I may have solved the mystery of the unknown "weeds" in my garden. My friend, Esther, brought back a planter I'd left with her last spring, and when I watered the soil in it the same "weeds" began to grow. Putting two and two together, I remembered I had dumped the potting soil from my other planters into the vegetable garden boxes. What did all of the containers have in common? Alyssum.
By the way, when we got to our winter home here in AZ, our property was crawling with big red ants from two huge ant hills. The first thing I did was mix up equal parts of 20 Mule Team Borax (from the laundry soap department at the grocery store) and granulated white sugar, and sprinkled several tablespoonfuls over the hills. Within two weeks, all ant activity was completely gone. Kaput. Nothing. I've never found that remedy to fail for eradicating ants.
Tomorrow is library day, thank heavens. Right now we are parked out in front, I cannot see my monitor because of the glare, and Mr. Granny is sighing a lot. He doesn't take kindly to sitting and waiting for more than five minutes.
Thank Mr Granny for waiting 5 minutes. It's great to hear from our Granny!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the ant remedy. I will surely try this the next time instead of using the Andro.
ReplyDeleteMy spinach seems to have stopped at that state LOL!
ReplyDeleteBut I thought gardening was exciting! :-)
ReplyDeleteAnts, yuck. We had a bad ant problem at our house. Thanks for the tip, I'll know what to do next time.
ReplyDeleteGranny, I was able to walk out to my garden on Friday and noticed ants had moved into the strawberry bed and immediately thought of you and your magic ant formula. It worked great for me last time.
ReplyDeleteOh dear! I was hoping it was lettuce growing. Wouldn't that have been wonderfully convenient.
ReplyDeleteAt least you have some spinach to look forward to. They are coming along nicely.
Sure will be nice when you get that internet connection-it's hard trying to do something with someone sighing in the background.
ReplyDeleteThat's a pretty neat home remedy for the ant problem.
I am glad the mystery is solved, hope you get your internet soon!
ReplyDeleteI can see Mr. Granny now...Ha! It's great that you got the ants took care of, they can be quite invasive.
ReplyDeleteBut 'we' are so glad that he will do it for us! ;-)
ReplyDeleteI'm always fighting ants. ALWAYS. It's neverending here in Florida. I am seriously thinking of treating all of the neighbors yards directly touching mine to help out. the borax works for fleas as well!
Hey watching spinach grow can be really exciting ;>
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing things are just too slow down there. At least the spinach looks nice.
Robin, I don't know why I even made him com along. It's just quicker and easier if he drives, so I don't have to battle the steering wheel and the laptop at the same time.
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Cynthia, it really does work well, quickly and cheaply.
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Erin, they do seem to grow so slowly. You'd think they'd be sky high with all this nice weather. We're expecting low 70s and high 40s all week, sounds like good spinach weather to me.
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Thyme2, it is! But I'm between planting and eating now, so it's rather boring. Just watch and water.
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Meems,do try it. and give it a week or two to work. Only one application is needed, unless it rains a lot.
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Debiclegg, happy to hear it worked for you. It's never failed for me.
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GrafixMuse, the self seeded plants in the garden box were all lettuce! I've been thinning them out all week, but they are very identifiable now. The "weeds" to which I was referring are the ones coming up in the spinach/radish bed. That's where I'd dumped soil in the pots from last year. Oh yes, I'm going to have lettuce. Lots of lettuce!
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Sue & Kelly, so far it doesn't look like the park is going to get internet again, so it's the library for me this winter.
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EG, Mr. Granny doesn't know diddly about computers, so doesn't share my need for the internet connection.
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Barbie, we've never had a flea problem with any of our dogs. Maybe because they don't mingle with other dogs? Or maybe our cold northern winters kill them off.
I've been known to to take my ant remedy across the street to treat neighbors' ant hills, when their ants come to visit my place.
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Daphne, sometimes I think life is in suspension down here. I used to look forward to winters in AZ, back when we did all the desert trips. Now Mr. Granny has decided he's already seen everything he wants to see, and thinks he's too old to be traipsing all over the outback, so life here has become rather boring. It's too bad none of my rooms need painting. I shampooed carpets last week. There's nothing left to clean, and the laundry is all done.
The spinach youngsters are looking good!
ReplyDeleteI expect you will be spending alot of time at the library (at least when they are open!).
Beautiful little spinach seedlings! At least you are getting to enjoy SOMETHING growing!
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to say "hi" granny! Been reading from time to time, but haven't been commenting much. I seem to do a lot of blog reading while sitting in the carline at my son's school so commenting via the phone isn't that user friendly.
ReplyDeleteAnyway - just wanted you to know I'm still reading!
I'm going to pass your ant solution on to my daughter in Texas. We don't have an ant problem in Hermiston, but Texas has killer bugs and the ants are vicious!
ReplyDeleteGood tip on the ant killer. We had a big hill when we moved here 8 years ago. They took forever to get ride of. They have now moved to the neighbors lawn after my numerous assaults :-)
ReplyDeleteJust give Mr Granny something to take apart and fix, like an old hoover. He'll sit there all night.
ReplyDeleteYou'll be pestering him to go home, and he'll be muttering, "Wait, I think I've got it, just one more minute."
Of course, he'll never fix it, but it will be because it was built badly!!!
Borax and sugar -- that's brilliant!
ReplyDeleteNow, I think watching the true leaves of the first plants of the season develop is pretty darn awesome. But then, I'm weird. Hope things get better soon so you can focus on whatever makes *you* happy.
I've missed you, Granny, during my long blog hiatus. It's good to come back and see your blog, all bright and shiny and still full of Annie, just as always. :)