Call me crazy, but some of the things we plant in our vegetable gardens are just too beautiful to be ignored, so sometimes I plant them in planters as a specimen ornamental. Of course that doesn’t mean I won’t also eat the veggies they produce. One of my favorite food plants to enjoy for beauty is squash. It’s hard to overlook the lovely green leaves and awesome deep yellow blooms.

 

 

I also like potted tomatoes. 

 

 

Charlie, my garden helper. And no, we didn’t do that to his ears. They were done sometime in his past before we adopted him five years ago. Isn’t he a handsome fella?

 

No veggies here. Although ornamental coleus does descend from coleus herb. I can’t think of any plant easier to grow, tolerates both shade and sun, and offers so much beauty in so many varieties. If you pinch the top little leaves from your coleus, they’ll bush up instead of being so leggy. And try the Kong Coleus. They are huge and the leaves are just like velvet. I don’t have any this year, but next year….

If you’ve read my previous post, you know I’ve been waging war on the slugs that have invaded my gardens last spring and again this year. I thought I’d heard everything, as far as remedies for getting rid of the voracious pests. But I guess not….I was watching a gardening show on TV the other day and the expert suggested the usual stuff that has very little effect on the slugs as a group. Yes, all these things work, but only on the individual slugs or small groups, but when you have literally millions, as I do, it’s an ongoing daily battle.

This expert gardener did suggest one thing I’d never heard before. Vinegar and water sprayed around the plants. I thought, why not? I’ve certainly tried everything else except the pesticide baits. I don’t want to use those because my neighbor has a cat that visits and I have a dog. I don’t want to poison them. And since I’m really tired of being out of salt for cooking because of using it every morning on the slugs, I figured I’d try this new method. I assume the gardener giving the advice was speaking of white vinegar, but all I had in the house this morning was the apple cider variety. I decided to try it until I could get to the store for the white.

When going after slugs, you have to go out early, before the sun warms things up too much. They are night feeders. If I get to my gardens by around seven or eight o’clock, they’re still feasting all over my plants and moving around on the ground. I went out this morning with my little spray bottle of vinegar and water and sprayed all around my plants and directly on all the slugs I could see. Well, I’ll have to wait and see what the results are as a preventative, but directly on the slugs, it seems to work almost as well as salt. I’ll get some white vinegar later today and spray around the plants again tomorrow morning. I’ll let you know if this works to help keep the slugs at bay.

If I could find a good deterrent for keeping slugs out of my gardens without having to kill so many, I’d be thrilled. Because believe it or not, slugs are a beneficial creature. They eat wood, lawn and garden debris. But I really don’t think my lawn and gardens need quite so many.

Has your garden ever been so infested with slugs that when you went out early in the morning not one inch of ground didn’t have one? That’s my garden nightmare….We had an incredibly wet spring last year and again this year. The slugs invaded, ranging in size from pin point to six or eight inches, and I’ve been waging war. I’m pretty much an organic gardener, so rarely resort to pesticides, but that doesn’t matter, as slugs seem resistent to most of those anyway. I’ve done everything else recommended for slugs–the egg shells, the beer, the asphalt shingles, the hot pepper, diatomaceous earth, and yes, I’ve even resorted to sprinkling salt on them every morning. I’ve reduced the population…or at least I don’t see as many as I had before. Thank goodness, this year I had enough sense to put in plants that are more slug resistent or I’d have no gardens at all. I hate the thought of digging and disgarding all my lovely hostas, and since the slugs have nibbled at my other plants–with the hostas gone, will they eat these others instead? They also shredded my Iris and Lily foliage. Below are some photos. I used thumbnails for faster loading–Click them for larger images.

Large green hosta with slug holes. Below this is one of the same variety and a varigated one that they almost ate to the ground and below that are photos of my gardens they haven’t bothered much.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Slugs don’t like like my wild daisies.

 

 

 

They nibble at my impatiens and begonias, but they’re doing okay so far.

 

 

A part of another garden the slugs haven’t bothered much.

 

 

Another part of the same garden. The hosta on the right of the blue festuca was damaged pretty badly by slugs, but they didn’t touch the coral bells on the left. See the strawberries in the back left. They eat the sides off the berries when about half ripe.

 

Although slugs eat some leaves off my larger sedums, they don’t touch this creeping variety, nor do they like geraniums.

Jason and Eric…of course Eric has changed some since this picture was taken fourteen years ago. Bottom picture is Eric now.

 

 

 

 

Azaleas from my garden.

LASR (Long and Short Reviews) gives WINTER OF THE HEART a four and half book review. It’s also up for ‘best book of the week’, so if you have time check in at http://www.longandshortreviews.com/LASR/recentrev.htm tomorrow (Saturday May 2, 2009 or Sunday May 3, 2009) and vote for it. Thanks, Elizabeth

“This touching historical takes readers on an emotional journey that is hard to forget as a woman in an abusive relationship seeks to make a better life for herself and finds a love she never expected…” Read more – http://longandshortreviews.blogspot.com/2009/04/winter-of-heart-by-eg-parsons.html

 My yellow lily along side a few other plants–strawberries, coral bells and blue festuca. Below is a burgundy/fuchsia colored lily. Click the images for a larger view. I’m thrilled to finally have some color in the garden.

 

 

 

 

 

burgundy lily

Burgundy lily with hosta.

Medical terrorists on your doorstep
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51203

Merck Lobbying Campaign (Read the Second Paragraph)
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/62645.php

Forced vaccination without representation
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54095

Beware of vaccine bullies
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36926

We’ve had one hard freeze after another this spring, so I had little doubt that all my budding trees and plants had bit the dust. But just look at this little tree. Usually if we get so much as a light frost while these things are budding, they won’t bloom. So I’m amazed, as well as thrilled, to see that most everything seems to have come through the cold weather fine. Now if it just doesn’t freeze or frost anymore….

Image Copyright 2009 Elizabeth Melton Parsons

Black Rock: A Time for Love

By E. G. Parsons

Buy Link: http://www.amazon.com/Black-Rock-E-G-Parsons/dp/1601541716

 

This book has been on my TBR (To Be Read) pile for quite awhile. I was waiting until I was in the mood for a good historical romance to read it. What a mistake that was! If I had known just how good Black Rock: A Time for Love was going to be I would have read it weeks ago.

 

The author sets the stage for this wonderfully intriguing story with a brief prologue. The year is 1846. On a small ranch in the town of Wild Rose, Texas, two ranch hands have mysteriously disappeared inside the magnificent black rock from which Black Rock Ranch takes its name.

 

As the story opens, more than fifty years later, twenty-year-old Roxanne Ingram is looking forward to returning home to Black Rock Ranch after ten years in a Boston girls’ school. Shortly before her departure, Roxanne gets word that her beloved father has passed away, and she will be retuning as sole heir to the family ranch. Confusion is added to grief, when, attempting to settle the estate, Roxanne discovers the date of birth recorded for her in the family Bible does not match the one she has always known to be her true birth date. Touring the ranch, which she now owns, Roxanne has an unexpected encounter with Collin, who has come to study the giant black rock on the edge of her property. She is outraged by his rudeness, but can’t help being attracted to the irresistibly handsome Colin. Shortly after her encounter with Colin, Roxanne meets charming Brad Wellman, the wealthy rancher whose property adjoins her own. As both men vie for her affections, it becomes a race against time for the two men — one a deadly villain, and the other a prince charming who holds the key to the shocking secrets of Roxanne’s origin.

 

If you’re looking for a beautiful historical romance you need look no further than Black Rock: A Time For Love. The author is so in tune with the late 1800s that it almost seems as though she must have lived them in a former life. The clothing, customs, and dialogue are written to perfection as the story moves seamlessly from one breathtaking scene to the next. The paranormal twist to this story is a most intriguing and welcome bonus. Roxanne is a thoroughly likeable heroine, and Colin will steal your breath away! I highly recommend this book to any lover of paranormal and/or historical fiction, or to anyone who just plain loves a good story.

 

Honeybee

http://workinggirlreviews.wordpress.com