Toads rule.

Toads are pest eating machines. In a growing season, a toad can eat thousands of pests that would be eating your garden, making you grumpy. We are blessed with a small army of toads (and less than blessed by a large army of frogs, but that’s a different post).

The kids love it. We […]

Henbit is making quite a showing in my area right now, including my lawn. Fields near me that aren’t culivated are covered in purple from the stuff, it’s actually a fairly attractive weed.

The folks that produce the excellent biweekly newsletter from Kansas State University extension had this to say about henbit:

The […]

We released our first batch of fly control insects tonight. It might have been good to get them about a week earlier or so, but the flies aren’t out of control yet, so I have hope. It took a few days after we received the shipment for the pupae to metamorphose into adults, but we […]

A large part of pest management is sanitation. That’s a nice way to say shoveling horse manure. I gathered over a half a cubic yard (three whellbarrows, each six cubic feet) and rebuilt my compost pile. After watering the fruit, I also watered down the compost pile to ensure good decomposition. I’ll flip it every […]

…and I paid for them to be there!

I never contemplated the idea that there would come a time when I would pay money for mail-order bugs. But I have to tell you, flies suck. Out here with the livestock the manure draws flies. And spraying poison all over the place is expensive, only marginally effective, […]