I went to Tractor Supply this morning looking for winter squash seeds and tomato cages. I also got a sticky trap for the lizard. (If he poops on my settee one more time, he's getting a Brazilian wax.) Tractor Supply had little chicks - cornish, I think - and I wanted some so bad, but didn't get any because I'm afraid the raccoons will eat them.
I shopped for a grow light, thinking I might sprout these fall vegetable seeds on the back porch. But when I went down to the garden after work, almost all of the butterbeans were up, as well as a bunch of the butter peas, and I decided that the good old earth is the best place for seeds. (I'd tried sprouting cabbages and broccoli indoors years ago, and wound up with a bunch of spindly things that died when I took them outside.) Problem was, I didn't have any space to plant the seeds.
Since the cucumber vines are turning more yellow by the day and not earning their keep, I pulled them up and tilled the space where they'd been. I planted a 1/4 row of broccoli seeds (they're TINY), and another 1/4 with brussels sprouts seeds (they're tiny, too). There was plenty of space left for the butternut and acorn squash - I was only going to plant a hill or two of each - where the cucumbers had been. But when I looked for my winter squash seeds, they were nowhere to be found. The receipt from the store didn't show charges for them, so either I dropped them before I got to the register or the cashier just didn't see them. I was so disappointed. I was anxious to get them in the ground today, for they reportedly take 100 days to mature and cannot tolerate even a little frost, so even if I could get some seeds in the ground this week, I'd be pushing it.
Maybe I'll just plant turnip greens in the left-over space.
The internet keeps pushing gardening videos at me (because I keep watching them, I guess). Today there was one that talked about red ants. I didn't watch it, but the topic of ants reminded me of a little experiment we conducted a couple of weeks ago.
I'd mowed Nanny's back yard and had noticed a couple of hills of what I presume were fire ants. Later, as we were all sitting around her kitchen table, the subject of ants came up, and Nanny said she wished she had a can of club soda to pour on the ant mounds, as she'd heard it kills the ants, right down to the queen. The Husband said he, too, had heard this. Said it smothers them.
This made no sense to me.
I'd heard that grits would kill them. Blows them up, I guess. Which doesn't really make sense, either.
Nanny said she didn't have any grits. I said that I had some, and as I stood up to go get them, I remembered that we have a Soda Stream, and that it actually has gas in it. I could make carbonated water. So I went home and fizzed up a bottle, and went back and poured it on the two ant hills I'd run over with the lawnmower. When I went back to Nanny's kitchen, feeling all self-satisfied at having offed the ants, The Husband and The Sister-in-Law and Nanny were all laughing. During my absence, one of them had googled about killing ants with club soda, and they'd learned it doesn't work. Same deal with the grits.
Nanny said, anyway, there were about 3 more hills that I'd missed out front (The Brother-in-Law had mowed the front).
So, assuming Nanny still had a fire ant problem, I stopped somewhere last week and bought a big bottle of fire ant killer. Brought it home, handed it to The Husband, and said, "Here. Go kill your mama's ants while I pick the squash."
There weren't any ants on the two hills that had been dosed with carbonated water. In fact, we had a hard time determining exactly where those ant hills had been. The other 3 hills had been re-assembled and were still squirming with ants. They got a dose of the fire ant killer.
I kind of wish we'd done an experiment on those three hills; fire ant killer, carbonated water, and grits.
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