Not Too Much Harvest This Year

by Guest Blogger, Laura Evans

Not too much harvest to worry about this year—alas. Something—maybe moles? Or voles?—found even onions tasty, munching on them from underneath. The onion would look nice and plump with its papery gold-brown top showing above ground, waiting for its stalks to flop over, indicating readiness for pulling. Then when you'd pull it, it would seem to fly out of the ground with no effort on your part, and you realized it was a trick: no roots and no onion left at all. As for other things, some never germinated or were devoured in infancy. Some seedlings were eaten early by rabbits, which we'd never had before in our 35 years of hillside gardening.

Birds, as always, loved the red “razzles,” but many got moldy before quite ripening. Chipmunks enjoyed the cherry tomatoes. I watched a squirrel delighting in our plump blackberries. The deer greatly appreciated our kale and the tops of tomato plants. Blight and tomato hornworms also joined in the tomato decimation. Weeks of rain were part of the picture too. So, we got little or no cukes, cabbage, broccoli, or squash (summer or winter).

Then there are (were) the apples. Doug comes in the door with deep red ones from the biggest tree—all five held easily in his cupped hands. I look up from chopping store-bought veggies as he announces, “Well, here's the Jonathan crop for this year.” He sets the gnarled knobby little things on the counter. Horrified at first, I grew fond of them over a few days, finding them humorous and cute—like the shrunken little old heads of apple dolls—no drying needed.

Last year, the apples did okay, and a year or two before that, even though we don't spray them, the branches were groaning under the weight of big flawless fruit. Pears too, that year; same thing. And peaches.

This year, the small seckel pears were plentiful and coming along until, after a few days away, we came back to find them just not there. Along with the hordes of squirrels, we think a gray fox participated in the feast. We saw it soon after, apparently looking through the grass below the tree for any it might have missed. (Unlike their red fox cousins, they can climb trees.) 

I love seckel pears best of all, but the glimpses of that gray fox almost made up for the losses.

Laura Evans is memoir writer and an early childhood educator who lives with her gardening husband in Vermont.

Blue-Flowered Borage

Borage has volunteered in my back-door garden for years, but this year, a dozen plants stand strong. When i walk out the back door, i pluck a beautiful blue flower and pop it into my mouth. The cucumber-tasting flowers can be used in salads. The leaves can be used too, but they are a bit fuzzy for my taste.

Borage is a good companion plant for spinach, the brassicas, and strawberries. Planted near tomatoes, borage confuses the tomato hornworm when she is looking for a place to lay her eggs.

Our meditating friends, our sangha, are our meditation companions, and we should plant ourselves among these companions as often as possible. The Buddha extolled the value of spiritual friends. When we are confused, our spiritual friends keep us on our spiritual path.

I'm feeling pretty friendly toward borage--beautiful alone and helpful to its neighbors.

Too Much

The tomato hornworms are back in my garden. They're so well camouflaged that i haven't actually seen one yet, but i do see their handiwork--bare tomato stems.

The tomato hornworm eats tomato leaves. You have to admit that tomato leaves have a signature scent (and perhaps taste?) that smells good to us tomato-loving folk. On occasion, i've even bought tomato-leaf scented soap.

The best way for me to control the tomato hornworm is to have a very limited section of flowering tobacco (Nicotiana). This year i've let the Nicotiana pop up everywhere it wants. I have too much of it.

The tobacco hornworm is very closely related to the tomato hornworm, so my theory is that the flowering tobacco serves as an alternate host for the tomato hornworm.

Too much of anything leads to stress. Too much food (I should diet.), too many clothes (What am i going to wear today?), too much stuff around the house (I can't find.....). Too many tomato hornworms.

It's time to prune the clutter. And it's time to pull out the flowering tobacco in and around the vegetable garden.

Photo from articles.washingtonpost.com

What to Do with a Hornworm?

by Guest Blogger, Jenny Holan

What an interesting dilemma. I haven't been persistent about outlining my creed or principles, or following a path illuminated by others.

This dilemma shows up once in awhile, as at present: I looked up the large pupa that appeared in my garden, and it's clearly that of a sphinx moth, a k a hornworm. What to do?? Interfere with the life cycle? Try to stay out of it by pretending I never saw it? I really want to remove it a long way from my tomatoes, preferably to some butterfly/hummingbird garden where the moth can enjoy a wealth of nice nectar. But it wouldn't be ethical to bring it anywhere nearer to someone else's tomatoes than to mine. This individual doesn't seem to have done damage to me in its dangerous tomato-hacking days, but I quail to think of the number of children it may produce, and the havoc that could happen next summer. I have waited so long for the tomatoes to bear fruit...

Perhaps I ought to keep it in a container, and if it emerges in time, volunteer it for the Hospice benefit event in Putney, planned for 11 September: a ceremony of remembrance and hope, featuring the "release" of donated butterflies (symbolizing the renewal of souls).

I know Buddhists have been releasing purchased birds for centuries, but I'm ambivalent about the karma-for-ransom concept, having trouble with the whole idea of an industry, or anyway a livelihood, predicated on a demand for captive lives, as it is for some people.

The Putney event is procuring its butterflies, along with organizing and naturalist advice, from a clearinghouse called Wings of Hope, which coordinates supplies of pretty insects (the ones reported are overwhelmingly monarchs and painted ladies) with those who wish to use them to call attention to the needs of wildlife, the search for health care and research, spiritual concerns and community, or any cause or occasion. I didn't know that there are such people as butterfly breeders, who raise and ship them out like ranchers, but these are the suppliers, who donate their livestock for educational purposes, including showing children and shut-ins something about butterflies, as well as for memorials and ecology studies.

Might a release to which a "minority volunteer" is introduced (local moth) be more in harmony with the balance of nature than one at which only the non-threatening elite "graduate"? Sure, one or two would be statistically absorbed, but if this was done by many at once, would there be less of an impact? Or would a reduction of control spell trouble?

So, here's an organism that exists, and all available tomato plants are part of its life cycle and support the survival of that species. What's my role as another strand of the Web of Earthlife? When I do pick this thing up, does the heart inside have any clue that its life is in my hands?