War on Japanese Beetles

Last month I realized I had a major enemy: the Japanese beetle. Turns out I'm not the only gardener suffering  this summer from the onslaught of these little carapace-bearing monsters; Dick & Jane's plants were also afflicted.

While I've been trying to spray my plants with some sort of death-to-all-beetles chemicals, D&J went the organic route and put up a Japanese beetle trap. Evidently the dreadful bugs are attracted to pheromones and head into the trap to investigate, where they then remain trapped until Dick dumps them all into a freezer bag.


That's right, when the pheromone trap gets full, he puts all the living bugs into a heavy-duty Ziploc baggie and lays them out in the sun, where the greenhouse effect kills them within minutes. Die, you nasty bugs, DIE!!!

Sorry.

I don't like seeing any animal suffer...but there is a very, VERY warm & fuzzy feeling that washes over me at the demise of these hideous beetles that wreak so much havoc on my lovely deck garden. And I don't feel the least bit guilty about said feeling.

My neighbors realize my fascination with the abomination because now they've started calling me when they empty the trap: "we're killing another bag of beetles!" So I hurry over to watch the little suckers writhe and squirm 'til their demise.

Did I mention I do NOT like Japanese beetles?

Oh, and while I'm over in their "lawn," I just happen to hang out and invariably a Yappy Hour ensues. The dogs chew on sticks, chase tennis balls and in general entertain us (as the bugs lay dying. Faulkner, anyone?).


Little Coyote Bait has decided he doesn't want to drink out of the water bowl anymore; he prefers climbing up on the fountain to get a drink. He's a weird little dog.

Many times there are drinks involved over at Dick & Jane's; the most popular drinks-on-the-house are mimosas and bloody marys. Of course, on a hot day there's nothing like a cold, refreshing adult beverage to cool you off...and even the dogs benefit: we give them the leftover ice cubes, which they greedily gobble up.

Long story longer: I'm glad Dick & Jane have declared war on the evil Japanese beetle population in St. Paul. Not that I needed another excuse to wander over, but, you know...

Japanese Beetles In the Garden

This is my third year with a deck garden in Saint Paul, Minnesota. If you prefer the proper terminology, I'm an urban gardener. That is, I have a container garden. On my deck. In the suburb.

In previous years, I started out small – a ready-made pot of petunias and a few other plants and that was about it. Then, my gardening endeavor last year got pretty complex: I added more plants than the year before and I even grew herbs, which I used in my cooking. Whoa. Look out, Martha Stewart!


Well. You think last year was something special? This year, I was even more zealous...more plants, more pots, more types of foliage and I even added actual vegetables to the garden!

That's right, this year I'm not just growing basil, chives, cilantro and lettuce (like last year); this year I added green onions, cherry tomatoes, green peppers and green beans to the mix. Go big or go home, that's what Clint says. So that's what I did.

Well, everything was going swimmingly, 'til all of a sudden I noticed some of my leaves (on various plants) were looking a little holey and chewed.

Of course, I thought it was because I found snails in my container garden at the end of May. I tried to "trap" them with beer and even sifted through leaves, stems & soil every day for weeks trying to find the offending slugs...but I only caught and executed about 5 of the slimy things, so didn't think that was the reason I had holey leaves.

While I'd seen various bugs and beetles on the leaves here and there, I didn't think much of it...until this evening. I went out onto the deck to check on my lovely plants and lo and behold, there were beetles EVERYWHERE, especially on my zinnias.

These greenish, round little sh*ts were lolling on my erstwhile beautiful plants and I could see the utter desecration they'd wrought with their little beetle-y pincers...the evidence was writ plain to see on the leaves of my zinnias, daisies and even my CORN!

I was aghast...and I started slaughtering the beetles. No remorse, no "aww, they're just doing what they DO!" attitude; no, it was all cold-blooded smooshing. I must've gotten 15 of the wretched bugs before they started flying off.

After cleaning up the mess (and tossing the lifeless bodies into the trash) I Googled "garden beetles" and learned through Google Images that what's ruining my container garden is the Japanese beetle. Otherwise known as The Low-Life Beetle Which Shan't Be Allowed to Rule Here No More. 

I read up on them a bit, and it seems they're attracted to rotting/dying fruits...while I don't have any ripe fruit to speak of (yet), some of the flowers on the zinnia plant are well past their prime and could be responsible for attracting this hideous beetle.

Also, I learned that in killing the beetles on the plant, less beetles are likely to come because they give off some sort of "get it here" type pheromone that attracts more beetles. So, if there are less beetles to give off said pheromone, then it stands to reason less of them will show up.

Regardless, I shall be diligently checking each and every plant for the little bastards each and every evening (this is the only time I've ever seen so many of them on the plants at once...which could be due to the extremely hot weather, or the time of day – it was after 8pm – though I've yet to see this many beetles in one place before. 

War. War has been declared. 

We'll see who has the best strategy: the Japenese beetles or this container gardener! 

And the Winner is...Behr Adventure Orange!

Remember way back in October 2010 when I needed help choosing a Behr paint color for my downstairs living room?

I originally wanted the color scheme to be chocolate browns, blues and splashes of orange. Since our downstairs living room is a walkout (the only source of light being the patio door), I wanted to paint the one long wall – the north side – a "warm" shade of blue. After debating on several hues of Behr blues, including Caspian Tide, Gentle Sky & Madras, I just wasn't sure about the whole thing and the project got put on hold.

Finally, this spring my sister came over for lunch one day and I asked HER what she thought...and she told me I should paint orange. Excited at this prospect, I went out and got every single Behr paint chip I could find that had the slightest bit of orange on it so I could choose the perfect color.

Now, choosing the perfect paint color is not my strong suit. I know what I want it to look like in my head, but even with purchasing, painting and testing several of those 8-oz tester cans, I've STILL ended up with the "wrong" shade of whatever-color-it-is I'm trying to paint.

With those previous experiences in my mind, I was slightly nervous about this project, since orange is quite a bold color and it could either look very cool or very, very wrong.

I debated on the myriad of orange paint chips for over a week, getting less and less confident with each passing day. Then I had a thought: invite the neighbor over to ask HER opinion. So, over came "Jane" to see the possibilities.

She had a good point: select the 3 or 4 I was most interested in and hold them up to the trim to ensure the colors wouldn't clash. No clue why I hadn't even thought of that...turns out she picked the color right then and there for me: Adventure Orange.

I asked her, "should I get the color 2 shades lighter than this, like everyone tells me to do?" She thought for a second and said, "I wouldn't. But I like bold colors."

So guess what I did? I trotted over to Home Depot and bought a gallon of Adventure Orange. BOOM! Just like that.

I wanted to start the project on a Friday or Saturday, so I could be sure I'd have the entire weekend to paint, do a good job cutting in, let the first coat dry before applying a second if needed, etc. etc. etc. But wouldn't you know, things kept coming up and I didn't get to it for almost a month...

Finally, one Monday at about 1pm I decided, "LET'S JUST DO THIS." So I did. I taped, tore apart the living room, put down my drop cloths and started cutting in (obviously the most time-consuming and my least favorite aspect of painting).

It was going much more quickly than I'd expected, so I kept at it until I had the entire area cut in and the first coat rolled on and drying before it got dark.

The next day when I got home from work – and after walking the dog, of course – I dove back in and painted the second coat (I was painting over the original flat paint the builders put on, so it soaked up the paint like a sponge) and worked on evening up the details.

On my third evening (again, after I got back from work and walking the dog) I pulled all the tape off the trim and we put the console & TV back. Then it was time for the final touch. This involved the ginormous painting hanging over the couch.

The primary reason for painting this room in the first place was to have contrast between the painting's large, white matting and the bland, white wall behind it. Well, since my sister had told me the corner would be a better place to paint in this room, that left me with a white-matting-on-white-wall situation for the painting.

What to do? Why, paint an orange rectangle behind the painting, of course.

And I did. I measured 5 inches around the painting, drew my lines, taped, removed the painting and put 2 coats on that evening.

The next and final day, it was time to remove the tape from around the rectangle (and touch up the several scrapes The Hubby had made while hanging said huge painting by himself :), cover the couch back up and move everything into its place.


VOILA! A "new" living room with a fresh, bright outlook on life.

I personally think "Jane" picked out the PERFECT color of orange for me...it's exactly what I wanted, and it's just enough color to make the room "pop" without being overwhelming. Add in a few final touches I got on super-sale from Pier 1 (candles, a throw and my new, very favorite wool rug) and I have a pretty damn cute living space (says me).


Thanks to my sister and "Jane" for your opinions, thoughts and support of my love of bright colors!

Playing Around with My Life-Size Converter EF Lens

The other day I "found" something fun in my camera bag: my Canon Life-Size Converter EF lens.

I've had it for several years but hadn't really used it that much. So, last weekend while tending to my pretty little garden I decided to dust off that macro converter lens, break out the tripod and see what happened (also, I happened to find snails in my plants so that's what started the whole macro lens photography session).

After shooting with the converter lens that day, I realized I've never really gotten into macro photography. So, the life-size converter and the 50mm lens have stayed on the camera (and the tripod) for over a week and I've been continuing to try it out on the flowers.

Since Zada likes to follow me out onto the deck to hang out while I'm "gardening," it was only a matter of time before I turned the lens on her.

Now, my tripod's not very low-to-the-ground friendly, so I had to take the camera off the tripod to take Z's picture...it's a good thing she keeps so still when I ask her to.

No tripod, camera lying on the ground, trying to focus on a specific portion of the frame and hoping she stays still enough to get a crisp shot...it was interesting. Not that she did anything; I had to contort myself into some weird positions to get it done.

But, as usual, my good girl was ever the willing model and I ended up getting some pretty neat shots.

I think the next time I go to Como Conservatory I'll be bringing the converter lens along so I can try it out on more types of flowers than I have on the deck...

It's been fun re-examining macro but as of today I have to take off the little lens and change it out for one that's much, much bigger: a 70-200mm telephoto lens. I'll be shooting a softball game so I need all the lens length I can get (although the telephoto lens will still give great depth of field). We'll see how that goes.

Most likely, once I returned the big lens (it's rented), the macro photography will resume at Casa de Danks.

Snails in My Container Garden

Yesterday as I was diligently re-twining the tender new shoots of my vining black-eyed susan plants, I noticed something odd in the soil...

Upon closer inspection I realized what I was looking at was a small army of tiny snails!

Excited, I ran to get my camera, my macro lens, the Canon Life-Size Converter EF and the tripod and started shooting.

It was only upon the upload of these pictures that I decided to use The Google to see just what, exactly, snails could do to a garden. Could they, for example, be responsible for all my holey coleus leaves?

Turns out, they COULD.

DAMMIT!


Of course, after my "photo shoot" with these little slime balls I'd let them slip back into the recesses of the soil so I couldn't find them again...but I'm now on a mission to hunt, capture and "remove" these garden slugs entirely from all my flower containers. Whether they evoke a sense of "home" in me or not (hey, gimme a break: I grew up on a lake), they're BAD business for my urban garden!


I don't even have the heart to post photos of my poor, torn little leaves here...so instead I've opted to show you what's going well with my deck garden.

Of course, now some of the pots contain little containers full of beer – for the snails, of course – and since I haven't trapped anything yet there's nothing to report. But I'm still searching.

 You can run/slime, garden snails, but you can't hide...forever.

Swimming Lesson at Lake McCarrons

We've been having some crazy weather in Minnesota this year. I'm not complaining; just stating a fact. We've had cold-and-rainy immediately followed by warm-and-sunny, then a spate of pleasant, summery days and back to blustery, chilly weather. It seems to have no rhyme or reason.

 This Memorial Day weekend followed the "pattern:" a nice day on Friday followed by cool/rainy weather on Saturday...then Sunday it was in the upper 80s and humid.

What to do on an uber-hot, sticky day? Why, head to the lake, of course. And when you're covered in a fur coat, the lake water is the only way to go for exercise.

So the neighbors and I bundled the dogs (Gus & Zada) into the car and headed to Lake McCarrons. See, Gus had never been swimming – in fact, from what I understand he'd never even been in the water (on purpose) – so we took them to the boat landing for a swimming lesson.

Zada, of course, needed no prompting: I lobbed the tennis ball out into the waves and she plunged in. Since SHE seemed excited about the water, Gus bounded right in after her...until he realized the water got deeper. As soon as his short little legs couldn't reach the sandy bottom, he turned around for the safety of the shore.

But, each time Z would swim out to retrieve the ball, Gus would bound back out...just far enough to realize he still didn't really want to swim.

He did well for his first time "swimming," but he tired pretty quickly of the whole thing and decided being on shore was safer. Meanwhile, Zada kept retrieving (per usual) and wasn't too thrilled we weren't paying strict attention to her ;)

We weren't the only ones cooling our dogs off in the lake – when we first arrived there was already a pitbull on the scene (which ended up having to be leashed, since she wasn't dog-friendly...weird) and later a border collie joined us.

It was a good day for dogs to be swimming...and we humans didn't mind the wet legs and feet we got from the dogs shaking on us – it felt pretty good.

After about a half hour of swimming and enjoying the lake, it was time to go home...of course, we had to towel the dogs off before letting them jump into the car :)



***Note: these pictures aren't the best...some are pretty blurry since I was trying out a tele-converter for my 24-105mm lens.***

Yappy Hour with Hoy the Havanese

The other evening was a great "Yappy Hour" over at Dick & Jane's. Not only were there delicious mimosas (and these aren't your ordinary mimosas), but we had three dogs and four people in attendance.

One of my other neighbors wandered over with her dog (Hoy) to see what all the hooplah was about...she ended up staying for a mimosa and chit-chats – and then we saw her dog's special "toy" and that's when the cameras came out.

Get this: she's a farm girl from WAY down in south-western Minnesota, yet when she got her little Havanese dog a few years ago she learned her puppy really, REALLY liked this stuffed bunny she'd purchased for him at Target.

Well, when said bunny met its demise (as stuffed dog toys are wont to do after enough time has passed), her little dog was much chagrined, so she bought him a new one...which he promptly denounced as unworthy.

Since the little guy was so attached to the original Peter Rabbit, she had a great idea: merge the two stuffed animals so he'd "adopt" the new one. So she did...by sewing the head of the old rabbit on top of the head of the new rabbit.

This has evidently been going on for almost four years – and since they're currently in the midst of a merger, we got to see first-hand the creepiness that is Hoy's Bunny.

We had QUITE a few laughs and jokes about this really weird process and how ODD this toy is (plus, how she's changed her erstwhile country-girl style)...but Hoy's so darn cute we had to cut him some slack.

Meanwhile, in the background Gus relentlessly tried to get Zada's ball out of her mouth (in typical Yappy Hour style)...and she – in a never-ending show of infinite patience – allowed him to endlessly pester her.




It was a great Yappy Hour with three happy, panting dogs and lots of laughs.

My Urban Garden in St. Paul

When I woke up this past Saturday morning, I didn't have any concrete plans for the day – except to get up and get my dog walk in before it got super-hot – so little did I know what was in store for me.

Since the mercury was supposed to creep up towards the 90s I had Zada walked (we went to/around Lake Como) and back in the house by 9am. Along Wheelock Parkway there were a plethora of "Garage Sale" signs on almost every block – evidently it was THE day for sales in St. Paul. 

Leaving the dog reclining in the cool of the air conditioning, I hopped in the car and ventured back to a garage sale where I'd put a rug on hold; I ended up with a few more knick-knacks (spent a whopping $11.50), and then on my way home I saw another sign advertising plants for sale.



I had a genius thought: why not get my deck garden started? I'd buy plants locally grown from my "neighbors" (I'm from the country; anyone within a radius of 10 miles is a neighbor!) and save money, too.

Turning down an alleyway, I pulled up alongside a hand-painted sign ("The Greenhouse is Open") and walked into a beautiful little urban garden – complete with quaint greenhouse – in the midst of Saint Paul. A nice man greeted me with a smile and I asked for the grand tour, which he happily obliged. 

He had herbs, flowers, coleus and a myriad of other plants I don't know (and some I can't remember) – in short, he had almost everything I needed for my container gardens on my deck. Last summer's deck garden was my second foray into the world of urban gardening and I did very well, so this year I'm expanding yet again...*gulp*...and I've added a couple more items to the list.

I bought 4 basil plants and 8 cilantro plants from him. Also, I've added two newbies to the urban herb garden: a cherry tomato plant and 4 "big dipper" pepper plants. This'll be my first time growing peppers OR tomatoes, and I've never had to stake plants before, so hopefully I don't botch it. In addition to last year's chives (which came up of their own accord in March) and lettuce (those started peeking through the dirt in the past couple weeks), I think I've got quite the little herb garden growing.

Of course, after getting a tad stumped by my brand-new, already-tall tomato stalk, I came up with a creative little solution (also free :) to help support the slender plant. I don't think it'll last very long – as the plant grows thicker and the tomatoes start to weigh it down I'll need something more sturdy – but for right now it's cute and works very well: two of Zada's on-hand throwing sticks that together create a convenient "notch" in which the tomato stalk can reside.

Last year's supports for my vining black-eyed susans is in place for the peppers – we'll see if that works! It's all a learning curve.

I also bought some coleus from him, but he didn't have the orange ones I'd hoped for...so he sent me over to another local sale – where several neighborhood ladies collaborate and sell their perennials – and I got my orange coleus (plus a nice, hefty flower pot for $1.00!). 

Although I wanted to buy all my plants locally, I needed to head to Linder's anyway (for potting soil), and once there of course I loaded up on more goodies: a HUGE pot for my clematis (a gift from Clint – it's gorgeous!); some superbena; daisies; a couple varieties of osteospermum; colorful vinnias; ornamental grass and the soil.

Whew.

By now it was mid-day and in my excitement of the day – and all my purchases – and forgotten to eat breakfast! After a quick snack it was out to the deck with my gloves and the iPod for an afternoon of potting, re-planting, digging-my-hands-in-the-dirt fun. 

It was sweaty, hot work (thank goodness for the breeze) but once it was done and I could step back to survey my handy-work, I realized that I have quite the beautiful urban garden :)

Time will tell how this year's deck garden fares...but it's looking good so far!