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| Giant Alium bulbs are fun to grow. |
I have my eyes open for things to give to Almost Eden Gardens and Nursery. For instance, I have Giant Alium (garlic) finishing, and some giant Elephant Ears starting to grow. Sharing bulbs gives him a chance to try some plants without spending extra money. The Alium has doubled, so I can divide it. The Elephant Ear bulbs have to be pulled in the fall, so I should have something to share there.
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| Tansy is reputed to repel flies. |
Tansy can be used as in companion planting and for biological pest control. It is planted alongside potatoes to repel theColorado potato beetle, with one study finding tansy reduced the beetle population by 60 to 100%.[6][15][16]
In England tansy is placed on window sills to repel flies; sprigs are placed in bed linen to drive away pests, and it has been used as an ant repellent.[17]
In the 1940s, distilled tansy oil mixed with fleabane, pennyroyal and diluted alcohol was a well known mosquito repellent; collectors were paid five cents a pound for tansy in full bloom.[6][18] Research has found that tansy extracts do indeed repel mosquitoes, but not as effectively as products containing DEET.[6][19] In 2008, researchers in Sweden investigated the use of tansy to repel ticks, showing a 64–72% repellency for each oil constituent.[20]
I ended up with 5,000 Tansy seeds, which mystified him until his farmer's wife mother told him about the herb. I did not need 5,000 so he got the bulk. When I asked for some of his wood mulch from chipping a tree, he drove two front end loader buckets full to me. That was a small loader, but it was so much better than wheelbarrowing the stuff across a large field.
The painter, whose wife got roses on Mothers' Day, gave me five-gallon pails for hauling water, following me to the rose garden to hand them over.
Meanwhile, our helper came over to patch up the mulch in the rose garden, where patches of grass or weeds broke through. Weeds love mulched, earthwormed soil as much as roses do. All we need to do is hide the sun from them and turn them into compost.
Sound Doctrine
False doctrine grows well where sound doctrine has taken root. Interest in spiritual matters grows and people with their own agenda take advantage.
The false teachers of mainline Protestantism have been almost unopposed. They do not need to be invited. They blow in with the wind, like weed seeds. Or someone leaves a deposit, with fertilizer, like a bird, and the new dogma takes root. False doctrine grows abundantly with big taproots or prolific seed production - or both. But false doctrine is sterile.
People think of many healing and beneficial bug plants as weeds, but they contribute without doing harm. The Creating Word gave us most of our medicines in herbs that thrive in bad soil. Deadly Nightshade has an ugly berry and is toxic to farm animals, but the plant produces a stomach medicine.
Some plants are just toxic. I was following the growth of a beautiful member of the carrot family. The carrot family carries its seeds in the form of an umbrella. This plant was more of a cluster and continued to grow taller. I tried various names - even my neighbor was puzzled.
- Not Queen Anne's Lace - blooming too early.
- Not quite Angelica - some wrong characteristics.
- Not Fennel - no licorice aroma.
- Not Celery, Not Parsley. None of those nice smelling family members.
- Not Poison Hemlock - no purple splash. Wait a minute. There are purple splotches near the bottom!
I showed the suspect plant to Almost Eden. He pointed out all the baby ladybugs on it. "Don't be in a hurry to get rid of it." I went back to the comparisons, including another evil plant - Cow Parsley. Everything pointed to Poison Hemlock, especially its attraction to beneficial bugs.
For example, poison or spotted hemlock (Conium maculatum), a native of Europe, and a similar North American species, spotted water hemlock (Cicuta maculata), are both exceedingly appealing to beneficial insects of all sorts. They are found across the entire North American continent, but both are incredibly poisonous to humans and livestock, making them a very bad selection for the insectary border (just ask Socrates—he was executed by being forced to drink a concoction of poison hemlock). Both plants are also considered noxious invasive weeds in many regions. However, these species are very valuable nectar and pollen sources for numerous beneficial insects and—even though you probably don’t want them in your yard or garden—a roadside patch can provide food for many beneficials.
Walliser, Jessica. Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden: A Natural Approach to Pest Control (Kindle Locations 1532-1537). Timber Press. Kindle Edition.
Attractive to baby ladybugs - that is a strike AGAINST the mystery plant.
In another study, begun in 1928 and lasting thirty-three years, researchers documented more than fifteen thousand insect parasitoids present on several hundred different plant species in central Illinois to examine what kinds of plants attract what kinds of insect visitors. They found that the plants with the most parasitic wasp species present were members of the carrot family (Apiaceae)—with an average of twelve parasitic wasp species per plant species! Other important plant families for these parasitoids were the aster family (Asteraceae), the spurge family (Euphorbiaceae), the pea and bean family (Fabaceae), and several others. The carrot family is so important to parasitoids because members of this family have those open, exposed nectaries. The other plant families frequented by parasitoids had more concealed nectaries and so were found to be more attractive to certain wasp families but not others. The ten plant species that hosted the largest diversity of parasitic wasp species offered nectar that was easily accessed by wasps with all sorts of different mouthparts.
Walliser, Jessica. Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden: A Natural Approach to Pest Control (Kindle Locations 1522-1529). Timber Press. Kindle Edition.
False Doctrine Must Be Removed
Like the Poison Hemlock I am growing by accident, false doctrine must be removed. Poison Hemlock kills from the feet up, so the victim knows he is dying. The plant must be carefully cut down and its base poisoned with Roundup.
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| WELS - ELCA - LCMS - What could possibly go wrong? |
