EXOTICS FROM AWAY
The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (4/16/08)

The phrase “native Mainer” is redundant. A Mainer is by definition a native. Any other non-native person living in Maine is not a Mainer but is “from away.” Using a prepositional phrase as a noun native Mainers make it clear that “those from away” are akin to aliens who are taking up space and don’t belong. Now, horticulturalists have another word for non-natives from away. The word is “exotics.” Ironically, to almost everyone else native Mainers, such as Stephen King, are exotics.

At first, the word “exotic” brings up images of tropical flowers, fiery flamenco dancers, and gourmet delicacies from Asia, but in the horticultural world it carries the more sinister meaning of “don’t belong.”

Technically, exotics are everywhere in Flagstaff, such as tulips, daffodils, and Kentucky blue fescue. The real problem is not plants “from away”, but invasive and thus noxious plants “from away.” Artichokes and Scotch thistles are both exotic thistles. Both have beautiful flowers, but the Scotch thistle is inedible, thorny, invasive, and noxious, while an artichoke isn’t and is good to eat. An artichoke, a benign exotic, generally doesn’t survive the winter and doesn’t crowd out native plants.

Some of these invasive and noxious exotics are winsome at first glance. The Dalmatian toadflax is quite attractive, resembling a yellow gladiolus. Originally introduced to the United States as an ornamental, it has become a pushy noxious weed crowding out the natives. Indeed, a whole field is quite fetching, only they are that attractive bad company about which my mother repeatedly warned me.

While some are fetching and others repulsive, they play havoc with the natives, destabilizing the relations between various native plants, trees, and wildlife. Birds are deprived of seeds. Squirrels lose their nuts and berries. In addition to being pushy, many are water hogs, such as the tamarisk, sucking up copious amounts of water, depriving the natives of an already sparse supply of water. A triple threat, tamarisks are ugly, pushy, and hydro-crapulent.

The Colorado Plateau, with Flagstaff sitting on its southern edge, is a delicately balanced system of mutual support for animals, birds, grasses, plants, and trees. The system presupposes drought, cold, and altitude. In a harsh climate that has taken aeons to develop, invasive and noxious plants threaten the balance of the whole system which if unchecked could cause the system’s collapse. They’re weeds, and they’re unwanted.

They’re unwanted for several reasons. First, they use scarce water thus depriving the native plants of needed water. Second, they crowd out the native plants which are a part of a biological community including birds, animals, and trees, threatening the community’s stability. Ironically, since the exotics are from away, the native plants aren’t able to compete with them, the exotics being more competitive. They produce more seeds, disperse them efficiently, and out-grow the natives. They take over and over take.

Third, some of them are poisonous and a threat to wildlife and domesticated animals, such as dogs and cats. Cheat grass has microscopic barbs which play havoc with an animal’s digestive and pulmonary systems as well as their eyes and ears. Finally, it pushes out the native grasses. The yellow starthistle if eaten with its barbs leaves an animal unable of eat, and if unattended is fatal.

Fourth, one of the most severe consequences of these invasive and noxious weeds is the disarray they cause in the natural patterns of wildfires. When the cheat grass has dried out in the fall, it is tinder for fires.

Getting rid of invasive and noxious exotics is not simply the task of rangers and eco-nuts, but of everyone. Human beings have chosen to live in this delicately balanced system because of its many benefits, and as good guests they have to help clear the table, do the dishes, pick up after themselves, and flush the toilet. Here’s a list: diffuse knapweed, Russian knapweed, yellow starthistle, Dalmatian toadflax, Scotch thistle, hoary cress, bull thistle, cheat grass, and tamarisk. Wearing gloves, pull them out, root and all, put them in trash bags, and dispatch them to Environmental Services.

For mug shots of these culprits click: http://cals.arizona.edu/coconino/nr/invasiveweeds.pdf

Copyright (c) Dana Prom Smith 2008

PLANTS AS MEDICINE

Susan B. Collins, RN

Rather than back to the future, many head forward to the past, as in slow cooking instead of fast food. The more technological we become, the more we loose touch with things that make us human. We no longer speak to people on the telephone, but to machines with answers to questions we’ve never asked. An artificially automated world makes us long to touch the natural world. Particularly poignant is medicine where artificial remedies have replaced natural. As a part of the push into the past, we plan an occasional “Scarborough Fair” series on the medicinal uses of “parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.”

A case in point is Mark, my first child. Every afternoon he was colicky, crying inconsolably in pain. As evening approached, he stopped and went to sleep. Finally, the woman who cared for him while I worked told me to crush a thin layer of fennel seeds between two table spoons. After crushing the seeds, she said, “Simmer them in 8 ounces of water for 10 minutes, and after the liquid cools, strain it, and put it in a bottle for him to sip.” The next afternoon I tried it and within ten minutes he stopped crying and took a nap.

Keeping it in the family, my grandson Johnathon, also, cried as an infant. This time his great grandmother Ruth suggested parsley tea. She had learned about it from her other daughter’s Italian mother-in-law. I chopped up a tablespoon of parsley and poured boiling water over it as with regular tea and let it steep for 10 minutes. When it cooled, I strained, bottled, and gave it to the baby. He burped, relaxed, and went quietly to sleep. Parsley is an excellent carminative, that is, it relieves stomach pain. While useful for nausea and vomiting and as a diuretic, parsley tea works well when other remedies have failed to calm the stomach.

Native plants were used for medicinal purposes long before the arrival of “Better Living through Chemistry.” The French, as well as smart restaurants, place a sprig or two of parsley along with their entrées. Not just an adornment, a sprig when chewed, calms the stomach and clears the mouth, its high chlorophyll content refreshing the breath.

Parsley’s botanical Latin name is: Petroselinum crispum. Some varieties have small curly leaves and others broader leaves. Widely-used as a versatile herb in the kitchen, it’s also useful for medicinal purposes. As a natural diuretic, it helps relieve water retention but saves the potassium. A WARNING: too much, that is, 2 cups or more daily, can irritate the kidneys and bladder, and, in case of pregnancy, it shouldn’t be used at medicinal strength because it can cause uterine contractions.

Parsley can be made into a tincture by covering the sifted and dried stems and leaves with vodka until they float. Vodka has the right ratio of alcohol to water. Shake the bottle daily and after two weeks strain out the stems and leaves. Put the strained liquid in a brown bottle with a dropper and refrigerate. The tincture then can be added to water and used for the stomach and urinary tract.

Containing many vitamins and minerals, vitamins A and C, calcium, thiamin, riboflavin, and niacin, parsley is effective for anemia. A tea made from parsley leaves is can also be used as a tonic.

Growing the plant from seeds is sometimes difficult but worth the effort. Garden centers sell parsley seedlings. Fresh parsley is a staple in local supermarkets. Pots of parsley often adorn kitchen window sills during the winter weather. A perennial, it is more often grown as an annual. While the leaves can be used anytime, during the winter the plant produces flowers and seeds with fewer leaves and stems. The leaves can be cut anytime, dried, and stored for future use.

More information about growing medicinal plants is available in Growing and Using Healing Herbs by Gaea and Shandor Weiss, Rodale Press, Emmaus, PA, c.1985.

Anyone desiring more information about using herbs medicinally may contact Sue Collins, RN, Family Nurse Practitioner and Certified Herbalist, at suecollins46@msn.com.

(Susan B. Collins is a Master Gardener volunteer. Dana Prom Smith, a Master Gardener volunteer, is coordinating editor for the Master Gardener Column. He can be contacted at stpauls@npgcable.com. For more information about the Master Gardener Program, call Hattie Braun, Coordinator of the Master Gardener Program, at 774-1868 ext.17 or visit our Web Site: highelevationgardening.arizona.edu.)

LONI SHAPIRO

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (3/27/08)

Loni Shapiro is a serious human being, not that she doesn’t have a sense of humor which she does, but that she wants to make her life count. In the language of the Book of Common Prayer, she wants to make the world richer for her presence.

Making the world richer requires gumption. Happily, she comes from sturdy stock. Her grandfather, a German immigrant, farmed in Minnesota and Northern Illinois, and it was from him and her mother that she learned to garden and love gardening. However, it was during her years in San Francisco where she met her husband that she learned to love gardening in containers, yards in San Francisco being too pricey for the type of gardening she learned back in Libertyville on the Illinois prairie.

Also, in San Francisco she learned her other focus in life as an occupational therapist, and throughout her life she has fused the two, gardening and occupational therapy, into a life’s commitment. This is her serious, no-nonsense side, the other being a wit and a raconteur. Her life as a therapist has richly endowed her with a treasure trove of stories she has learned from the people with whom she has worked, particularly the elderly. As she says, “They’re the ones with the stories to tell.”

She tells the story of a woman in her nineties, who emigrated from Poland when she was nine, talking about the Russian invaders who took their food and livestock and the German invaders who took their tools and implements. And then there was an old sailor, also in his nineties, who was at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, “the date which will live in infamy,” with stories to tell. The historians call it “living history.” There is nothing comparable to talking to the people who were there.

Between San Francisco and Flagstaff, she lived and practiced as an occupational therapist in Eugene, Oregon, where gardening “was plant it and it grew.” Sadly, what’s good for gardening is hard on allergies and so the move to Flagstaff where it’s good for allergies and hard on gardening.

After moving to Flagstaff, she became one of the early Master Gardeners, working at the Arboretum as a volunteer Master Gardener and eventually in the green houses in the winter and a docent giving guided tours in the spring and summer.

A tall, slim, attractive woman with a commanding presence, she is amongst other things, the coordinator of the gardens at the Olivia White Hospice. Beginning as Laura Davis’ assistant, she became the head honcho when Laura moved to Tucson, accomplishing with her many colleagues one of the most attractive gardens in Flagstaff. As she did, she also involved many of the residents at Olivia White Hospice in the gardens and gardening.

Her task as the coordinator of the gardens involves recruiting gardeners and craftsmen to help with the gardens, cadging materials out of many donors, organizing the platoons of gardeners, and throwing an annual tea and tour. And for this she gets no pay. As was said before, she likes to make her life count.

One of the garden’s highlights is its rose garden, a significant achievement in Flagstaff. As most gardeners know, roses, like tomatoes, are difficult to grow but rewarding. Just as the beauty and aroma of roses are incomparable, so are the tastes of tomatoes just off the vine. When asked about her secret for growing roses in Flagstaff, she replied, “Canadians, Canadian roses.” It turns out that Siberian tomatoes and Canadian roses are a good fit for Flagstaff.

As for the roses, she mentioned Griffin Buck at Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, who’s developed cold hardy roses and High Country Roses, Jensen, Utah, which has both cold hardy and drought tolerant roses. She’s also been helped by local rose gardeners, Terry Schick, Marion Lopez, and Hattie Braun.

As with the military, she always needs new recruits, both male and female, for the Olivia White Hospice Gardens and is having on orientation on April 29. It’s a good way to learn about gardening in Flagstaff, hang out with some really nice people, and make the world richer for one’s presence. Fur more information email Loni at maxmaddy@infomagic.net

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 2008

THE STUDY OF MANKIND IN GARDENS

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D.

“The more you study mankind, the more you discover every man is playing a part,” so wrote Richard Mansfield, the great American actor at the turn of the 20th century. Of course, he was echoing Shakespeare’s As You Like It, but with a twist. Shakespeare wrote about the various stages of life through which everyone progresses while Mansfield meant the personalities we develop as we cope with life’s vicissitudes, the parts we play. The psychotherapists call them “presenting personalities,” the masks or dramatis personae with which we face others, the personalities we begin developing when we first become aware of others.

As mothers know, children begin with types of personality, what might be called temperaments, qualities of personality, but those temperaments are affected as the child develops and begins coping with life’s demands. “As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.” Everyone starts out as a twig but is bent on the way to maturity, often by which way the wind blows. The plant that grows well in Flagstaff will be differently bent if set beside the sea. So it is with a garden and its plants. Every plant has a temperament, but depending on its environment it develops a unique style, even in a garden’s microclimates as in a family’s order of birth.

Selecting trees, shrubs, plants, flowers, and vegetables is
something like choosing the types of people we want around us, a kind of horticultural family. Sometimes, they are an aide-mémoire, a memorandum of things past, which invariably brings to mind personal relationships out of the past. A geranium may bring to mind many remembrances of things past, a mother on a Middle Western winter’s day baking a birthday cake, the blue ribbons a father won for his geraniums at the county fair.

But our horticultural families are more than remembrances, they are reflections of the gardeners. Just as we are reflected in the friends we choose, so we are reflected in the plants we choose. Neglected yards reveal people who’ve been neglected and have neglected themselves. Ugly yards signify emotionally distorted people animated by repressed rage. The happy face of a pansy more than likely reveals the joy of the gardener. Pumpkins often reveal gardeners who relish their children.

Everyone has their favorite trees, bringing to mind images of colorful change, comfortable shade, and enduring stability. While the ponderosa pines bring to mind strong sentinels capable of enduring harsh climates, solid and enduring, akin to those strong, reliable friends or relatives who’ve held things together when nearly everyone else fell apart. Sometimes remote, always dependable, yet with the poignant awareness of the bark beetle, they are felled by the silent killer who can destroy even the strongest. A dead ponderosa standing silently in the forest is a poignant testimony life’s fragility, the fragility of the strongest.

How different are the images of the quaking aspen with its vertical limbs and the colorful maple with its great spreading limbs, one pointing, the other sheltering, one golden, the other red. As with of timbre of human voices, each one of these trees has its own voice in the breezes and winds, some whistling, some fluttering, some rustling. All the different voices evoke in us different emotions, sometimes recalling long-forgotten experiences.

Choosing a tree is like choosing a friend, only trees, like dogs, don’t disappoint us if we take care of them. The maple will shade us whether or not we are in a foul mood. The aspen will always be elegantly slim, a tree reliably attractive with which to grace a yard even though we may have turned sour. In short, trees have a sense of continuity. The word “treeless” sounds forlorn, “in full leaf” abundant.

Daffodils and tulips peter out too soon and leave the gardener with sere, flaccid remains, but after a winter grim in the early spring “daffodils,” as Shakespeare wrote, “come before the swallow dares, and take the winds of March with beauty.” They are always there, require little attention, and give the gift of cheer and beauty before anyone else as arisen from winter’s sleep, good friends although their time is short-lived. For the “cabined, cribbed, confined,” they beckon for a stroll on a crisp, clean, crystalline day in the spring.

And tomatoes, who would not welcome their cheery, round, red faces, hiding amidst the foliage, like small children peeking out from behind the curtains? Unlike the daffodils and the elegant bearded iris, tomatoes takes lots of attention, are easily offended, and sometimes inexplicably wilt away, but in the moment, as the existentialists would say, they are a moment of truth.

Ultimately, as any gardener knows, at the heart of gardening is a sense of beauty, and with that sense there is always a sense of fragility which underlies all beauty. Involved as they are in dirt, gardeners live with a sense of the surpassing mystery of beauty and with that Rudolf Otto’s “mysterium tremendum et fascinans.” As with friends,the garden is always at heart an unknown, behaving in ways the gardener didn’t expect. As much as we think we know about nature with our tidy, secular syllogisms, we actually know very little, just as we don’t know the heart of those closest to us any more than we can comprehend God, the author of it all.

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith

A QUARTET





















SUMMER

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D.

A summer on the sand beside the bay,

the burning sun, the pounding surf, the wisps

of wind-blown dunes, the spindrifts tingling spray,

the lotioned bodies recall times of lips

tasting of salt, of fair and teasing slips

of flesh limning a tawny skin, of traced

and secret gifts, of passion’s private taste.

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 1982















AUTUMN

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D.

A lonely crossroads tree bronzed by the crisp

clean snap of frost, slender, crystalline skies

hazy from fields threshed, a smoldering wisp

from musty leaves betray smoky sighs

of dusky harvests, summer's coppered thighs

yielding succulent fruit from fall's tart sweet

trysts when we washed our dust and eased our heat.


Copyright (c) 1982 Dana Prom Smith


















WINTER

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D.

A line of poplars bare defines the field,

a whitened grove’s leafless oaks etch in black

the winter sky’s blue steel but nothing yield

to winds, raw, cold, a chill-wrapped hearth, bring back

salt roasted nuts, simmered spiced applejack

musk-savored flesh afghaned by your fired vault

when you softly twined my hard, hot assault.

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 1982





















SPRING

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D.

In the innocent, freshing green of spring,

when warm and gentle showers wash anew

dead winter’s icy murk and heralding

crocuses beside a pathway debut

the budding time of life, we slew

our innocence with weapons forged of fire,

pillaging terrain ravished by desire.

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 1982

BASIL: UNE HERB ROYALE

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (3/15/08)

Basil, as the French would say, is une herbe royale, as well it might be, the word basil deriving from the Greek basileus, meaning king. Grown throughout the world, basil is native to India and other tropical regions of Asia on Rudyard Kipling's "On the Road to Mandalay", having been grown there for over 5,000 years. Widely used in various cuisines, Italian, French, Thai, Vietnamese, and Laotian, it's the king of the herbs.

As with tender emotions and fine crystal, basil is fragile and of surpassing value, a “many-splendoured” herb, as Francis Thompson might’ve said, “clinging Heaven by the hems.” The varieties of basil delight a chef’s imagination. Beginning with the familiar sweet basil, the list includes other sweet basils, Genovese, Large-leaf, and Mammoth and the purple basils, Dark Opal, Purple Ruffles, and Red Rubin.

And this is only the beginning because the land of the basil stretches beyond where the eye can see to where the spirit can fly, to exotic climes of singular cuisines. Indeed, “The sun never sets on the Basil Empire,” save for the frosty north where it thrives on window sills, in greenhouses, and on brief summer flings.

Basil is low and tender, a perennial in warm, tropical climates, but in Flagstaff’s cold, wind, and sere, an annual, comfortable outside only in the summer. Best started indoors from seed in mid-spring on a south-facing window sill or purchased from a commercial nursery, the seedlings should only be set outdoors when all danger of frost has past about June 15 or with walls of water and the plant has four true leaves.

Before it’s transplanted it's best to harden it gradually by placing the seedlings out of doors several times on warm days. Basil should be given plenty of time to develop into a vigorous plant before transplanting outside.

Also, it can be grown indoors on south facing window sills year round, using potting soil with some perlite added. Starting them from seed or bringing some plants indoors in the autumn, the enjoyment of basil can last all year. As a matter of fact, basil plants are quite lovely, and since there are a variety of colors, the sills can be "many-coloured,” as well as aromatic. The fact is that basil adds class as well as taste.

As with many herbs, basil is a quadruple threat, aromatic, culinary, attractive, and medicinal. Its essential oil offers anti-oxidant properties, is anti-bacterial, and as a gargle soothes sore throats.

The soil in an herb garden shouldn’t be rocky nor clay bound, as is much of Flagstaff’s dirt, but deeply tilled with plenty of vintage organic matter, such as compost. Some basil enthusiasts add perlite to the soil to lighten it.

Since the value of basil is in its leaves, not its blossoms, the fertilizer should be high in nitrogen and low in phosphorus; however, basil is not a heavy feeder so fertilizer should be used penuriously. Fish emulsion, blood meal, and soy bean meal are excellent organic fertilizers. If addicted to commercially synthetic fertilizers, choose one of the “slow-acting,” releasing nutrients slowly. As with many high maintenance élégantes, basil’s diet bears watching.

Once plants are established, it’s best to pinch off the top to encourage a bushier plant. Frequently harvesting the outer leaves will prolong the plant’s life. Basil leaves have the best flavor just before the plant flowers, and better yet, flowering can be delayed by pinching or clipping off new flower buds, a little nip and tuck for basil prolongs its youth.

Basil should be planted smack dab in the middle of an herb garden where the soil is moist, the plant protected, and the leaves are easy to reach. A rock garden is especially desirable for basil because rocks, especially malapais, volcanic rocks with the little holes, absorb heat and water during the day to release during the evening hours.

An herb garden is well-served by the "many-splendoured" varieties of basil, adding culinary as well as aromatic delights. Geoffrey Chaucer said it well: "Out of ev'ry seed springeth the herbe so that ev'ry wight (creature)" "waxeth glad and light."

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 2008

OKRA

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (3/11/08)


As a friend of mine once said to a kith

Of the southern insurrection now called

The Civil War, “Our sympathies were with

The Union.” I, too, remain unenthralled

With okra, a pod from Africa auld,

A gift of the slave trade. Said when prepared

Well, "It is tasty." Not so, it’s impaired.

AN ODE TO AN ONION

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith S.T.D., Ph.D.

An ode to an onion, I chance to write,

Praising its virtues, for this splendid orb

Of goodness full, of taste a tanged delight,

Is a bulb which gives and doesn’t absorb,

Imparting savory flavors to bland

Cuisines. In climes where the growing time flees

Early and starts late they are set in sand

And soil, cold but thawed, snow patched, in degrees

Cold, four months before the last frost in June.

Savored in springtime as green onions slim,

Then summer’s great globes, next the harvest moon

When they’re stored during winter’s interim

So chefs might pluck this genus allium.

Some disparage these white, purple, and taupe

Spheres of leaves spare a core. With tongues numb

They complain, as would a misanthrope,

The taste is too severe, leaving the breath,

After eating so nourishing a root,

With its fumes and vapors reeking of death.

“Ah!” The pilgrim said, “Never dispute

Another’s breath,” because this ancient corm

So varied in taste from pungent to sweet,

So laden with life, would a meal transform,

Making it fit for a person complete.

Throughout the year depending on one’s food

There’s always an onion to fit one’s mood

If the cook is culinarily shrewd,

Frying rings, souping French, and even stewed.

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 2008

THE RAPE OF LUCRECE
The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (3/9/08)

In the Rape of Lucrece Shakespeare asks, “Why should the worm intrude the main bud?” and answers with the couplet, “But no perfection is so absolute/That some impurity doth not pollute.” Such is the perennial question asked by all gardeners as spring arrives only to find aphids swarming over a rose bud or, worse yet, little holes in the bud drilled by the rose weevil. Actually, Shakespeare was writing about the “tragic flaw” in fallen heroes and heroines, but he began quite appropriately with worms and bugs.

If not tragic, there’s always a flaw of some kind in the garden that “doth pollute.” Theological speculations about the problem of evil from the asylum ignorantiae don’t help. Turning to friends is more useful when the afflictions seem overwhelming, friends such as ladybugs and green lacewings. They eat aphids, mealybugs, thrips, whiteflies, leafhoppers, mites, scale, and insect eggs, and so it’s difficult to find better gardening friends than these predators.

Lady bugs are far more charming than green lacewings which are cannibalistic and aren’t as cute. No one makes green lacewings into pets as with ladybugs, but both are marvelous predators, especially their larvae. Actually, the phrase “lady bug” refers to the Virgin Mary. During the Middle Ages, when insects were destroying the crops of the farmers, they prayed to the Virgin Mary for help. When the ladybugs arrived to eat the insects and save the crops, the farmers called the insect eaters "Our Lady’s beetles,” the phrase eventually becoming ladybugs.

One of the ironies of affliction is that both the ladybugs and lacewings need the pests to eat, and without them they will either leave or perish, especially their larvae. As Shakespeare observed, “from creation to general doom” affliction is always with us. In every garden, aphids, mealybugs, white flies, and their kindred lie in wait. Not to worry! The pests haven’t left but are waiting hidden as eggs to strike again.

Actually, green lacewings don’t eat the garden pests. Their larvae do. However, adult ladybugs and their larvae are both predators.

The life cycles of green lacewings and ladybugs are similar. Beginning as eggs, they hatch into larvae. The larvae are the voracious eaters. After getting their fill, they become pupae which eventually become adults. The whole cycle takes about a month.

Pesticides are lethal for ladybugs and green lacewings, killing them along with the noxious insects. If gardeners spray their beds with pesticides, it’s “Shock and Awe” carpet bombing, taking out everything in sight, killing friends as well as enemies. Nowadays, it’s called friendly fire. Also, pesticides “doth pollute” the environment, human beings being the only animals who befoul their own nests.

In addition to avoiding pesticides, creating a congenial environment for these two friendly predators will more likely assure that they hang around the garden. Apart from aphids, ladybugs and green lacewings need other sources of food, such as pollen and nectar, after they’ve been successful knocking off the aphids. The specific types of plants they like have umbrella shaped flowers such as fennel, dill, cilantro, and yarrow. They are also attracted to cosmos, coreopsis, and scented geraniums.

Unlike human friends, ladybugs and green lacewings can be bought over the Internet or from a local nursery. There are four watchwords with these bribed friends. Release them in the evening because like a lot of purchased friends, they tend to wander and fly off. Make sure they have water. Refrigerate them before releasing them so that they won’t fly off so easily. If the infestation heavy, drape the plants, making a tent in which they will be confined to eat up the nasties.

Finally, as with all friends, sometimes they can be too much of a good thing. If they’re set loose in the house, they’ll leave little yucky, foul-smelling spots on the walls which are actually spots of their foul-smelling blood designed to repel their adversaries. They have to be given that, but not in the house. As with endangered trout, it’s catch and release, only with lady bugs it’s vacuum and release.

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 2008

IN HONOR OF KALE

The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D., Ph.D. (3/4/08)

Disparaged by some, used by many, kale

Is a versatile vegetable, spurned

By the uncouth, relished by the canaille,

Scots, Siberians, and Tuscans. Discerned

Sweeter than spinach, it is no fakir

Begging nutrition, beta-carotene

Aplenty, anti-oxidants inhere

In leaves, crinkled, spears, plain, red tinged, and green.

A headless cabbage with some tryptophan,

It grows in varied soil, in climates cold,

With a history antediluvian.

In chicken soups, it is as good as gold.

Ease of growth everywhere, good for health

Kale’s laden with flavors of savored wealth.

Copyright © Dana Prom Smith 2008