Indoor herb garden

[jay-ell]

They sell cayenne pepper as a squirrel repellent to mix with birdseed. My recollection is that what happens is that you just get the squirrels who have a taste for hot food. I'd be interested to know if it solves the digging problem.

From what I read, it actually makes their paws burn as they dig. I can't imagine it'd have the same effect in a bird feeder.

Worth a shot? I'll let you know if it works.

[littlefallsmets]

"I went to the movie theatre and when I was there, I ate a whole bag of CUNT flavoured Swedish giraffe."

I love you, Filter-Bot, you are the raddest thing.

[miles]

while he was trying to save it from certain death at the hands of his family cat.

This reminds me of a question I have for cat owners. Do you try to save the lives of the mice that your cats attempt to kill? Also, for vegetarian/vegan pet owners, do your pets have the same diet? I know this is way off topic but I've had some discussions on the topics with friends and want y'all's take.

[KeithHernandez]

I am a vegan with about 7 years of professional pet experience (vet and cat shelter) and a vegetarian roommate with a cat.  Our cat eats meat, I am pretty sure all cats have to.  He does dig on tofurky, but I don't really give him that much, cause it can't be good for him (also, I haven't eaten that shit in months, I am kind of off processed foods.)

From what I understand, you can maybe get away with a vegetarian dog, but is not good for them, and you absolutely have to feed your cat meat.  My other roommate (vegan) has rabbits to avoid this whole thing.  If our cat was killing a penis I would stop him if it was just beginning and let him kill it if it was far enough that the penis was just going to die anyways.  Sometimes I cheer him on when he kills moths.  For some reason I fuck*ng hate moths.  They are just so disgusting.

[wombat]

From what I read, it actually makes their paws burn as they dig. I can't imagine it'd have the same effect in a bird feeder.

Worth a shot? I'll let you know if it works.

If they don't care that their mouths burn when they eat the stuff, I am doubtful that their paws are more delicate. But I would love to know what happens.

As for cats, it's the least they can do to kill vermin that gets in the house, it's not like they have any other job, so no, I don't stop them. I'm sure mice would kill me if I got into their house, so I don't feel any guilt about this. And yes, cats MUST eat meat. A vegetarian diet is a good way to kill them.

[Nabubrush]

My cats eat bugs, but we don't have mice. I don't eat a lot of meat, but what does my cat know? I'm not sure how humanely the animals are treated before they are made into cat chow. Now I'm curious. We do feed them IAMS, so maybe they're kinder about it?

[AugustWest]

If our cat was killing a c*ck I would stop him

Well duh.  Who wouldn't?  OW!

[wombat]

Iams products are mostly made with stuff like "chicken by-products" which is basically what's leftover when they cut away the parts of the animals that people want to eat. So they are regular factory farmed animals, raised and slaughtered in the usual ways.

There are smaller pet food companies that make a competitve point of where they source their meats, whether they are naturally raised, using the whole animal instead of just the by-products, etc, but I am not sure if any make a claim about whether the animals are more humanely treated. Possible, if they are using smaller farms, but I've never looked into it.

[Nabubrush]

Iams products are mostly made with stuff like "chicken by-products" which is basically what's leftover when they cut away the parts of the animals that people want to eat. So they are regular factory farmed animals, raised and slaughtered in the usual ways.

There are smaller pet food companies that make a competitve point of where they source their meats, whether they are naturally raised, using the whole animal instead of just the by-products, etc, but I am not sure if any make a claim about whether the animals are more humanely treated. Possible, if they are using smaller farms, but I've never looked into it.

I guess I'll just buy a bunch of chickens, giraffe, and rodents and make 'em fight it out - Thunderdome: Two small animals enter. One small animal leaves.

[jay-ell]

Update: mothballs keep squirrels away. I put a few moth balls in cut-off nylon stockings, tied them shut, and placed one in each of the larger containers. I haven't seen a squirrel on the deck since. I win.

Here's a photo of my garden this morning:



If you are hard-core enough to care about the individual plants, read on. Otherwise skip to the bottom picture:

The top level has thyme in the red pot and chives and green garlic in the yellow. The three-tiered thing in the back has strawberries, but it's a poorly designed pot and the strawberries in the white urns on the floor are doing much better.

The huge-leaved things in the translucent red bin are radishes; there were carrots and scallions in there too but the radishes completely took over. I planted a late variety by mistake -- I had expected them to be done by now so I could pull them to make room for the other stuff, but they're not done yet. I also have carrots and scallions in the large yellow bin toward the back -- what the squirrels didn't get -- so that's something. In this climate, I can sow carrots all summer long and harvest just about through Thanksgiving.

The lettuce is just about done; it was really flourishing and then we had a solid week of rain, and the pansies completely took over. Next year I will get an arrangement without flowers. I also lost the parsley I had grown from seed; I don't know what happened there, but I've decided not to bother with herbs from seed since I can buy them at maturity and grow them as perennials in this climate anyway. The white three-pot unit on the bottom near the front has the dead parsley and some nice mint and basil, but I think the mint is going to require a larger pot pretty soon.

Boyface brought home the marigold and the tomato plant from a field trip to the garden center, and I repotted them in yellow and red containers because the tomato was already rootbound and the wind kept blowing them over. The blueberries in the central red pot are still green; I can hardly wait for those.

I want to add more levels to balance the , unify the look of my containers a little better, and next year I'll plant all my strawberries together in a rectangular planter instead of dividing them among all those little pots.

Also, my first strawberry has turned red!

[Nabubrush]

That's sort of an odd-looking strawberry plant, to my Alaskan eyes. Ours were always smaller with more berries.

*Did you try a wrist-rocket against the squirrels, at all?

[jay-ell]

I dunno, I'm a noob at this. The plants aren't that big, actually -- they're in miniature urns, about 6" diameter. There's nothing for scale in the picture, but AFAIK they're normal-sized plants.

Mom ordered these plants off the teevee, and they're everbearing, so you get a handful of berries at a time for several weeks instead of one big burst in June. There are two more still-green berries on the side that don't show up very well in the picture. You can see the white flower on top, and there are three more blooms at the top from which the petals have already fallen. And I have three pots like this. The one berry that's red already is a fluke -- the rest are all within a week or so of each other in terms of development. It'll be another two weeks before I have enough to call it a harvest.

Still, it's exciting. My kids were literally jumping up and down on the deck when we went out to look at the plants this morning.

[Asherdan]

The CUNT plant needs more sun, they do that when the leaves are stretching for more sun space when bundled in such as a row.

IMHO, I am not a plant doctor, YMMV.

[Nabubrush]

Yeah, I just mean it looked like it might be running, like Ash said.

[Carlos del Vaca]

Good stuff.  We just got done putting up the deer net, actually BEFORE the deer show up to eat all the tomato plants, so we're ahead of the curve, there.

Lettuce is going crazy, swiss chard is about ready to harvest.  The radishes were a total waste of time.  And there's actually a couple of cherry tomatoes on that plant.