Just a few thoughts
By Victoria Torley
We built a lovely greenhouse attached to the back of the house just for orchids. Then, for good measure, I had a raised bed attached to the front of the greenhouse so that I could put in some terrestrial, sun loving orchids that like the weather. So far so good.
Before I filled the raised bed with the proper soil, I lined it with Styrofoam sheeting so that the roots wouldn’t get overheated. Then came drainage and some nice soil. Excellent so far. Then the orchids.
That seems to be where things went wrong. Somehow, some tomato seeds snuck in there. Okay, I like tomatoes and they aren’t growing well for me in the other garden. They like the orchid bed, though, very well indeed. In fact they like it too well.
Now I have little red tomatoes, so far so good, and, from somewhere, somehow, little yellow gourd-shaped tomatoes that I swear I have never: a) bought, b) planted, not anywhere.
It’s not that little yellow gourd-shaped tomatoes aren’t tasty, it’s just that they aren’t red and tomato shaped. What’s worse, they are very, very hard to see amid the yellow-green leaves that are being put out in profusion by all my tomato plants. At present, the only way to find them is to send a spotter into the greenhouse to look through the window and point.
The other problem with the greenhouse? Mice.
Not that I have seen a mouse, but we can sure smell the mice. If you’ve ever had mice, you know what I mean. And, when you live in Costa Rica and have mice you get mouse eaters A/K/A snakes.
It’s not that I dislike snakes. I like snakes. It’s they eyelash vipers I don’t like. So far we have had lovely parrot snakes – laying eggs in a flower pot - an eyelash viper (sent him up the hill) and a full meter of a mika.
Mikas are lovely snakes and harmless unless you believe the folk tales that they will chase you and whip you with their tails. Untrue by the way. I simply picked up the mika with a long piece of bamboo and showed him the door. He went peaceably and I haven’t seen him since. If the mice come back though, I may invite him to stay.
As for the parrot snakes? I called a buddy who is into snakes and he came and took the eggs away. About a hundred days later, they hatched. I’d post a picture, but you would probably rather see a plant . . . .
Plant for the Week
Good ol’ Poás. Such lovely plants. This one seems to be Centropogon gutierrezii. The altitude is right, so is the habitat. Look for it on the slopes of Poás.
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Editor's note: For
more information on this article of request for information about
gardening, Ms Victoria Torley, gardener columnist, can be reached at victoriatorley1@gmail.com
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