasted (and start the pathetic drunk dialing).

I pulled my hamstring this past weekend.  Actually, I strained my hamstring last week and choose to ignore it because only sissies let a little thing like pain stop them . Besides, damn it, I had 3 trees that needed to go into the ground this weekend (it is already a little late to be planting trees) so the little ache in the back of my thigh was not going to stop me.

THEN I pulled my hamstring, hard, and entered a whole new level of pain.  What was a little ache turned into a full fledged hurting akin to stabbing a knife, albeit a modestly sized knife but a knife nonetheless, into the back of my leg – again and again and again. Every. Time. I. Bend. My. Leg.  It’s like there is a sprite size sadist back there.

Basically, this means that my leg needs to stay tightly secured in a brace for a week or two and none of that kneeling, bending, weight bearing stuff that gardening normally requires.  My husband has taken to calling me Hop Along Hanna. *sigh*

But I am fiending hard for a dirt fix, so what is a girl to do.?

I can’t be the only person in the world who has a medical issue that could keep them from gardening.  There are many ailments that can make the chores of everyday gardening rather difficult, and some of them *gulp* are permanent conditions.  Yet, these allegedly disabled people can be  enabled gardeners, so there has to be a way, right?

While I can’t get down and dirty as usual in the garden, there are a few things I can do in the meantime to still play in the dirt without causing me undue pain and suffering.

1. Get your garden on  at waist level – My sweet spousal unit placed my potting soil on the picnic table along with my plants and pots. I have been making containers galore. With everything at waist level, I can either sit or stand (flamingo style) as I see fit. Waist level dirt does not have to stop at simply filling containers.  We are lucky that at our house, we have a great many retaining walls that the containers can be placed on, making them super easy to water and care for.  If I didn’t have these retaining walls, numerous plant stands and pedestals would make great stand ins.

   If I needed a permanent solution (like my husband’s grandfather did a few years ago when his knees really went), you can convert your entire garden to waist high management.  His super raised beds are built out of cinder block, but wood framed raised beds would work as well.

2. Wave your magic water wand – For $6-35, you can become the proud owner of a water wand with varying degrees of neat features like spray type and water flow control – depending on how much you pay.  Water wands make it easy to get down low or get up high to water without having to stretch or kneel.Really, these are awesome gadgets to have regardless of your current physical state.
3. Kick the bucket – A five gallon bucket makes a great portable seat that you can move with you in the garden so that you are sitting instead of kneeling.  If you want to get fancy, they sell little trolleys and rolling stools that are essentially the same thing. Heck, you want to hit the middle ground, they sell aprons for 5 gallon buckets so you can use it to tote your garden tools as well.
4. Long arm of the trowel – Many garden tools already come with long handles, which means less bending and kneeling.  Even tools you think can only be found in the hand version, can be found with long handles if you look around on the internet. 

No one, whether through temporary or permanent condition, needs to stop gardening. Many of our plants would shrivel and die without their gardeners and many gardeners would shrivel and die without their plants. Well, I have to run hop along now, so I can get back to my own garden.

I like spaghetti squash.  My kids like spaghetti squash. We eat spaghetti squash A LOT.

So, when the spaghetti squash in the pantry was a little soft, I was surprised. I had only bought this squash 2 weeks ago, and since the darn things are meant to be stored for MONTHS, I was a little peeved that I had wasted my money at the store.  So, of course being the little Scottish American girl that I am, I cut it open, just to see if it was really, really not edible.

Turns out it was not rotten, it was growing. Heck, the germination rate in that thing looked to be higher than in my seed cups sitting on the counter next to it.

How does this happen?  While I have heard of germination of seeds inside fruit, I had certainly never seen it and even what I had heard, I had never heard it this severe.

You see, seeds inside fruit (and squash technically is a fruit) is inhibited by abscisic acid. It stops the germination and prevents the seeds from growing before they are out of the fruit.

Abscisic acid works like a treat and is the reason that plants can survive the winter. Without this enforced dormancy, they would simply sprout as soon as the fruit was mature and then their chances of making it through winter would be about the same as the Browns making it to the Super Bowl (and for those of you not from Cleveland, here is what that means – hell froze over, pigs flew, lightening struck the same spot 36 times and the Browns still would not make it to the Super Bowl).

In other words, abscisic acid acts like a mom, keeping the seed safe. But, a genetic mutation (because freak is apparently not politically correct) can occur where the seed becomes a delinquent hooligan bent on killing itself by ignoring his mother and it grows anyway, as soon as it reaches maturity.  It’s like a horticultural Rebel Without A Cause meets Romeo & Juliet (I am hoping that Peter Jackson will direct it).

These seeds are referred to as viviparous mutants. These early germinators can be found commonly in corn, rice, tomatoes and squash.  The mutation can be that the fruit itself does not produce enough abscisic acid or that the seeds ignore the abscisic acid.

Some people had commented that cold could trigger it (perhaps by destroying the abscisic acid), but I did not find that in any of the university papers I looked at. Though, admittedly, they were using some really big words because apparently the normal English language is just not fancy enough for science articles… But I digress… as usual.

Anyway, now that I know I have mutants growing in the pantry, I am beginning to wonder if my husband’s Frankenstein warnings about the leftovers in the fridge might cause a problem.

Added: hehe – I just realized that this was published on April Fools. While Mother Nature played an April Fools on me, I assure you, this is for real.

Psst… I got what you need right here. A whole dime of high quality stuff. You ain’t finding anything better. The richest loam this side of the border, that is a bona fide fact, my friend. You will not find a finer grade of dirt, no way, no how.

I bet you did not know that when you are out there tending those flowers and planting those seeds that you were doping yourself, did you? Turns out that dirt harbors a friendly little bacteria called Mycobacterium vaccae. When this bacteria infects humans, it affects our brains and causes it to make extra serotonin.

Serotonin is a funny drug for our bodies. It helps to control everything from how much we eat to how well we can remember to… wait for it… how good we feel. More of the happy, happy serotonin, the hap-hap-happier we feel.

So how does one catch this bacteria and reap the benefits? It is just as easy as playing in the dirt. Do a little barefoot walking, maybe pot up a few seedlings or two, get some weeding in and, voila, you got yourself a genuine dirt high.

This probably explains why many gardeners regard weeding as a meditation rather than a chore. The very act of touching the soil with bare skin, can bring about a chemically induced serenity. Not bad, eh?

So here we are, a bunch of strung out garden junkies, just fiending for our next Mycobacterium vaccae fix. Come on, sister, can you spare a girl a trowel? Just so I can get through to the next day?

I am not exaggerating when I tell you I have 200 tomato seedlings in my kitchen right now. A combination of using gardening as a coping mechanism and a sense of empathy that makes it difficult to even insult a video game character, let alone kill a tomato seedling has left me in this situation. I have no one to blame but myself, but I think that I have acquired a few tips to help others with their tomato seedlings.

1. Gee, non seed starting soil does JUST FINE – I used plain old potting soil this year for seed starting. I was certain that I was doing the equivalent of not breast feeding my children and that I would be destroying my germination rate. But, golly, gosh, darn, all the seeds germinated (and non-breast fed children continue to thrive). Plain old regular soil works just fine and I have nice healthy seedlings now (looking for good homes).
    
2. You don’t have to talk to your tomato seedlings, but they do like to be petted – Ok, so your tomato seedlings won’t be replacing your cat or dog any day soon, but “petting” your seedlings will result in a stronger plant. Petting or “tickling”, as the tomatophiles call it, mimics the wind and triggers a thigmotropism response. (Can you say thigmotropism? Good for you, because I can’t.). Thigmotropism is a plant’s response to its environment. In the case of tomatoes, wind means that it can get blown over, and the tomato plant grows thicker to compensate. Pretty clever plants. (BTW, if petting creeps you out, a fan on low will also accomplish this.)
    
3. Tomato seedlings are pretty hardy – I planted 3-4 seeds per pot. I am now in the process of dividing these into their own pots. I noticed this in past years as well when dividing or repotting. Tomato seedlings are pretty damn hardy. They can take a fair amount of man-handling, unlike some lettuces I have known lately.
    
4. Tomato seedlings sun-scald easily – Hardening off is a tedious process. But a very necessary one for tomato seedlings. Those babies can get sun burn faster than you can imagine. I am thinking that there is a market for a 30SPF sunscreen for plants to shorten hardening off time.
    
5. Fluorescent lights work well – All my seedlings were grown under fluorescent bulbs. Like, bought at the grocery store, screws into a normal light socket, light bulb. No timers, no windows. 24 hour light from the fluorescent bulbs. They were very happy.
    
6. Tomato seeds are viable for a good 3-4 years – I planted some tomato seeds I had from way, way back and the germination rate was as good as the new seeds I bought this year. I store my extra seeds in the veggie drawer in the fridge. Seems to work well.

I have more tomatoes than I know what to do with, but I am thinking that is because tomato seedlings seem to be pretty incompetence friendly (really I am that bad at starting seeds normally. Ask me how many pepper plants I have right now. Not an impressive number when you consider I planted about as many as the tomatoes.)

I mean let’s face it, if a tomato falls in the garden, at least a few seeds will grow the next year without your help. Just imagine how many would grow with your help. And the good news is that it is not too late to start some seeds. You might be surprised how easy it is.

Any gardener worth their salt, which is handy against slugs, knows that you want a few frogs or toads on the property, which are also handy against slugs. One of the best ways to make sure you get an amphibian to take up residence is to get yourself a good stockpile of desired amphibian’s eggs.

So this weekend I am visiting my parent’s house. The weather was warm and balmy (because March is a tease) and my mother decided to muck out her pond. My mother’s pond is rather small but filled with sexually frenzied frogs and this quickly became evident as we filled a 5 gallon bucket with gelatinous frog eggs.

So, Missus Hanna Smarty Pants, how do you know those are frog eggs? Maybe they are toad eggs. Or maybe you have frog and toad eggs in your 5 gallon bucket all mixed up. How do you know? Telling the difference between frog and toad eggs is easy. Frog lay eggs in clumps, toads lay eggs in strings. What I have here is a big ol’ bucket of frog eggs.

Frog eggs tend to creep people out at first. When you find them, they are normally stuck to sticks or logs and have an uncanny resemblance to eating jello while having the flu gone terribly wrong. The eggs will be clear and wobbly and you can see the tadpole inside develop. Depending on the age of the eggs, they may either have large black dots in the center or tiny forming tadpoles. While the eggs may look very fragile, in fact, they are quite resilient and are easy to handle. You can simply scoop them up and move them about as you like.

Which is convenient, as my mother has more frog eggs than she knows what to do with, so we will be taking some home.

Some of these eggs will go in my own pond, while some of them I will keep in the house (and maybe even sharing some with the boys’ classrooms at school. I am sure their teachers will be thrilled). Frog eggs present an excellent opportunity to let my kids see first hand the miracle of life, from egg to adulthood.

For hatching frog eggs, you need to keep a few simple but REALLY IMPORTANT things in mind.

First, the water you put your frog eggs in cannot be tap water. Ideally, frog eggs should be kept in the water from the pond where the eggs were found. But, if that is not an option, any water from a naturally occurring source will do, such as collected rainwater or a pond or stream. Do not use tap water, ever. The chlorine in the water will kill them.

Second, eggs that you find submerged should be submerged in the tank. Eggs you find floating should be kept floating.

Third, aerating the water will improve the eggs’ chances of hatching.

So, this summer, if all goes as planed and I am a good surrogate frog mom (how hard can it be, frog moms abandon their eggs after they lay them) I should have a few slug feasting frogs in my garden.

It’s green. It rises up from the ground. And no matter how often you hack at it, it just keeps coming back. (cue scary music) It’s attack of the Zombie Lettuce!!!!!!

At least that is what my husband thinks. We are reaching the tail end of the baby greens season, and we are eating baby greens every other day. It would be every day, if I had my way, but my husband draws a firm line on how often he will eat salad.  He tells me frequently that salad is what food eats.

Zombie lettuce, otherwise know as cut and come again lettuce or baby greens is the only kind of lettuce I can manage to get to grow here in the ‘burbs of Cleveland. The thought of growing a full head is almost laughable. Our “cool” season is incredibly short. Cold weather lingers well into May and hot weather normally gets into full swing around mid June. That leaves precious little time for heat and chill sensitive plants like lettuce.

But I really don’t mind. I enjoy baby greens very much and this way I can pick exactly what I need.

Planting baby greens is cheap and easy. I know that the price for them in the supermarket belies something different, as in that “beautiful virgin women pluck each individually” expensive, but really, they are easy to grow.

For less than a single bag of baby greens at your grocery store, you can have so much that you will probably grow sick of baby greens before it all bolts. All you need to look for is a small packet of “gourmet blend” lettuce. They normally retail for $2 – $4.

Prepare a bed for your lettuce. This can be out in your garden or in a conveniently located container. I have grown baby greens in both the garden and in containers and both are equally easy.

Scatter the whole packet of seeds over the prepared area. Be a rebel. Completely ignore those pesky spacing requirements. These little guys will never reach full size so they don’t need full space.

After the seeds are spread, rough up the soil a bit with a rake or your hands. Then water thoroughly.

In a week or two, you will have the beginnings of your zombie lettuce. Once the leaves are 2 – 3 inches tall, hack away to your heart’s content. You can’t stop it from coming, it will be back. Mwahahaha…

Um… Anyhoo. There are a few things to be aware of. The really big one being slugs. Slugs LOVE baby greens, so when harvesting, make sure you look carefully for them and remove them from the mix. And they are sneaky creature in this regards. So far, my family has not really boughtthe story that I threw the slugs in for the extra protein.

The other thing is that the plants will be growing so tightly together that it might be difficult to weed. Just make sure the Canada thistle and other unsavories don’t make it into the salad bowl.

I would also recommend that if you will be growing baby greens, that you invest in a salad spinner. It makes washing the lettuce a breeze.

So, yes, while they will not tear into you house and eat your eyes and heart out, zombie lettuce does add a tasty new taste adventure to the dinner table.

I am a highly superstitious person. I always throw salt over my shoulder when I spill it. I always make wishes on white horses, when I go under train tracks and when I see hay wagons. But there is one thing I never, ever do and that is kill a spider. I am certain Death of Spiders (related to Death of Rats) is waiting to pounce on any unsuspecting human that dares tread (literally) on one of his charges.

Besides, as a gardener, I know that spiders are one of those friendly creatures you are suppose to let live in your garden as they are really good at dining on the not so friendly creatures that also reside in the garden. If I could, I would make tiny little take out menus for all the local spiders.

This past weekend I found a female wolf spider scuttling through the flower beds. How did I know she was a she? As spiders don’t wear skirts, the giant egg sac hanging off her rear end is a huge clue. It brings new meaning to the phrase Baby Got Back.

Female wolf spiders lug their egg sacs around with them and when the babies are mature enough, mom rips open the sac to set them free. Then the kiddos attach themselves to her back and will stay there for several weeks while she resumes daily activities. Where is dad in all this? Probably watching a riveting game of spider football. Then again, maybe mom ate him. How’s that for modern feminism.

The name wolf spider covers a class of spiders. There are in fact over 2000 species of wolf spider. They can be found almost anywhere in the world and are identifiable by the fact that they are very hairy, have 8 eyes of varying sizes and do not spin webs.

That’s right; they lack the artistic stylings of other spiders and could not save a pig’s life if they had too. They do not build webs. They are hunters, who will pounce on passing insects or even chase down an insect that seems particularly attached to its life. In fact, wolf spiders are so named because it was once mistakenly thought that wolf spiders hunted their prey in packs, like wolves do. This is not the case though. For the most part, wolf spiders are solitary arachnids. In fact, they will eat each other if given the opportunity and lack other food sources.

Wolf spiders are not poisonous and tend not to bite, though a female wolf spider with an egg sac is much more aggressive than usual. She will, like any good mother, defend her babies to her death and will fight anything she sees as a threat.

While spiders may be scary looking, the old wives tales knew what they were talking about, almost. These little lovelies will eat hundreds if not thousands of bad buggies in your garden during their lifetime. If you kill one of these spiders, it will be your own fault, not bad luck, that insects demolish your prize flowers.

In case you have been wandering the outer fringes of Antarctica lately, you know that we Americans may or may not be, but certainly soon will be, unless a stimulus package miracle of biblical proportions happens, otherwise, we really will find ourselves in the midst of a good old fashion recession. I live in Cleveland, OH though. We have been in a recession for the past decade so, really, so not too much has changed here.

But gas prices are up, food prices are up and it is spring and there are empty flower beds to be filled. While I don’t mind missing a few meals to cover the cost of new plants, my husband and children are not in agreement with me on this. (Sheesh, haven’t they ever heard the whole feed the soul saying…)

So, since skipping meals is out and siphoning gas is illegal, I will just have to take other measures to ensure I have a plant filled spring.

• Plant Swaps – You probably have some extra plants in your yard (mostly uber-invasive ones if you are like me) that can be traded for something different. And, chances are, there is a plant swap in your area here soon. Check you local garden clubs, libraries and newspapers. Can’t find one? Organize one. Most local parks or libraries will happily let you hold them there for free and there are plenty of gardeners in need of new plants.
   
• Check the internet – Places like Freecycle, Craig’s List and eBay are great places to score cheap or even free plants. Check them regularly for deals. Feel free to post a wanted ad as well. Also, keep your eyes open for compost, gardening tools and décor as well.
   
• Become the local Trash Fairy – Trash picking is an ancient and well respected art (at least in some third world countries). You would be amazed at what people will throw away. Don’t be afraid to pick up what you see in the trash. If anyone asks, just tell them you are saving the planet. They don’t have to know that you are just trying to save money.
   
• Buy wisely - Sometimes, especially when it comes to annuals, you just have to purchase. Do so wisely. Check the base of the plant before you buy. Is there one stem or more sticking out of the soil? Chances are at least a few pots will actually have more than plant in it, so you can get two plants for the prices of one.
   
• Buy plants you can propagate – Some annuals, like impatiens, petunias and Coleus, are dead easy to propagate from cuttings. Buy the largest, leggiest plant you can and take cuttings from it. Stick the cuttings in water, and in a a week or two you will have a whole new mess of plants.
   
• Grow from seed – I suck at this one (though I do still have 30 surviving nameless tomato plants with T-minus three weeks to planting), but some people are really good at it. Grow your own plants from seeds. Much cheaper.
   
• Buy small - You know when you see the gallon plant and the quart plant sitting next to each other and one is marked $20 and the other is $5 and the gallon one just looks so damn pretty because it is huge and you think maybe it is worth the $15 extra… It’s not. That gallon plant is probably only 2 months older than the quart plant. Buy the smaller one and it will fill out before you know it.

So after you lose your job and they foreclose on your house and you can no longer drive your car because of rising gas prices and your children starve because eggs and milk now cost a $1 more than they did before, you at least know that you will still be able to get your hands on some plants to cheer you up.

Actually, gardeners in general tend to be a frugal and fiscally creative bunch anyway, and most of these tips are standard practice for me and other gardeners each year, regardless of recession fears. But blogging is now a form of accepted media and what kind of media would I be if I did not latch on to a potentially scary subject, blow it out of proportion and use it for my own ratings?