Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Our harvest

Our small garden produced a very small harvest. We feasted on lettuce and rhubarb and that's about it. The one tomato that grew spoiled, the corn was consumed and chewed down by squirrels?. The pepper plant didn't produce and our watermelons never pinkified on the inside (okay ripened).

We were however pleasantly surprised by some unexpected bounty. Wild strawberries and wild black raspberries



One thing our yard was pretty good at supporting was ants. Last year I noticed a large ant colony establishing itself under one of our oaks, right under my clothesline. There were huge areas where the dirt had been pushed up by the ants. This year they were back and had spread to more areas. I asked my girlfriend who knows ALL when it comes to treating anything naturally. Boiling water was her solution. I dumped tea pot after tea pot of boiling water and it worked! Okay so our grass was a bit charred for a few weeks but it greened up again and the ants didn't come back.

5 comments:

Along the Journey said...

You are so blessed! They look scrumptous.

Anonymous said...

Oooo, I like the boiling water idea. We have some ants that have taken up residence in our backyard. I'll get right to it!

Granola said...

Yes - it is great! I've also heard of adding soap to the boiling water but the boiling water alone seemed to work. I hope it works for you too!

Pam said...

We did the boiling water trick twice this summer when we had two mysterious influxes of ants. Huge amounts...they, must have totaled in the thousands. We boiled, they died and it made quick work.

Granola said...

I'm glad to hear another success story!