I have had quite a few gardens, but they all turn out to be cooperative enterprises. An early garden was on a farm in a coastal area. I had chickens, dogs, cats, and goats helping me with that one.
First I trained my dogs to stay out of the garden since they were prone to stomping tender seedlings or knocking down or breaking bigger ones. I petted them as a reward for good behavior when I got to the end of rows.
Next, I trained my cats to be careful of the plants. They were much less clumsy than the dogs, so they were not as much work to train this way. The hard part with the cats was teaching them to leave my chickens alone.
The chickens came after the dogs and cats. I bought the first ones from a feed store. They were not very good, so I found some smarter ones from a local chicken aficionado. I got them with earwig control in mind. My first bean crop was entirely destroyed by earwigs. I had this wonderful field full of those first two false leaves one morning. The next morning every plant was dead. Earwigs did it. It was war on earwigs.
I started with earwig traps. I dug a hole, put crumpled newspaper in it and sprayed it lightly with water, then put a board over it. The next day the hole was full of earwigs. I couldn't kill them fast enough to get them all since they ran madly in all directions.
I wanted to be as organic as possible, so I read up on biodegradable ways to kill earwigs. I decided on a concoction that included hot peppers and tobacco. I asked a smoker for cigarette butts. I peeled out the remaining tobacco from the cigarette butts and made the earwigicide. You have to cook that mess. As soon as it cooled, I put the earwigicide into a spray bottle and headed for an earwig trap.
The earwig trap was very full. I started spraying them as fast as I could. Hah! It was very satisfying. The earwigs writhed a little and fell over dead in droves. I got almost every single one in the trap. The same applied to subsequent traps around the garden. This was all very well, but the earwigs seemed to get reinforcements faster than I could kill them even with the traps and earwigicide.
This encouraged me to get my killer chickens going. I got 6 eggs and an incubator from the aforementioned chicken aficionado. It was wonderful when they hatched. They were really cute and they considered me mom. Lol. I had to feed them a mash recipe with an eyedropper at first. We worked up through more solid mash and gradually added mashed earwigs in it. Then I took tweezers and stuffed one earwig into a little beak and massaged the little neck to help with swallowing. It was up through dumping a bunch of live squirming earwigs into the chicks' bed box and watching them efficiently eat every last earwig. It was heartwarming.
I will continue the chicken portion of the saga shortly.
First I trained my dogs to stay out of the garden since they were prone to stomping tender seedlings or knocking down or breaking bigger ones. I petted them as a reward for good behavior when I got to the end of rows.
Next, I trained my cats to be careful of the plants. They were much less clumsy than the dogs, so they were not as much work to train this way. The hard part with the cats was teaching them to leave my chickens alone.
The chickens came after the dogs and cats. I bought the first ones from a feed store. They were not very good, so I found some smarter ones from a local chicken aficionado. I got them with earwig control in mind. My first bean crop was entirely destroyed by earwigs. I had this wonderful field full of those first two false leaves one morning. The next morning every plant was dead. Earwigs did it. It was war on earwigs.
I started with earwig traps. I dug a hole, put crumpled newspaper in it and sprayed it lightly with water, then put a board over it. The next day the hole was full of earwigs. I couldn't kill them fast enough to get them all since they ran madly in all directions.
I wanted to be as organic as possible, so I read up on biodegradable ways to kill earwigs. I decided on a concoction that included hot peppers and tobacco. I asked a smoker for cigarette butts. I peeled out the remaining tobacco from the cigarette butts and made the earwigicide. You have to cook that mess. As soon as it cooled, I put the earwigicide into a spray bottle and headed for an earwig trap.
The earwig trap was very full. I started spraying them as fast as I could. Hah! It was very satisfying. The earwigs writhed a little and fell over dead in droves. I got almost every single one in the trap. The same applied to subsequent traps around the garden. This was all very well, but the earwigs seemed to get reinforcements faster than I could kill them even with the traps and earwigicide.
This encouraged me to get my killer chickens going. I got 6 eggs and an incubator from the aforementioned chicken aficionado. It was wonderful when they hatched. They were really cute and they considered me mom. Lol. I had to feed them a mash recipe with an eyedropper at first. We worked up through more solid mash and gradually added mashed earwigs in it. Then I took tweezers and stuffed one earwig into a little beak and massaged the little neck to help with swallowing. It was up through dumping a bunch of live squirming earwigs into the chicks' bed box and watching them efficiently eat every last earwig. It was heartwarming.
I will continue the chicken portion of the saga shortly.
