Plant Protectors

When I set out young plants into the garden I like to put some kind of protection around them. Young plants are quite tender and wind can break them off, cut worms can cut the tender stalks off, cold and frost can kill the plants. With protection around the plants all of the above things can be prevented.

My favorite plant protector has been a gallon milk (or water) jug with the bottom cut out and the cap removed. With this set over a young plant it is quite protected and has the benefit of a greenhouse.









The photos above show a dozen young tomato plants covered with the plastic gallon jugs. Notice that the one plant is beginning to peek out of the top of the jug, an indication that the jug needs to be removed soon.

Although I haven’t use them, the clear 2 liter soda bottles can be used in the same way. Not as nice but workable is the 1/2 gallon cardboard milk cartons. Cut the bottom out, cut the four corners down on the top and put this over the plant upside-down. The “flaps” that have been created from cutting down the four corners are laid flat on the ground and dirt is raked onto each flap. This keeps the carton from blowing off.

When we used to buy canned goods at the supermarket I cut the bottoms out of the cans and placed them around plants. But, we seldom get cans now. However, I came up with a similar item. I use 3” PVC pipe cut into 5” to 6” lengths. These will last forever and the white color seems to help as well. Last Spring I set out tomato plants before Connie and I took a trip to Texas. I put the PVC protectors around several but didn’t have enough made to put around all of them. When we returned the ones with the protectors were growing out the top. The others had not grown, in fact some had died. It made a real believer out of me.

Here you can see dozens of the PVC protectors which have been placed around chard, cabbage and tomato plants. In the photo on the right you can see the happy little tomato plant inside the protector.

I came across a small book put out by Rodale Press, Inc., copyright 1982, entitled “Secrets of Master Gardeners.” There is an interesting little section with the heading, “Cups save tomato crops.” They discuss a plant protection cup that was being manufactured by a company in South Carolina (I can not find the company on the internet or any of their products). They described the cups as looking like “16- or 20-ounce jumbo milkshake cups without bottoms.” Kind of like my PVC protectors!

They related a story that I found quite interesting. “February 1981 was mild in South Carolina, but March saw drops into the 20’s and 73-mph winds. Ninety to 100 percent of the tomato transplants were wiped out. Growers using the cups, however, lost less than 10 percent of their transplants.” They also stated that with these cups the plants matured faster and often resulted in higher yields.

If you have never used plant protectors of any kind I would encourage you to do so. The cost is virtually zero if you recycle your cans and jugs.

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Azada, Powrah, Changkol, Jembe or Grub Hoe

Perhaps the most ancient and the most widely used agricultural tool is the hoe. The earliest known hoes were forked sticks. Hoes have been made of animal antlers and shoulder blades, of shells, of flaked stone and of course, various types of metal.

On the left is a hoe made from bison scapula or shoulder blade. The photo on the right is of an old iron Roman hoe. Some of the earliest inhabitants of the Americas used hoes made from the bones of the animals they killed for meat, from mussel shells and of stone.

This photo, taken from an internet site, shows the front, back and side of a chipped or flaked stone hoe. Most of us are quite familiar with the common garden hoe, a light-weight metal hoe used for weeding and digging the surface of the soil.

But, the hoes used by the majority of the people of the world, especially third word countries, is of a much heavier type.

In many areas the hoe that is commonly used has a very short handle, causing numerous back problems. As pictured here, the blade is quite long and heavy. It enables the user to dig deep into the soil. Longer handled hoes make the job much easier for the user and makes for easier digging of the soil than using a shovel or digging fork.

The Chinese man in this picture is holding two of this type of hoe. And, as I mentioned in my title they are called by many different names around the world. They are known as azada in Europe and South America. In India they are called powrah, mammoty or mamooty. In parts of Asia they are known as changkol or changkul. And, in Africa it is known as jembe. In Okinawa it is called a kuwa, kue and gawa, where it is also a traditional Martial Arts weapon.

Last summer Darryl, Danny and I all purchased grub hoes. The grub hoe makes digging and cultivating with an easy chop-pull motion that is quick, but is SO much easier and gentler on the back than the stomp-bend-lift motion used with a shovel or spade.

The above illustration shows the motion used. The following is taken from a web page of a company selling the grub hoe. “

Using a grub hoe (also called an Azada) is very different from using a shovel or spade. Instead of stomping or ramming a
shovel blade into the earth, the heavy-duty grub hoe blade swings from hip height down into the soil using it’s own weight,
gravity, and a little help from your arms. Instead of leaning over to lift the shovel load of soil with your back, with the long
handled azada you use your whole body to pull the thin slice of soil towards you into a previously cleared space.” I have had lower back problems for many years and I can attest to the truth of the above statement. Digging with a shovel or spade causes me a great deal of discomfort, but, although I need to rest occasionally, I am able to work up a fairly large area without having back pain.

The grub hoes we bought are 6 inches wide with a 5 foot long handle and weigh 3 pounds. A lighter weight and narrower version is available. For working small areas and raised beds they are much better than a roto-tiller. In fact, I am able to dig down deeper with the grub hoe than I could with a tiller. That is how I managed to hit the rocks I talked about in my last post.

A related hoe that we also purchased is the Italian grape hoe. The hoe is somewhat lighter in weight and is set at a sharper angle. It is “the fastest, sharpest weeding tool in the world.” It is really great in taking out heavy sod or weeds and grass that have gotten a “toe hold.”

For more information please check out the easy digging web site.

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My Garden Rocks!

In a recent post, Please Pass the Dressing, I recounted hauling and spreading “dressing” from the local stockyard on my garden.  As Darryl’s tiller is at the bottom of the hill I decided to work the “dressing” into the soil with my grub hoe (I’ll do a post on that soon).  I also mentioned in the above referenced post that I have rock very near the top of the ground.  Well, some was very close.  I hit it with the grub hoe at a depth of only a few inches in the middle of the area I was working.  I attempted to dig it, or rather, them out.  There was one large flat rock on top of another.  I didn’t get them all but as you can see from the following photos I got several.

In the foreground is the pile of rocks I had already removed.  As you can tell, I have dug a good sized hole in getting them out.

Here I’m wrestling another large rock out of the hole.

And it is added to the growing rock pile.

Another view of the pile of rocks taken from the one small area of the garden.  When I attempted to fill the hole back in with soil I found that I need more, I have quite a depression to fill in.

Anyone need some rock?

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Please Pass the Dressing!

In my profile I mentioned the series of books by Ralph Moody that I have enjoyed reading.  In The Fields of Home written and copyrighted in 1953 he recounts the time he spent living with his grandfather in Maine.  One item that has stuck with me was his grandfather’s way of speaking of various tasks.  When it came time to clean out the barn he spoke of spreading the “dressing” on the fields.  I have jokingly used that phrase myself.

Today I hauled and spread “dressing” on part of my garden and piled up some for Connie to put into her flower beds.  The local stockyard clean out their pens and aisles on Thursdays and gladly give away the “dressing” they pile out in the yard.  What isn’t given away they have to pay to have hauled away.  They gladly load it for you if they are available, although I have used a shovel and loaded my own loads a few times in the past.

The “dressing” is well mixed with sawdust that is used as bedding.  Here a bucket load is being taken from the big pile.

  The first bucketful is dumped into my little trailer.

With a trailer load of “dressing” I have arrived at home, ready to unload and beginning putting it onto the garden.

I shovel it into my trusty wheelbarrow and wheel it to the garden.

  You can see in this photo that I have dumped the wheelbarrow loads and it awaits being leveled out.

Now it awaits being rototilled into the soil, adding fertility and humus to the garden.  As there is rock not very far beneath the surface every bit of humus that we add helps with water retention.  And, I believe natural fertilizer is much better that the man-made chemicals that so much of the agricultural community uses.

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Our House—The Addition of a Pantry

When we were finishing out the house here on Cedar Ridge we didn’t consider the storage needs we were going to have.  We had not been doing much canning and food preservation while living in Bloomington, Illinois.  We had always grown a garden and froze and canned much of our food while living in the country but when we moved to Bloomington we no longer had a garden space.  Consequently we didn’t have available to us the fresh fruits and vegetables we once had.

Getting back to the country we got back to gardening, canning, freezing, etc.  Where to put all of the canned goods?  I had built a small pantry just off of the kitchen but that was very small and filled up in a hurry.  We considered various ideas to create storage space.  The idea that made the most sense was to add onto the house.  So, in July of 2007 I undertook the project of building a 6’ by 12’ room for a pantry, primarily for the storage of canned goods and other food related items.

Our bathroom is fairly large and was already used as a utility room with our washer and dryer and a small chest freezer in there.  It was decided to build onto the house directly out from the bathroom.  I could remove the window, open up the space to create a doorway, and relocate the window into the outside wall of the pantry.


The photo above was taken of me getting the walls set.

The framing is done and the OSB sheathing is on.  The metal is also on the roof.

This picture was taken of the hole created by removing the window and enlarging it to make a doorway.  The opening in the far wall will be the location of the window that was removed.

Here you see that the window has been hung and most of the siding has been put onto the outside of the room.

The shelves that are shown here are to the left as you come through the doorway from the bathroom.  From the floor to the top shelf is a full 8’. 

This photo was taken recently after the canning activity of this past Summer.  Most of the vegetables were grown here on the farm.  The fruit was obtained locally.  We do eat well!

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Garden Cleanup

Today the temperature got up into the low 50's, the warmest it has been for the last week or so. When it never got above freezing I didn't get motivated to do much of anything outside. Since it was warmer I decided to get the garden cleaned up, at least the area where our tomatoes had been. I had them staked up with stakes and twine to keep the fruit off of the ground. Using my utility knife I got all of the old twine down, the stakes pulled up and brought out the lawn mower and mulched the old vines. It does look much better and will be ready when Spring gets here.

Above is a "before shot." Below is an

"after shot."

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