About that manuer.  If it has maggots, it isn't ready to use on your garden.  It will burn the plants, too, just like unripe compost.  It has to age a year and dry out.  Then the maggots are done with it and have turned a lot of the manuer into soil that is rich. 

I am happy to hear of all of the fruitful harvests this year.  Ours was not so fruitful.  We live high up in the mountains and this year our gardening did not go so well.  In June we were flooded out and it continued to rain through the end of August.  Some of Sept.  was wet and Oct. is pretty dry.  Some of the tomatoes survived, and our corn did OK.  Broccoli did the best though. 

I will be sharing pictures of the wash out soon.  In some places it washed out our whole street.

Be as Green as you can be.

Peace, Love and Light,'

Lyra

Thank you Sandy ,  bless your determination, it must of felt wonderful to finally see your roses back!

Oh SLUGS!! We have them like dropped leaves from a hundred trees up here in our wet climate. As kids we salted them too, but too much salt can damage the plants. Another thing we do for fun, find a wide mouth bottle, empty and wash, fill it about 1-2inches with BEER. Go out in the garden and half bury it on its side with the lip of the bottle at ground level. The slugs love beer, will go in and die. This is safe for everyone, kids,animal and birds. When you get a lot, toss the bottle away. Most of us never use slug bait as it is dangerous to all living things and being a wet state, we would have to keep putting more out as it dissolves. I don't like to garden with the dead salted things laying around and with the beer, no touch. This can be almost any bottle as these slimy things can get into small areas. I reuse my water bottle as they are clear, can see if ready to toss. Also, we have what is called a banana slug...BIG ones. So I will put out 1 or 2 bottles around the yard just for them with a bigger opening. People around me let their pets run free, I feed wild birds and have racoons, possums, rabbits and many little kids plus my own grandkids so I am careful. At one time I used to use something called deadline and it worked but it was poison and made me nervous. That was many years ago, so don't know if they still even sell it. Oh and I have a cow pasture behind me, many trees so it is perfect for slugs that like deciduous trees so they can hide under the dropped leaves.

One year I set out to have a great garden. Usually use cow manure but was told to use chicken. This was to be a veg. garden. All of my root crops were full of maggots so couldn't eat any of them. Was told by an old gardener it was the chicken. Now many factors play here, I guess. Weather (Washington wet state), humidity, if it was properly sterilized, etc. In the remaining years, even when I switched to cow manure, my soil was infected with maggots. My above ground things were okay but I wouldn't brag. Loved my corn though. Now, used aged chicken manure from my sisters chickens in AZ. Nothing went wrong. Will tell you though, and this I do know for a fact. That fertilizer MUST be mixed in VERY WELL. It gets hot and can burn up roots of all kinds. Used it on Roses and they died from burn. I didn't give up and kept watering my sticks for 2 years and they did come back. I called a Nursery and that was how I found out about roots. In the veg. garden, we had good dirt, rototilled the chicken manure in very well. Maybe we had too much manure. I just won't take the chance up here in Washington again, but will use it in Phoenix AZ as it worked fine. We aged the manure for 2 years, turned it regularly and mixed in old straw. Used only her chickens and didn't mix with other animal manure. Hope this gives you an idea of what to look out for. Doesn't sound like important info but did find out a few things the hard way

Thank You Lyra !

I should be able to find the Green Light Neem concentrate here in Puerto Rico,  since the product my Mother in law uses on her Roses is from Green light.

Question for  those of you who use chicken poop in your garden, you use it in your food garden, or only ornamental garden?

Michele,

You can use Habanero or Serrano peppers.  You should get about four and cut them up in small pieces.  If you can not find any fresh, dried will do.  You put them in a 1gal. jar and set it out in the sun for a day.  This makes for a potent infusion.  Fill 1/2 of your spray bottle with this tea and add 1 tsp. of Dr. Brauner's all-purpose soap.  Fill the spray bottle up and there you have it.

We also add Neem to the solution, at 1tsp. of concentrate per spray bottle.  It keeps away white flies, mites and fungus.  Green Light is the brand, which we have found in VT, but there are other companies, which make this product.  When we lived in Hawaii, a gardener made her own and sold it.

Happy gardening!

Peace, Love and Light,

Lyra

Co-founder of Earth College

For every bug there is a predator. You can buy any predator that you need on line. My Friends are very up in this and it works well. Those little bugs are good for many things. If you get too many caterpillars pick some of the butterfly plant and sock it in water for a few days then spray the cabbage . Butterflies do not lay there eggs on the butterfly plant for it is there necture. The Ants eat the Greenfly, So do Ladybirds.

love to you all. Janet

Lyra, could you tell us more about the pepper soap spray?    We are blessed that Mother Natures gifts grow well here with little help , but I am interested in how to share a little less with the bugs, without causing any harm.

Larry,

I am happy to hear of your fruitful harvest. We can't harvest anything until the middle of August due to the high elevation.

I just learned something new. Slugs hate salt. We put salt around our garden and the slugs just shrivel into nothing. It is quite amazing what the power of salt will do.

typo repair:

..of wine grape growing, but it's not that easy getting a truck load fo pumice delivered. But we love pumice, and the soil does too. We harvested...

To improve soil health here, we use all of our kitchen compost, and when we can, we get a load of grape pumice to add to our beds. We live in the heart of wine grape growing, but it's not that easy getting a truck load fo pumice delivered. But we love pumice, and the soil does too. We harested our first fava beans today...yummmy! Happy Green gardening to all! 

Aloha Friends,

With spring here gardening has begun.  Many people still use Miracle Grow without a thought about the damage it will do to their soil and the water.

My family has been growing food and flowers for many years with out the help of chemicles.  We use organic ingredients such as bat guano, lyme, ash, and chicken poop to add nutrients to the soil.  We use a pepper-soap spray to keep plant eating bugs away and beer to collect the slugs and snails.

I would like to know what others are using in their garden to help things grow.

Peace, Love and Light,
Lyra