The Chief Manager of Fear

The Chief Manager of Fear

Posted by Heather Harris

Last weekend I bought a new car. Correction. My husband bought a new car. I was at home with the kids watching a YouTube video of a car salesman showing all the great new features of the mini van we were going to buy. I definitely got the better end of the deal. My salesman could be fast forwarded, skipped, paused, or ignored. Greg's was crammed in a cubicle with him, sweating through his cheap, ill-fitting suit, four boxes scrawled with hieroglyphics spread out on the tiny table,while ridiculous comments were spewing out of him like, "You can afford this! You only really need two meals a day!" (a car salesmen really said that to us once).

Flea Beetle Damage on my Tomato

I wasn't called down to the dealership until my signature was required, so I packed up the two kids and showed up with pen in hand hoping to spend a total of two minutes in there. But I forgot about that little room you're sent to at the end to get all of your paperwork from the weasliest guy of all, who's job it is to try and get you to buy the extended warranty after you already said you didn't want one. His job title is probably, "Chief Manager of Fear". Oddly, after you've just sat through hours of talk on how awesome your car is, his job is to explain what a piece of crap you just bought and how it's likely to fall apart moments after you drive off the lot. He had a silicone replica of a Styrofoam cup dumping coffee all over his desk. The kids couldn't take their eyes off it, spilled drinks being one of the most egregious sins in the world of childhood. He droned on and on about the three thousand computers in the car made by, "probably the lowest bidder in Taiwan" that were going to all die as soon as they were set out in the damp, Oregon air. Humidity is a killer. Don't you have medical insurance? It's the same thing! My family comes from a long line of teachers too.  Bla, bla, bla.

Black Aphids on the Fava Beans

Slugs Ravaging the Beans

We left without the warranty as he shook his head like we were surely the most foolish car buyers he had ever seen. Which brings me, finally, to gardening. Purchasing plants, thank the Lord, does not require a salesman. For if it did, the Chief Manager of Fear would have so many terrifying facts to throw at you that we would all be be buying the extended warranties. Especially in May. Every pest that can threaten your newly planted vegetable garden comes crawling out of the earth in May, right when the seedlings are most vulnerable. Slugs, snails, aphids, flea beetles, cutworms, caterpillars, grubs, deer, rabbits, moles, migratory birds; they all seem to turn their ravenous, winter-starved guts towards the tender little shoots and seeds trying to make a start at life. I have cucumber seeds that went into the ground three weeks ago and I haven't seen them since. My tomatoes look like someone sprayed buckshot at their leaves. My bean starts have ragged, slimy holes chomped out of every primary leaf. Lettuce, once six inches tall, has been razed overnight.  I have dumped three boxes of slug bait around the yard since March, yet the slugs keep coming! I sat by my tomatoes for over an hour with a sticky piece of packing tape wrapped around my hand trapping flea beetles. They were back, hopping jubilantly from leaf to leaf, the next morning.

Tomatoes Flowering

But there is hope. Because I know that my garden looked exactly like this last May. And like last year, I know that the beans' true leaves will push up past their decimated primary ones, I'll plant a few more cucumber seeds that will sprout, the tomato leaves will get too tough for the flea beetles weak little jaws, the slugs will eventually be under control, and one day soon I will be harvesting actual vegetables. It turns out, you need the extended warranty for your plants about as much as you need one for a car. Everything really will turn out all right. Doom is not waiting on the other side of the car salesman's sweaty handshake, or lurking in the moist verges of your vegetable bed. Everything will turn out exactly as it was meant too, and I tend to believe that it was meant to be good.

First Fava Bean Pod

Beans Getting true Leaves

Garden Pests

Garden Pests

Posted by Heather Harris

As I have begun to move from the anticipation stage of my vegetable garden into the actual realization of it, the giddy excitement of imagining a perfectly manicured and abundantly productive french potager is giving way to anxiety, fear, doubt and exhaustion. A bit like leg three of my recent journey to Belize.

So far, my little seeds, that should have germinated two weeks ago, have just barely poked their feeble heads above the cold, clammy earth, only to feel the cruel pelt of sleety rain. Many have been severed by the slimy munching of adolescent banana slugs. How easily I have forgotten the forces of evil that ooze up out of the ground at the exact same time that life is trying to spring anew. 

Below I have outlined all of the problems that I imagine will completely destroy my garden this year. Of course this never happens, but right now, as the rain drips down, and the slugs build their forces on the perimeter of the raised bed, it seems like the only possible outcome. I have also rated them as "Certain Threat", " Possible Threat", and "Just in my Head" to help you with your anxiety level as well.

Slugs and snails

Rating: Certain Threat

Since I have begun vegetable gardening I have seen these spineless, gooey devils destroy an entire crop of strawberries, munch off the tops of all my pea starts, and suck out the juice of only the ripest, biggest, most beautiful heirloom tomatoes. They are the only menace that has made me forgo organic practices, and dump copious piles of slug bait wherever they are likely to strike next. I hate slugs.

Deer: 

Rating: Possible Threat

Last year in our new house, I had just one little raised bed with mostly tomatoes in it. The deer would come out and sniff around, but left it alone, apparently hoping to get drunk off of fruit that was fermenting on the ground instead. I know I should scare them away, but they are so beautiful to watch. This will probably come back to haunt me...

Gophers:

Rating: Possible Threat

I'm pretty sure that you can see the gopher hills in our yard on Google Earth. If gophers had maps, our house would be their New York. When I was digging out the raspberry bed, I became concerned that I might just fall right through the ground because everywhere I dug, I found another tunnel. I have yet to see one destroy any plants, but we put chicken wire on the bottom of the raised beds just in case. Our cat has also developed a talent for catching the little diggers, so maybe there's hope!

Children:

Rating: Certain Threat

Not only do kids like to climb on raised beds, launch balls into raised beds, and dig in raised beds for hidden treasures, they love to eat things that are growing before you even know they are there. I have tasted three raspberries, one blueberry and two sugar snap peas in my ten years of gardening. The kids assure me they're great.

Ducks:

Rating: Possible Threat

Ducks are awesome pets, except when the lettuce has just reached it's peak deliciousness. One year I went out early in the morning with my scissors in hand to harvest the first crop of lettuce, only to find an entire row of massacred stubs that had been marauded by the ducks a few minutes earlier. They do, however, eat their weight in slugs so I guess I can't be too mad. They are also pretty lazy, and jumping up into a raised bed is like a marathon for them, so I think the lettuce should be pretty safe...

Weather:

Rating: Just In My Head

Every year I'm certain that this is the year that summer won't come. Rain will last forever, the soil will never reach that magical 70 degree mark, and dark clouds will forever keep the sun from shining on my tomatoes. And yet. every year, summer does actually arrive, even if it's August 1st. That doesn't keep me from worrying.