Ants in my plants!

Imported fire ants, to be specific. Those nasty little reddish-colored buggers that bite and sting when you piss them off.

from www.aces.edu

Last week I got off easy. I had set my pruning shears on the edge of one of the raised beds. When I picked them up a few hours later to clean up for the day, I soon had about a half-dozen of these beauties exploring the back of my hand. That time I lucked out and didn't get bit, just blew them off my hand before they had a chance to get irritated with the change in environment.

If you garden in Alabama, you will meet them at some point.

They are everywhere! www.aces.edu

Sometimes it's pretty obvious they are in your yard.

Fire ant mound under my crepe myrtles

Other times they catch you by surprise. Like when you are hand-weeding raised beds or pruning back your lemongrass. For example. So I've heard. Maybe.

So I called up my friend the entomologist who is part of the Alabama Fire Ant Management Program. Yes, there are some great resources online, like from eXtension.org. Heck, they even have information specific to gardeners. But if I want to know what chemicals are approved for use in Alabama, and double check the application instructions, it's just easier to call my friend.

I used a product called Extinguish, which is labeled for use in vegetable gardens. I could have tried something at the big box store, but stuff for lawns is not necessarily safe for vegetable gardens.

My friend said it was best to wait until we had several days in a row of daytime temps in the mid-80's. That way the ants are busy foraging and will be more likely to pick up the bait and take it back to feed the queen. He said to do a little field testing to make sure the ants were actively foraging before spreading the bait. Also a good test to see if the bait is fresh.

Yesterday I got done with work early and the conditions were perfect. I found a small but active hill in the lawn and put out a pinch of bait about 2 feet away. I came back a half hour later and found this:

And then I set to work starting their demise (insert evil cackle here).

Another 2-3 weeks and I shouldn't have to worry about those little suckers for a while. Just about the time the potatoes should be ready to dig up.

Winning a radish battle

I've discussed before, I have bad luck raising radishes. Take forever to reach harvest size, if they do reach harvest size. Thin, spindly roots with the "bulb region" of the root forced far out of the ground. Every year I say never again. And yet again I try.

But this year I finally have a harvestable crop! A very bountiful, boisterous crop!

In fact, they have gotten away from me a little bit.

We've had a lot of rain the last few weeks. That, combined with timely fertilizer and some aggressive thinning of the sprouts, is what led to this bumper crop. Amazingly, the globes are still tender and not too spicy. I've had a few start to split (thanks to all the rain) but the chickens were happy to take those off my hands.

Yesterday I took a big bag of radishes to work. There is no way I can eat all of these by myself.

I still have about four times that amount in the garden.

So besides raw with salt, sliced on salad or in coleslaw, anyone have suggestions on what to do with all these radishes???

Expansion in progress

I may have a problem.

I have another two water troughs, 40 cubic feet of topsoil, and 20 0.75 cubic foot bags of garden soil (it was on sale this week).

Give me another day and I'll have two new water trough raised beds. And I already have the plants to go in them.