OK – life is good in the garden except for whatever critter decided to munch on my new pulmonaria. I’m not impressed but I did spray it with the hot pepper sauce that stopped the munching on my double bloodroot so I have high hopes. I think I’m going to invest in a gallon of this stuff.

The compost tea went onto the garden last weekend – I just doused my small garden with about 20 gallons of the stuff. I’m not sure the plants will know what hit them. :-) I have plans for using this every few weeks this spring until I get the garden up and fully leaved out. Won’t hurt – might help.

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Yes, I’m behind again. LOL! I’m supposed to be sending some of you notes and I haven’t done so. I’m supposed to be writing letters to some of you and I haven’t done so.

Blame the weather. It is too nice out there. Who wants to be inside at a computer keyboard when there’s gardening to do, boats to varnish and roads to roll a Triumph. What I need is a few days of rain to catch up.

And coffee breaks are getting longer in the garden. I sit and watch the plants grow (they grow so slowly I have to be there to watch you know.) Somebody has to the tough jobs and I’m taking this one.

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New Articles for You

All my new articles are listed here and if scroll and check out the archives, you can find out if I’ve answered your question.

You’ll find a new article on Honeysuckles here as well as a bunch of other new ones. Got a lot of questions answered last week. Remember the search index happens on Wed night so the new articles only show up on the search on Thursday morning.

Want a Healthy Lawn?

Want to ask a question? Click here to ask a gardening question.www.gardening-tips-perennials.com/askagardeningquestion.html

Your Questions Answered

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I wondered what your thoughts are or experience with Polymer Gel Crystals I see being promoted for gardening in many places including Lee Valley and are classified by the EPA as non-hazardous.

A: I don’t see the point in them. In the garden, a bag of compost will accomplish the same thing for less money plus it will do more for the garden. Leaves are free and will do ditto. Organic matter ditto.

Polymers are merely a company with a product looking for another way to sell it. How many ways can we sell this goop? Marketing director and sales manager get bonus money if they find a new way to get this stuff out of the factory.

Heck, I saw an ad at a local box store that was running down compost because it was natural and could contain germs. Duh, that’s the point. It is natural and it does contain bacteria and fungi and nutrients out the whazoo. This company was advertising itself as having a “clean” product – a “food grade” product when it was merely repositioning its fertilizer products.

I did some practical research back when this stuff first came out (likely another product but same idea).

I couldn’t realistically tell the difference in containers and in the ground it was a waste of time even trying to figure out if one section of garden had more water than another.

My containers that had too much of this stuff in them were a mess and we couldn’t get the soil dried out so the plants rotted. The containers that had the recommended amounts didn’t produce better growth or require less practical water than those containers that were straight soil.

Bottom line: Go waste your money on something more useful. Like a new plant or a copy of one of that sexy garden author Doug Green’s books.

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We have pond approximately 60 x 50 feet, clay and sand base (no liner), and have a family of muskrats. My husband was cutting the grass around the pond (this is a big, commercial mower), and the mower section fell through the tunnels that the muskrats dug. There are many tunnels which will eventually drain this pond. How can we effectively deter them? We have a large dog, but that doesn't seem to bother them any. We would rather not trap them, but need something that will make them leave and not come back! Thanks

A: I know nothing other than trapping them that will force a muskrat to leave a large natural pond. They were a constant thorn in the side when I had my large farm pond (300’x60’) that I dug. (or rather the machine dug and I watched). Same thing with mowers, tractors etc and I finally had to start trapping. It was a yearly thing. New ones would move in every spring.

And yes, the banks would erode and I even fell through a tunnel once.

If any readers know proven methods to move a muskrat out of a pond without trapping, I’ll publish it here.

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to grow hungarian hot peppers in ohio what should i add to the soil to make the plants grow and produce bigger peppers and lots of them ,im only going to plant 30 plants.

A: I have several pages of pepper information up now but this bears repeating. Peppers love organic matter in the soil, warm temperatures and even watering. If you do these things, you’ll get great peppers. But see the articles for details.

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i have very green full strawberrie plants. but few flowers and then berrys what can i add to the soil to get the flowers berrys caming? thanks

A: Full strawberry plants mean there is lots of nitrogen and they are growing. Cold spring conditions sometimes mean the flowers get killed off. If you’re overfeeding, then you’ll get lots of leaf but reduced flowers. If you’ve had a cold wet spring, your flower production may be lower than you’d like.

I’m a firm believer in compost for berries. They love organic matter in the soil and the best berries I’ve ever tasted come from a friend of mine who has a massive organic garden and who only feeds with compost.

Add compost. And mulch your berries to reduce the weeds, provide even soil moisture and temperature and protect them from early winterkill.

Good luck

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You're a great inspiration -- thanks for your newsletter! Can I make compost tea with raw horse manure, or do I need to composst it first?

A: You can make compost tea with raw manure but it is generally NOT recommended.

Composting kills off any “bad” bacteria such as e-coli. I used to make the fresh stuff when I was on the farm but have stopped as I started to understand the nature of compost and compost tea.

Having said all that, most of the time that you use “fresh” manure, you run the risk of burning plants. And even though you won’t burn plants with tea, I’d say – use the old composted stuff instead.

You’ll get a better class of microorganisms. :-)

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I have several fruit trees - - apple, pear and peach - - that I would like to tear up the grass around and put down mulch instead. We have a large piece of property and I would prefer to not have to mow around these trees if at all possible. Also have about a dozen very large evergreens that I have the same question about. Please advise the best course of action. Thanks.

OK – you want to tear up the grass (I assume this means kill the grass) and you want to know the easiest way to do this.

Around trees, the easiest way is to lay down newspapers – 15 sheets overlapping – so no space is possible or plants can’t find their way through.

Just lay it down and mulch over top. Grass will die underneath.

You have to set up some kind of edging if you’re mowing up to it otherwise you’ll be chewing up the edges with the mower deck.

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A reader writes:

Here's a non-poisonous way to control earwigs. Since they love dark places, place a piece of wood or cardboard on the ground at night. Turn it over in the morning and either quickly squish them or let your chickens gobble them up!!! ...Looking forward to your comments on compost tea. Oh, as I give all my kitchen scraps and grass clippings to my flock of chickens, any ideas on where to collect free compost pile ingredients? Paige in Southern California :D

A: OK – so that let’s me out. My chickens are about 5 years ago on the farm and interestingly enough, the city fathers frown on bringing them into town. I *really* wanted my own rooster to wake everybody up in the town houses where I live. Darn!

So, OK – if I laid down the boards or tubes and the critters crawled in, I’ll have to squash them or toss them into a bucket of soapy water every morning.

I’m too lazy for that. Mulch works fine for me – live and let live I say as long as they don’t eat the plants, I’m good.

Getting organic matter? My friend the organic vegetable gardener is famous for stopping along the road and picking up “stuff” that will compost. He’s a virtual demon in the fall picking up leaves and stuffing his small car full of bagged leaves. Talk to your local municipality – they often have organic matter, talk to the tree maintenance folks – they have wood chips – talk to the landscapers, they often have plant refuse of one kind or other.

All these folks have to dispose of this material – if they can dispose of it in your yard without disposal “tipping” fees, they’ll be delighted. Make sure though that you have any necessary permits from your municipality.

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Do You Want to Grow Lavender?

I am really pleased that you are doing a series on compost and compost tea. I have been studying it over the winter as it seems to be the way that organic farmers enrich their soils and control pests through compost tea sprays. In my research though I have not found a website that truly shows what kind of aquarium pump to buy, and how to set it up. And where do people set these up, as in do the compost tea container and pump stay outside in the elements or do they need to be sheltered? Looking forward to next week's article! Louise

A: OK – bigger the pump the better but this isn’t rocket science so anything that produces a good stream of air bubbles is good.

Setting it up is *really* difficult. LOL! Yup. You take an air hose, connect one end to the pump. Weight down the other end. I used a high tech, big bolt that I had lying around. Put the bolt end into the middle of the bucket on the bottom. Fill with water (see article below for details) Plug in. Watch bubbles and feel good.

Inside or out (great question!) I leave mine outside all summer but there’s a lid on my bucket/barrel. I clean it out for the winter and store it where it won’t freeze solid. Leave it where it won’t detract from your garden.

Even as a bachelor, I draw the line at making compost tea in the kitchen.

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From My Garden To Yours

Compost tea is the easiest way for gardeners to get huge numbers of beneficial bacteria and fungi into their garden soil. As we briefly talked about compost last week, we know that the bacteria and fungi are important for your garden’s soil and getting nutrition to your plants. We also know that these beneficial organisms live and thrive in compost. What we as gardeners are going to do is create an environment where the bacteria and fungi can rapidly multiply. Because they’ll do this very quickly, we’ll then be able to apply them to our yards and gardens in much greater numbers than if we were just adding compost.

The bottom line here for gardeners is that if you do not have enough compost to apply to your yard and garden to increase the beneficial microorganisms, make compost tea. This will quickly get their numbers up to levels that will provide all the help you need. Then your job is to add organic matter to the soil (peat moss, leaves, mulches, straw, etc.) to continue feeding the soil microorganisms you’ve just introduced to your garden.

Let me say right at the outset that making compost tea can be as simple or complex as you’d like to make it. The big users, the commercial grain farms and organic growers, typically test both the compost and the resulting tea on a regular basis. Their tea-makers, pumps and sprayers are designed to safely transfer fungi (without breaking the fungal lengths up too much) and bacteria to their fields in the fastest and safest possible manner. They have specific recipes for the kinds of bacteria or fungi they want to add to their soils and they treat this process as the scientific one that it is. They work with nature in their fields.

Now, home gardeners can take the fully scientific approach and get identical (and often amazing results) or you can be a little more relaxed about it and get good results but not miraculous ones. I tend to be relaxed although I do have some good equipment.

To begin with, I use a KIS brewer available from www.simplici-tea.com as my compost tea maker. It produces an aerobic tea (one made with oxygen) rather than an anaerobic tea (one without oxygen) that is quite good and consistently so.

You do want to avoid anaerobic teas because they are essentially stagnant water devoid of most beneficial organisms.

You can jury-rig a tea maker from a 5-gallon pail and the most powerful aquarium pump you can find. My KIS brewer’s aerator has a one-half inch output valve and it is very powerful to keep the water roiling along.

Some writers recommend an air stone at the end of the aquarium air line but this produces lots of little bubbles and the objective is to have lots of big bubbles. (Little bubbles break up the fungi while big bubbles don’t.) So simply weight the air line to the bottom of the pail (a big old steel nut works really well).

So, we have a 5-gallon pail, an air source and a line to the bottom of the pail that is weighted down to stay in the bottom of the pail. Do try to ensure the air line stays in the middle of the pail to provide equal circulation through the pail so there are no “dead” spots in the water.

We add water to the pail (if your water is chlorinated, you have to add water and wait 24 hours for the water to de-chlorinate – run the air bubbler to assist this process).. That’s the easy part.

We add food to feed the bacteria and fungi. Now this is where it gets interesting with every compost tea maker having their own recipe and each one developing different amounts or kinds of bacteria and fungi.

A simple recipe for a five gallon pail might include: 6 tablespoons of molasses because molasses contains several different kinds of sugars, 6 tablespoons of seaweed emulsion or fish emulsion for the micronutrients (they’ll each give slightly different results), one tablespoon of citric acid for the bacteria (you can toss in a couple of 500 mg. Vitamin C tablets or some lemon juice instead). If you have hay, put a few handfuls in as well.

Put your compost into a small bag (old pantyhose are ideal) to make a tea bag. Drop the compost into the pail, turn on the aquarium pump and let her rip. Come back 8 to 12 hours later and you have easy compost tea for your garden.

Make the tea outside so that the microorganisms produced are the same ones needed in the garden. Cool weather will require organisms that thrive in cool weather and you can repeat the tea making when the weather warms up to produce organisms for warmer weather. Use immediately and do not store!

Spreading the compost tea is the easy part in the home garden. You can use either a watering can or a regular backpack sprayer.

Do NOT use a sprayer that has been used for chemical sprays. It will kill the bacteria and fungi. Even if you rinse it out, there is generally a residue left that makes it useless for organic spraying.

Spray or pour compost tea everywhere. You should get it on plant leaves, on lawns, on vegetable gardens; wherever it lands, the organisms that will survive in those conditions will find food and will begin to do their job (eating the bad guys). In my small garden, I use a watering can. If I were putting it onto a lawn, I’d use a hand or backpack sprayer without the fine nozzle.

You can repeat this monthly or as often as you like. In a big garden with many perennials or fruit trees, I would be spraying compost tea onto plants and firing it all over the garden. A consistent approach to maintaining microorganism levels at their highest levels will produce the healthiest possible garden.