Organic Home Gardener: May 2013

Thursday, May 9, 2013

RATS!

Every now and then someone mentions to me that they’ve put poison out for their rat problem.

Now and then the poisoners also happen to kill their dog or their cat.

How many hawks, falcons, cats, dogs, owls, etc., that eat the poisoned rats and then die, is an uncomfortable mystery to ponder. If you’ve never seen a rat, cat, dog, owl or hawk dying of rat poisoning, trust me, you don’t want to see it.

When rats spoil my tomatoes or get into my basement to spoil stored food, I want them promptly and humanely as dead as I can make them. I don’t believe in catch and release when it comes to rats. I wouldn’t relocate my rats to your neighborhood, and I don’t want you to relocate your rats to my neighborhood. When it comes to rats and other disease spreading or dangerous critters, you’ll find me in the, “People for the Ethical Treatment of People,” group.

A good friend of mine, after his dog ate the rat poison that he had put in his garden, came up with the cleverest and best way ever to catch a rat in a snap trap – without a miss. His vet bill to save his dog was $3,000. I think that is a good gauge of the value of his invention.

What you need is a snap trap, available in any hardware store, and a peanut. Victor brand rat and mouse traps are available everywhere. And you need a peanut. Roasted and salted seems to work faster than raw peanuts. If you only have raw peanuts, that works. If I only have raw peanuts, I put a little peanut butter on a tooth pick and push it inside the shell after I’ve broken it in two. I want the stronger smell of roasted peanut on the raw peanut. The peanut butter pushed inside the shell handles the smell and the rat will have to work for it.

The following pictures are pretty much self-explanatory. Always hold a set trap so that if it goes off accidentally, you don’t break a finger. Even if you don’t break it, it will feel like you did.

The two pictures involving pliers show how to set the trap with a hair trigger, or to increase it if you get it so lightly set that it goes off when you breathe on it.

Sweet Potatoes are Fun!

I grow Sweet Potatoes, the whitish ones, and Yams, the darker reddish variety with the deep orange flesh.

Very few people that I’ve talked to have ever had what we call “Yams,” other than covered with syrup or marshmallows or in some other ghastly form. Mostly, people that have only had them that way have a strong dislike for “Yams,” the darker variety of Sweet Potatoes. When they eat them in a medley of roasted vegetables, or rubbed with olive oil, sprinkled with Kosher salt and baked like a Russet potato, they’re amazed.

Related to Morning Glory, they grow very fast in warm weather. As a ground cover, no ornamental vine compares.

Loaded with vitamins and minerals, one of the most complete foods in the garden, they’re very easy to grow in warm climates. Here in Los Angeles, I get them started in late April. Almost all of them come up as volunteers, left over from the year before.

One little sprout, piece of sweet potato or whole small one, that was left in the soil, will have a re-birth in the late spring. I transplant them or take cuttings. Cuttings, put in a glass of water at room temperature, will sprout roots in just a day or three. Put them in the ground and that’s that. Not much water is required for a big crop. You don’t even need to get the cuttings rooted. Just cut off a branch and stick in the bed. It will play dead for about three days. As soon as it has sent out roots, you have a new vigorous plant.

The following pictures tell the whole story. From these, on 3 May 2013, we’ll be having Sweet Potatoes and Yams through about January. When we want some, I’ll just reach down into the bed. (I have very soft dirt in those beds-having created a mix of about 1/3 peat moss to 2/3 soil by volume.) From the 2 beds, one 55 square feet and one 65 square feet, I’ll take about 300 pounds of the lovelies from August through December, and into January.