Published on Saturday, February 21, 2026

“What,” asked Metric Man (and I recognized the stern disapproval in his voice), “are logs doing in the freezer?!”

I played innocent. “Logs? Those aren’t logs, they are just nice pieces of wood.”

That wasn’t helpful.

“Okay then, what are pieces of wood doing in the freezer?” His tone of voice hadn’t changed.

“I am freezing out the bugs,” said I. “A reader said it was the best way to get rid of them.”

My husband leaned his forehead against the wall.

“After all,” I said, “you don’t like me using dangerous chemicals.”

“They are next to the ice cream.”

“But they are wrapped in plastic. Don’t worry, the ice cream is safe. Besides, remember the time in grad school when you put chicken heads in the freezer?”

He made a sound halfway between a moan and a groan and stopped asking questions.

 

Any time you bring a plant home from the feria or you want to change it mounting of a plant you already have, you need to have a new piece of wood. And where do you get the wood? You find a dead tree or a dead branch and cut it into pieces. Or you follow the ICE truck around while they trim trees. It’s just what you do. And what do you bring home with that nice piece of wood? Ants, bugs, millipedes, termites and who knows what else.

Before I bring a new piece of wood into the greenhouse, it sits outside for a while leaning up against some leftover concrete blocks. I peel off the bark (that’s where bugs hide) and spray it with insecticide. It smells b-a-d. Then I cover it with black plastic and wait for whatever was in the wood to go away.

That was before a reader told me about the freezer process. Now if we have a big log, my gardener cuts it into usable pieces, I wrap it in plastic and put it next to the ice cream. Or somewhere – Metric Man wouldn’t mind if it was next to the broccoli.

So there it sits, freezing out the bugs, for three days. While one batch is freezing, you can go out and look for some more appropriate logs.

Well, I have just taken my first batch of wood out of the freezer (and put in some more). Now it just needs to warm up considerable and it will be ready to use. It’s a good thing too, because ICE keeps trimming trees and leaving plants around to be ground up as mulch.

Not if I can help it.

Plant of the week. They are doing wonderful things with hibiscus. The cross-breeding of various colors has produced wonderful results and the grafting process has allowed growers to share the new colors with us almost immediately. Plant in full sun or partial shade and try to protect it from the leaf-cutter ants. They can strip a hibiscus overnight.

----------------

Find more stories about gardening in Costa Rica in AM Costa Rica Garden Magazine. Questions about this article may be directed to Victoria Torley, the gardening columnist, at victoriatorley1@gmail.com. More information about Victoria is available at AuthorVlstuart.com.

---------------
The views expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of A.M. Costa Rica. The newspaper assumes no responsibility for the content.
---------------