-Published: Monday, September 23, 2019-
Reduce, reuse, recycle
By Victoria Torley
Well, you all know how I love gardening tips, especially when it comes to bugs and their prevention. Here is a new one to me and a great recycling tip as well. It all has to do with empty paper tubes – toilet paper, paper towels, the tubes for Christmas wrap, and aluminum foil – you get the picture.
There are two ways to use them. For carrots, for example, use a long tube because you want a long skinny root, not too old and fat please, they can get tough when they are old. Dig a nice hole and put the tube in with about an inch above ground then fill it with good loose soil. Put your carrot seed in the middle of you little paper fort and wait.
Why did you do that? You did it to stop cutworm damage to your carrots! We all know what that looks like. There is a second way to use the tube – plant three or four seeds in it and don’t transplant the carrots until their roots come out the bottom of the tube. This takes practice, but you will soon be able to judge the length of the root by the size of the carrot at the top of the tube. Since carrots are usually difficult to transplant, this method increases success.
And you remember vine borers, right? They cause mayhem in squash and melon beds. The moths lay their eggs in the stems of squash and melon plants and the hatchlings eat their way out, destroying the plant in the process. To stop the moths, cut the tube in half, slit it and wrap it around the base of the plant. Tape it shut and you have a shield against vine borers.
In fact, you can use the tubes around just about anything to keep slugs away from your plants. Quick, easy and effective and biodegradable.
What else can you use in the same way? Paper, plastic and Styrofoam cups.
We all have “one use” cups stashed somewhere perhaps for a party or for serving children. Just rinse the cup, cut off the bottom and use it around plant stems, small end up. It works just like the paper tube and can be reused again and again. Make that same slit and wrap it around the stem of your squash and melon plants to keep away the moths.
So, recycle and reuse while preventing or thwarting pests. Now if something just worked on leaf-cutter ants…
Plant of the Week
I said a bit ago that I have three meters of gardening books on my shelves – three meters – and not one book can give me the name of this lovely flower, probably because it springs up unwanted in gardens. That’s right, it’s a weed and a pretty successful one too. As for me, I often let this weed grow as long as it doesn’t interfere with other things. Why? Get close to the flowers and inhale deeply. Ahhhhhh. It smells a bit like lily of the valley.
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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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