The lavender is ready to harvest, the strawberries are delicious, but the elm leaf beetles have arrived.

Hello Nevadans!
Except for my first garden out in Spring Creek, (which did exceptionally well), this is my first "real" garden. It came with the house we bought last fall.

I am a little disappointed that what I planted did not do well. I have TONS of sunflowers all over the place, (where I did not disturb the soil), but where I lovingly added manure, fresh potting soil, even peatmoss, turned it over shovel by shovel, I get 1 out of every 15 seeds growing! Boo Hoo!

I had a HUGE plot of strawberries, and I have not a clue as to what happened to the huge fruit that WAS there. I am thinking it was the birds. We have tons of robins that throw 1/2 eaten cherries everywhere, go after our nightcrawlers, and scavenge through the garden. I never thought Robins could be so horrible, and they have attracted crows now too. Does anyone know how to get rid of these flying pests? If I were to put seed in all of the feeders around the place, do you think they will leave everything else alone? (bribing birds? hee heee) Those little poops got every berry out there!

I have never had to deal with plant bugs before either. I found some bug killer in the garage that the previous owner had apparently used and that put a stop to the sunflower leaves disappearing. I didn't want to do that though, I would love to find a more natural way to deal with the things. I have a lovely worm farm and I am hoping to use vermicompost tea next year.

I am still in the process of figuring out what else is growing in this yard, and how to take care of it. It is strange, the previous owner lives in town here, but apparently is still angry over the "heck" she put US through when she decided to sell this house TWICE! (she got more $$ the second time, too bad we were already in escrow).

For now, I am growing tomatoes, Luffa, cucumbers, and 1 bean indoors! Yes, I was too afraid to put them out there to get eaten, so I have my garden indoors! I have to repot today and feed. It surely is a pleasure to look at healthy plants and pray I can keep them going and going. I understand that in Mexico, they grow year round due to the climate. hmmmmm? :)

I just found a forum here that deals with that! How exciting 2 awesome new forums in as many days!!

Ok, I hopped all over the subject line when I wrote this, I'd say...!

Good Day to you all!

Glo, ELKO