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L. C.'s Country Tips for 2007

Tidy Lettuce

When harvesting lettuces or other greens, cut them with scissors rather than hand-picking. It is much easier and faster to access tender leaves that are bunched together without bruising them. Keep a pair of scissors in the kitchen just for food use.

Growing up Together

Ever hear that you should never plant nightshades (tomatoes, peppers, etc.) around brassicas (cabbage, broccoli. . .)? Not true. I do it all the time and neither one suffers.

I also plant cucurbits (squash, cucumbers, melons) with sunflowers. That way the vines can climb up the stalk. It works with pole beans, too. And do plant flowers with vegetables any time you can. I plant morning glories in the greenhouse with my eggplants. They enhance each others' beauty. Do not plant poisonous flowers with leafy vegetables. There is too much risk of accidentally plucking a flower leaf with food leaf. Do some research to find out what flowers are poisonous. For example, Sweet Peas are the poisonous relative of the edible garden pea.

Litter Matters

I use pine shavings for the kitty litter pan rather than conventional litter. With seven litter pans, clay litter is out of the question, for both economic and environmental reasons. I scoop out the poops, and toss the rest in the compost. Urine is actually a good compost element. I have read at least one book that recommends peeing on your compost pile every so often. (I personally have not tried that yet.)

Since cat urine is so high in ammonia content, you have to be a little careful. If you toss it in the heap with the garbage and yard waste, that is OK. Sometimes I put it directly on the aisles between the rows of my crops to kill the weeds. Especially on a hot day, the fumes can also kill a plant a foot away. Cover it with grass clippings, or better yet, don't use it fresh out of the litter pans—let it sit for a couple weeks. And make sure you buy pine shavings that are safe for animal bedding.

Fun with Yogurt

Most store-bought yogurt is not acceptable for vegetarians because it contains gelatin, which is a meat by-product. (It is the goo that drips out of the hooves as the carcasses hang in the slaughterhouse—YUM! )

I get a big tub of plain yogurt, which does not contain gelatin. Aldi has them really cheap--$1.49. I mix half a container with a can of cherry pie filling, which Aldi also carries. I give the rest to my cats and dogs. All but one cat loves it, and, especially with elderly cats that barf all the time, since I have been doing the yogurt thing, I have had few messes to clean up.

Wal-Mart has Dannon Natural Vanilla, the large container for only $2.18, also gelatin-free. Try that mixed with a sliced banana. Or mix the plain yogurt with honey, then drizzle over sliced bananas. Top with chopped nuts or some granola.

Solar Water Heater

I still like to wash many articles of clothing by hand, such as dressy sweaters, delicate lingerie, and hosiery. In the summer, I fill a plastic basin or dishpan with water and laundry and set it out in the sun. It heats to a nice temp for washing, plus I'm right near my clothesline to hang stuff up to dry. (That's my solar clothes dryer.)

I also set my water hose out in the sun before I wash my dogs. I have 400 feet of hose, so there's lots of water in there to warm up, enough to wash one dog. Always be careful to test the water first on yourself, because if the hose sits long enough, it will become scalding.

Waste Not. . .

I don't have trash pick-up. I cancelled it years ago, proving that it is possible to not be wasteful. I compost all of my food garbage. I have compost piles by each field, and just keep adding to them. I keep them moist, sometimes covering them with a tarp to heat up the contents and aid it to decompose faster. Even if you live on a city lot, you can compost in a bin. Spread the results around flowers, shrubs, and even your lawn. Please don't use chemicals on any live plant, including and especially lawns.

I burn my paper waste. We are allowed to burn out here in Palmyra, but of course it should always be done wisely—never in a drought period, and always with supervision. If you are burning non-toxic stuff, (hopefully), throw on some yard branches and grill yourself a veggie burger. When I was growing up, we had a grill made up of four concrete blocks and a used oven rack in the back yard. During the summer, we roasted our weenies on it nearly every day.

Everything else, I recycle. Aluminum and other metals can be recycled for money, sometimes yielding a nice bit of change. Alliance Recycling is where I go, and I highly recommend giving them a visit.

The little bit of trash I have left over that nothing else can be done with goes to Palmyra when they have their spring and fall township "clean-up" days. I usually have only three bags of trash to take, twice a year. Top that, Al Gore!

Deer, Oh Deer

Last week, I discovered that the tops of most of my Razzmatazz sunflowers had been nibbled over night. I figured it had to be a deer because they were chewed from the top and were all cut even, about a foot from the ground. A groundhog would have eaten everything, including the tomatoes and squash that were near-by, and the damage would have happened in mid-morning or late afternoon.

I grow fancy sunflowers for cutting, which are multi-floral and will send up more stems from the base, so ultimately the damage was minimal.

I decided to make sure that Bambi didn't have another sunflower snack, so I put a big bucket of Skeeter's shit by the edge of that area. Skeeter is my 100 pound German Shepherd, and his shit repels everything except flies. Deer are not fond of dogs, or anything related, like coyotes, which we have in abundance around here, and will attack a deer. It apparently worked. No more nibbles, and the sunflowers are back on their way.

Cat Poop, Revisited

Up to this point, I had always burned the cat poop I scooped out of the litter pans. (See above.) It can't be used in the compost pile; (you should never put dog or cat poop (or human!) in an area where food will be grown, or near a water supply, because it contains parasites.)

However, since I use pine shavings as kitty litter—it's organic, right?—I thought, what's wrong with using it as a mulch around non-edible plant life, such as trees and shrubs, as long as it is not near food or drinking water? I mean, unless you live in the city, you take your dog out for a walk and he poops on the lawn. Cats that spend time outdoors poop on the lawn. Wild animals poop on the lawn. So it's there, no matter what. Might as well put it to use.