Toad the Wet Sprocket: This Week's Garden Report, Late May 2010

The big news this week is the plague of toads. They showed up right after I installed the Hostas I got from Reber. They are everywhere! I hope this ain’t some kinda Biblical stuff going on. Typical, ya let in some religious refugees, ya try to be a nice guy and right away they want to convert you and all the other plants. I might have to take the lawn mower to ‘em!

The upside of the Toads is Hammerdog can catch them. It’s a hoot to watch. When they hop it catches his eye, he will dash over to where it landed and just stare until it moves again. He will stand there and stare at the lawn until he sees another one move or the first one is dumb enough to hop again. He has caught a couple of them. He doesn’t quite know what to do with them once he catches them. He doesn’t want to eat them but after he has caught them they ain’t worth much anymore. He’ll put them down and wait for them to start playing again but they never do. He doesn’t understand. However, he does insist on being called Toadslayer for now on. It hasn’t stopped the squirrels from teasing him.

Spring is a wonderful time in the garden. Spring makes gardening virtually idiot proof. The weather is nice and cool, no bugs yet, lotsa rain. All the plants still have a good attitude; they’re not all stressed out yet from heat, drought and bugs. They have nothing to fear but me and my lawnmower.

There are some candidates for plant of the year already. The daisies are blooming now and are putting on a show! They came in so thick and spread so much this year I was able to dig up some volunteers for Mr. Rebers church sale. They were already in full bloom and were big sellers. People like instant gratification. Their only drawback is they will be done blooming by the end of July and come time to vote they will have been forgotten about. Another early candidate is the Bleeding Heart . That plant comes to play every spring no matter what. I wish all my plants had that attitude.

The only candidate for rookie of the year already took puke. I picked up a Trumpet vine at Meier’s, it didn’t last a week. Oh well.

I tried my home brew lawn food out front it seems to work pretty well. It’s just a mixture of beer, ammonia, molasses, and dish soap and toad urine. I suppose it could just be placebo effect. I wonder if anyone has done a study on placebo effect in plants? I oughta check out if I could get a government grant to conduct a study on that. I could milk it for years!





Coming up in next weeks Garden report;



Midnight mining in Waynes yard



Are all Astilbes gay?



Sympathy for Richard Nixon