Tomato and Rosemary-Starts and Cuttings

I am experimenting with tomato plants. The tomato plants in my garden are about spent, so I have taken cuttings from them and have them sitting in some water to root. The cuttings were from four to eight inches tall, and were at a point where growth was possible…not just a large leaf, but including the part where new growth generates. I also trimmed off all flowers, so the cuttings could put all their energy into growing roots. I need to check them today, and if roots are present, then I am going to plant them in some very damp potting soil for at least a week in order for them to be established before I set them out in the garden. We shall see what happens!

I am doing a similar experiment with one of my very old Rosemary plants whose flavor I really enjoy, but the plant is beyond woody and about on its last leg. I filled three plant pots with dirt, placed them beside the Rosemary plant and bent three sort-of healthy branches over into the dirt, burying the stems but leaving the leafy tips above the soil. I weighted the stems down with a rock, and kept the soil damp. I need to check for roots again soon…last I checked, nothing was sprouting in any of the pots. Time will tell. I bought another Rosemary plant earlier this year and it is growing well, but I prefer the flavor of the older plant. I hope at least one of the tips will sprout roots!

Yellowjackets

We have been having a year for yellow jackets around here! We have found 5 nests so far, and killed three of them. They aren't very easy to spot, so I believe each find has been a blessing because it was found by actually seeing the the yellow jackets going in and out of the their hole in the ground...not by accidentally stepping on their nest entrance! To kill them, my husband suits up in his honeybee suit with veil and gloves, gets a shovel, and a can of wasp spray. Note to self: we are out of wasp spray and I need to get some more!

First, he smokes them with his honeybee smoker to calm them down a little before he does anything else. Then he starts digging with his shovel to find the actual nest, as the tunnel may be several feet long. Right about when the shovel is 1/2 inch in the ground, the smoke effect is OVER, and they come boiling out of the ground, mad as hornets! My husband said it is a little eerie, because unlike honeybees which make a pronounced buzzing, yellow jackets are silent when they fly. He digs up the nest and destroys it, and sprays the immediate area down with poison. We would prefer not to use the poison, but find it more desirable than having the potential for being severely stung! Even with his suit, my husband still gets a few stings when he destroys a yellow jacket nest. I have read that a clear glass bowl can be placed on the ground over the entrance of a nest and they can't find their way out, eventually starving the nest. We have tried it several times, and it did not work for us. They just dug a new opening to the nest.

Always use caution when dealing with yellow jackets! This is the way we deal with them, but we aren't really recommending this to anyone else, as someone may try our method and not use common sense in the process. I have not until now mentioned that my husband also wears heavy leather boots while he kills a yellow jacket nest, but hopefully nobody with the brain capacity of an aphid was assuming he was doing this in his bare feet! Right...?

The Original Fly Swatter!

I don't know about you, but during the summer months on our homestead, we seem to be under attack from flies!  It is annoying to say the very least.  But then you have the next problem:  how to get rid of those flies?  Where is that fly swatter? 

I don't know about you, but in our home they seem to develop legs and disappear!  Or they are made in China and break after you kill one fly!  Well, the other night it was late and I was really needing to kill some flies when I went to throw the newspaper away.  Then I realized...this is what my grandpa used to use to kill those buggers!  So I folded it up and gave it a SWAT!  And sure enough, IT WORKED!  And I tried it again and I had another one down!  And then another!  And I was having fun with my cheap fly swatter!  Yep, I have decided that newspaper is really the best fly swatter on the market!