Leaf Litter and Good Insects - Plan Ahead for a Healthy Garden in 2016

This graphic is for those who trust in machines and chemicals -
instead of God's Creation. They are paying big money to inflict damage.

Almost Eden Gardens and Nursery collects bags of leaves for their operation, about 1/2 block from us. The owner knows gardening, beneficial insects, and the value of organic (Creation) methods.

Another Facebook friend, Jessica Walliser, wrote:

Soldier beetles, leatherwings FAMILY Cantharidae NORTH AMERICAN SPECIES 470 
As adults, all species of solider (sic) beetles have soft, leathery wings; they fly well and serve to pollinate various flowering plants. Larval soldier beetles live in leaf litter and under rocks, logs, and debris. Larvae feed primarily at night and are fast movers with large, grasping jaws that capture insect eggs and prey insects, including grasshopper eggs, caterpillars, aphids, and mealybugs. Adults consume nectar, with many species also eating aphids and other insects. Both adult and larval soldier beetles can exude foul defensive chemicals to aid in protecting them from other predators. In the eastern United States, the orange and black Pennsylvania leatherwing is a common sight, while the brown leatherwing is more common in the West.

Walliser, Jessica (2014-02-26). Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden: A Natural Approach to Pest Control (Kindle Locations 1046-1051). Timber Press. Kindle Edition. 

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http://www.ecosystemgardening.com/life-in-the-leaf-litter-dont-throw-a-good-thing-away.html

• Leaf litter is also home to ladybugs, salamanders, toads, and other predators of pest insects. It is no wonder that pests like aphids thrive when we continue to destroy the habitat of the predators that would keep them under control.

http://www.midwestgardentips.com/attracting_beneficial_insects.html

Leaf litter is essential for the best bugs, but leaving it alone is also ideal for them to overwinter.

By divine design the insects settle down for the winter underneath the litter, serving as food for winter birds but also awaiting their adult stage in the spring (once again greeted by birds).

The beneficial insect sources insist that leaving areas alone is the best approach - not digging to make them neat, not  rototilling leaves into the soil. As I wrote before, most leaves will be pulled into the soil, especially where the soil is richly populated with soil creatures, especially earthworms.

The piles of dead leaves in the spring are havens for insect life and food for soil creatures. We scooped the excess into the compost bin and over the endzone of the backyard. Some dead leaves remain but most have composted into the soil or in the compost bin.

Dead leaves lying on the mulch of the main rose garden disappeared before our helper could remove them.

We treat chunks of wood and twigs the same way. We maintain a stick pile near the Jackson Bird Spa and move chunks of wood into the two rustic fence areas. Sometimes the larger wood pieces are used to frame bushes, to set them off and provide a toad shelter and bug generator. Bugs and slugs love decaying wood; toads love bugs and slugs. 

One Butterfly Bush has a large mulched area around it, logs setting it off to keep people from walking over the new plant. Around that I have planted dill, Bee Balm, and coreopsis - three beneficial insect plants.

This is my favorite bird identification book.
Sharon Lovejoy, another Facebook friend, has a wonderful, total look at gardening,
from the soil below to the air force above.

Webber Goes Full Lillo on WELS Discussions - On a Thread That I Cannot See Because Lillo Blocked Me and My Wife. MLC's Tranny Joins Webber, Lillo - Solidarity

Joel has blocked me and my wife on Facebook,
so he is free to rant without showing up.
No shock - Jay Webber, Floyd Stolzenburg's pimp,
joined in the conversation.

Joel Lillo
WELS Discussions
27 mins ·
Of all the misleading posts that Greg Jackson has ever published over at Ichabod, this has to be the most misleading. It is an article about a college football player who came out at Augsburg College. He wrote the headline and highlighted words to give the impression that his lifestyle was encourage by MLC. In fact, if you read the article, it becomes clear that there was no one at MLC who encouraged him. He states very pointedly that he kept his sexual orientation hidden at MLC. Why anyone take the man seriously is far beyond me.
http://www.ichabodthegloryhasdeparted.blogspot.com/…/former…
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A message for David Jay Webber.

Same thread. Can anyone figure out what this incoherent rant from Dan Babinec means?

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Lillo whines about my posts and his inability to comment. I stopped comments because of his personal attacks against various Lutherans. His words were vicious, stupid, and ignorant, completely irrelevant as well. Other bloggers found him just as repulsive.

I often featured Lillo's eructations because he is typical of WELS clergy, including the DPs and Synod President. However, I am not about to let him spew his venom against others.

On WELS Discussions, when one of the insecure begins an attack, the others with emotional problems join in quickly. The more they write, the higher the page counts. So thanks and keep it up. It gives y'all something to talk about at your AA meetings.

Lillo's hero, Tim Glende, told the judge he was suing the victim of his and Ski's abuse "because of a blog in Arkansas." The judge said, "What?"

One of Ski's inebriated sermons was posted on this website
for months before they finally took it down.

Samantha Lily Birner - aka Samuel Birner.
He graduated from Martin Luther College, WELS, and came out immediately afterwards.

• Claire Christine Brown Where'd you find the trans pride filter?

  June 27 at 5:18pm
• 

  Sammy Birner http://messica.codes/transflag/

  June 27 at 6:54pm

Got Some Planting Done

Last night the rain came, and I had a little water caught in the freshly emptied storage barrels.

"The ground will be soft," I thought. Instead, the ground was dry and my magical shovel found tree roots near the surface. Nevertheless, it was fun planting from Almost Eden's nursery.

I added more coreopsis for beneficial insects.

I learned that the Chaste Tree is very much like Butterfly Bush and perhaps even better at attracting pollinators. I have a total of three Chaste Trees and five Butterfly Bushes.

I could not decide where to put the elderberries in the new, expanded wild garden. They are the tallest ones at the moment and I want to place them where they will catch the sun and show off their flowers and fruits.

Sunflowers are blooming. I was outside when a flash of gold fluttered by. It was a male goldfinch checking out the food available on the sunflowers. The blooms face East so we are looking at the cheerful flowers when we look into the backyard.

Pumpkins are vining and one bloom already popped out. They take forever to get going and seem to be unstoppable toward the end of the season.

Corn germinated very late and grew in the sunniest part of the corn patch. I learned my lesson about waiting to plant and giving them more time to germinate. The holes I saw after planting were from the squirrels retrieving their food. They are as suspicious of me as I am of them.  I should have known that they left those holes because they were retrieving the old stashes of food.

Our beans are not as plentiful as the number of seeds planted. Rabbits probably munched their way through many of the early plants. The rabbits are especially abundant this year. Sassy followed a baby bunny until it hopped under a car.

We are seeing the benefits of last year's work, with laying down mulch and starting the earthworms.

Spring was too cold and too wet but the trees were trimmed to give us adequate sun in the front and back.

The new roses have been surprisingly productive already.

As I wrote before the pure white John Paul II roses were clobbered by insects. Now they are the most productive and also damage free. I cut roses for Mrs. Ichabod and found one perfect John Paul II among the others, which were also beautiful.

I pulled out the cut cane and there was a dense spider web. I laid God's little insect killer back onto the bush. He gave me a perfect rose because I let him find his food without being poisoned.

The crepe myrtle bush is blooming
and the calladiums below are spreading - same color.

Roses for Another Doctor. The Wild Garden Grows a Rustic Fence

Barbra Streisand rose.

Mrs. Ichabod had a routine doctor's appointment, to change a prescription. The doctor loves doughnuts so we were going to buy some, but I decided to put some roses in a vase instead. The doctor's staff loved them:

• Barbra Streisand - don't judge me.
• Pope Paul II - another Notre Dame alumnus
• Peace
• California Dreamin'

When the doctor came in, she really lit up. 

California Dreamin'

The doctor was so pleased with the roses that she put them in her personal office right away. She was really grinning as she took them away. All the new roses are fragrant - Peace is not - so vase radiated perfume.

This confirms my theory about which flowers to raise. Which would you like in a vase? 

• Daisies
• Mums
• Dandelions
• Tulips
• Roses

I know why people buy relatively few roses at the florist. The cost is prohibitive and the price doubles for special occasions. That is why growing them is so rewarding. When I gathered roses for the altar on Sunday and discarded six of them for being too short, our helper picked them off the grass and took them home.

The LCMS, WELS, and ELS have abandoned this doctrine,
trusting in Management by Objective instead.
Rosarians know better.

Most people respond to roses by asking how difficult they are to grow. After decades of failure in the use of man-made chemicals, rosarians have switched to organic - that is Creation - principles.

The large rose gardens are using manure, compost, and mulch to have healthy, productive roses. Meanwhile, Pastor Herman Otten's sister (Marie Meyer, MDiv) is arguing for a "modern" interpretation of Genesis, in support of Matthew Becker.

Leave it to the Walther clones to desert Creation at the very moment gardeners are embracing the obvious - God manages His world a lot better than we can imagine.

The John Paul II roses are white and fragrant, heavily hit by insect damage in the first bloom cycle. When the buds are obviously under attack, the roses that bloom are distorted and ugly. One bush now has two perfect roses and 12 perfect buds , all damage free. What did I do? Nothing, except encourage beneficial birds and bugs to work for me. In fact, they work for God and obey His design, and I get the benefits.

Some gardeners here have Japanese beetles (aka June bugs) and no grackles. I have grackles and no June bugs. I recently read that grackles are ideal for attacking the adult beetles and the grubs in the lawn. The hardware store solutions (milky spore disease, scent traps) do not work - for a good price.

Grackles work for suet and water.

The old Yale Fence was a gathering place for college students.

When the Yale Fence was torn down, this plaque was placed on the new building.

Wild Garden Update

"Did another tree fall down?" Mrs. Ichabod asked. I said, "No, our helper cut down a small tree and brought it here."

I never worry "What will the neighbors say?"  when someone drags a small tree to our house or when I harvest grass clippings as I walk home. Our yard has become a destination.

Our helper was concerned that the wild garden would attract a ticket for uncut grass, etc. Springdale recently jumped on residents they suspected of emulating Dogpatch. But we are going to mow the grass as the wild area is developed.

1. We pushed the dead tree stump back up into position. That stump will help support the Honeysuckle Scentsation vine.
2. We moved the logs and the new tree parts alone a line to form a rustic fence to harbor bugs and toads - also to create a Yale fence for bird perching, gossiping, and bug pouncing. 
3. Solar lights will highlight the new fence and falling over it in the dark.
4. Elderberry plants and the Chaste Tree are vertical highlights in the area and form a screen to block the alley view, which is already emphatically green with sunflowers, Butterfly Bushes, Queen Ann's Lace, Cow Vetch, and pigweed. I like pigweed for beneficial insects. Woooooooooo, Pig ! Sooie!
5. Cardboard, newspapers, leaves, and compost will be used to reclaim that part of the yard for the wild garden. No more grass there.
6. More butterfly, hummingbird, and hummingbird plants can be grown.

Honeysuckle - Scentsation.
The trunk it was growing on is now upright and looks great.

Message for WELS Cry Babies

Various sources have informed me that WELS cry babies complain about my posts - behind my back, of course.

One of the latest concerned a news story I posted verbatim. I actually highlighted the material that showed this person was WELS. Maybe he still is. I do not know. God knows.

Many people read the blog just to catch up on news. If it is something WELS or Missouri might be interested in, I post it. Matthew Beckere's response to his defenestration from Missouri was news, so I published his response.

The Supreme Court decision on homosexual marriage generated a lot of support from Martin Luther College graduates, so related articles were germane. But - I went to journalism school and my criticism did not. How could they possibly know?

WELS is fading away fast, because only the abused-from-birth will stick around for a taste of the lash, and most of them are departing. The only way their new cult centers can get anywhere is to distance themselves as far away from the sect, Luther, and Christianity as they can. For most of the clergy, that is no problem.