In the Memory of my Cantaloupe plant.

garden planters

The herbal garden I started this past summer is off to a good start, several of my plants (peppers) sprouted and out-grew their respective temporary starter cups ending up in their very own flow pot. Currently, my experimental home-grown food specimens are officially still on winter break, but I plan to pick up where I left off now that spring is here again. Once my plants reach their flower pot or planter stage I will continue the fertilizing routine from this past planting season, where I feed them on diet of Fish Fertilizer, once ever week or so, with an occasional sprinkling of Epson Salt for potassium.

If these first few seedlings can grow, with me as their farmer, then I will plant more in the hopes of one day having an onion, peppers, and garlic harvest good enough to last me throughout the winter months. This past year's lesson, for me, was all about pesticides because of my misuse of an insecticide that cost me a perfectly healthy cantaloupe plant. When I went to a real planting pro (my neighbor) who often shares out of her garden with me, to find out how their garden grew such a nice variety of different fruits and veggies even though I hardly ever saw her using any kind of pesticide.

To my surprise, she admitted that she does on occasion use pesticides but vert sparingly, and very directed, meaning she didn't wholesale spray all of her plants just to treat one ailing plant (the way I did). The pesticide she chose to use was always carefully selected, and used. She also went on to explain to me how she had practically engineered her planting space (she grew her plants in pots the way I did) so that there were no heavy dependents on pesticides.

She told me that she planted things in her garden that would attract the kind of insects that ate the plant-eating pest. Which of course went way over my head when it came to understanding what she meant. She informed me that my scorched-earth policy, of wipe 'em all out, wasn't really the best plan either since most pesticides were indiscriminate in their bug-killing ability. She said that in her garden she worked for more of a natural balance that she could occasionally tip in her garden's favor so that the good bugs, always outnumbered the bad. An early day lesson learned, for her, happened when she used so much insecticide to kill the pest, her plants were no longer eatable.

To make matters worse it seems that she had also misidentified the plant-eating pest, sorry I didn't ask her which one, to me a bug, was a bug, so I thought to myself great! Now I have to be an Entomologist too!? The good news is no, you don't need to be an expert in that branch of insect zoology. I found that some of the people at my local nursery could be very helpful when it came to identifying the flying and crawling creatures that also enjoy my plants. You will need to capture one of them, though, at least that's the way I did it. Showing someone at a nursery, or perhaps even a Home Depot or Orchards Garden Supply store should allow them to help you select just the right insecticide for your needs.

For sure the lessons I have learned over this past growing season will come in handy with this years back porch garden crop. I may even try planting cantaloupe again this year, and this year, the cantaloupe will make it!