The Damsel was going to show you a magnified picture of a spider mite but they gave her nightmares. So no.

Last year the garden managed to still produce fairly well but many plants were really stressed from spider mite attacks. By this time last year, our potatoes were pretty much dead, with just a fraction of the yield we’d hoped for. The Damsel felt sad about it. She knows how it feels to be picked on by little creatures. So this year the Knight has been trying something new, and so far it’s working.

Soapy water has been used for over 200 years to control insects, and with the new interest in “going green” and growing organically, people like the Knight are giving it a try. A little soap has long been used by farmers to make water “wetter” by breaking its surface tension. Apparently it’s also lethal for little bugs. Too bad!

How can you tell if you have a spider mite problem? Take a piece of white paper out to the garden, hold it under some leaves, and tap the leaves briskly. Stuff will fall onto the paper. Some of it will be dust and other garden debris. Look closely. Do any of the dust specks move? They’re probably spider mites–after all, they are super common.

Put some soap (we used cheap dishwashing soap) in a dial sprayer. Set the dial for 3 ounces per gallon, connect your hose, and the sprayer will automatically mix the soap with the spraying water in the right dilution.

These spray dealios are really quite neat. You can of course use them for other things you might spray…just make sure it’s clean before you use it for the soap. (The Knight likes him some Roundup now and then, for example. You don’t want any of that kind of residue)

Spray the plants, trying to hit the undersides of the leaves as much as you can. That’s spider mite hometown. Then spray the tops.

You can dial it back to 2 ounces–just use enough that you can see a light amount of suds on the leaves. Too much isn’t good for the plants.

In the interest of full disclosure, some internet sources say that dishwashing soap isn’t the best choice, and there are special soaps made for spraying in the garden you ought to pony up for. Apparently some plants don’t care for cheap dishwasher soap at all. The Knight has used it on potatoes, tomatoes and roses and things seem good. Your mileage may vary. Why not try the cheap stuff on a small percentage of your garden and see how it goes?

In order to get rid of a spider mite infestation, you have to do this every two or three days until they seem under control.

Soap–a good thing, in more ways than you thought.

There’s something sweetly innocent about these little blossoms. Cute, yes, but it’s their fragrance the Damsel loves so dearly.

The Damsel has a few lilac bushes in her yard but because there can never be enough lilacs in the world for her taste, she decided to learn how to take cuttings from her bushes to make more. The Damsel has considerable practice at making babies and would like to say that making baby lilacs is ridiculously easy. Comparatively speaking.

There are a few ways of bringing a new lilac baby into the world. This is perhaps the easiest…digging up and replanting a sucker.

Lilacs can grow pretty large. This specimen is only a teenager…planted some ten years ago when it was a 2 foot tall stick. If you don’t have lilacs of your own to use, you may know someone who wouldn’t mind giving you a start.

On a day that’s not too hot, look at the base of the bush. Usually, you’ll see a large woody base, almost tree-ish, out of which branches and stems are growing. Some, like in this picture, seem to be growing out of the ground but are actually attached to the mother base. These are baby “suckers,” feeding off the mother plant. The parallels to human motherhood are obvious.

With a sharp shovel, slice deeply downward next to the mother base, separating the sucker from the mother. Hopefully, a few roots will remain on the sucker.

Put this baby in its own hole, tamp the soil around it, and water well.

The Damsel’s #4 sprog left for a Mormon mission this week, and it indeed felt like something was sliced off. It wasn’t that she didn’t know this day would come. She knew when she got him, she couldn’t keep him tiny forever. Still, the slice-off hurt like the devil.

But proud! So proud. And so joyous the child survived the faltering attempts at parenting…being a guinea pig for his parents’ on-the-job training…to become strong enough to survive the slice.

Some babies grow in line with the grownup plants. These are the good babies. But others grow willy-nilly, in the path between rows or even in your grass. You must do something with these. Otherwise, the babies grow up and start getting into trouble. They join gangs and hurt people. Your patch will get clogged with thorny plants until it’s pretty much impossible to walk among them without bleeding. The Damsel’s had problems with her raspberry babies in the past, so she’s passing on a word of warning. Don’t let your raspberry patch resemble the thorny hedge around Sleeping Beauty’s castle. This is her wish.

You can ruthlessly pull them up. It seems cruel, but you must remember that any plant that’s growing in the wrong place is a weed.

Or, you can use the babies to increase your raspberry kingdom. These plants aren’t that delicate, so they withstand transplanting well. Find a likely spot and dig about a bit, to loosen the soil. Make a hole to receive the baby, maybe six inches deep. Then simply dig the baby up with a shovel (not a hand trowel) and place it in the hole, disturbing the roots as little as possible. Add more soil if necessary and firm it around the baby. Water well.

If you’re making a row, place them at least two feet apart. The babies will grow into teenagers this year, and next year they’ll start making berries…and babies…of their own. Circle of Life.

If you’re local to the Cottage by the Mountains, (northern Utah) the Damsel is putting her raspberry babies up for adoption. It’s the right thing to do. Email her at mhovley at gmail dot com if you’re interested.

And she especially loves new potatoes, which means freshly dug and not monstrous. She feels it a tragedy of modern life that many people don’t know about the wonderfulness that is a new potato. She’d like to invite these people over for a taste. One at a time.

Potatoes are easy-peasy to plant. Experts say it’s best to buy seed potatoes meant for your area, but just know that many a potato plant has been grown from a regular old potato taken from the eating-stash.

First cut the seed potatoes into pieces. See the little dimple in the middle? That’s an “eye,” and that’s what the roots will grow from. It’s best if you can plan the cuts so each piece has three or so of these “eyes.” Even one is okay, but three is better.

Put some anti-fungal garden dust in a container such as a paper bag, and add the cut potatoes. Coat with the dust. (Shake the bag) You could skip this step, but your potatoes might not grow as well, and that’s too sad to think about.

The Damsel’s father once grew potatoes on a large scale so he was the font of wisdom for her. He told the Damsel many interesting tidbits, including the fact that poor folks used to plant potato peelings because they needed their potatoes for eating. And they’d actually sorta grow. He also used to mix the anti-fungal with talcum to make it go farther. It sealed the “wound” of the cut potato and stopped fungus from growing thereon.

Make a trench about six inches deep, but don’t fuss. Plant potatoes about a foot apart.

Note: The Damsel’s family is owned by a dog-shaped horse whose job is “fertilizing” the back yard, which he does with great thoroughness. One year, the potato trenches were lined with “fertilizer” as an experiment. The potatoes grew in lush abundance.

Cover the taters with a nice dirt blanky…

…and then tamp the soil down. Get the neighbor kids involved whenever possible. The Damsel has found that when she provides the damp earth, little boys are happy to provide the bare feet. Water well if needed.

Now then. After the potatoes sprout, there’s more to do. It’s best to add more dirt as they grow, etc. etc.. But for now, we’re just planting and calling it good. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

What little she knows, she is happy to share with you.

Raspberries grow on long, willowy, prickly wands (properly called canes). They grow straight up from the ground without branching. They produce fruit on last year’s canes. That is, one year a cane will grow, get all long and stuff, nice and leafy, but no raspberries in sight. The next year raspberries will form on these one-year-old canes, while at the same time new canes (for next year) are also growing up, all mixed in together.

Then, once the canes produce fruit, they die. That’s all they live for. Once they’ve made their beautiful little fruit, they lose their will to survive and it’s all over. These canes can then be pruned out.

The Damsel likes to do this the following spring, early before the new canes start growing. The reason she likes to do it then is:

1. There’s less stuff to contend with–the weeds haven’t started growing yet, nor the new canes. All she has is the canes that will fruit this year and the old dead ones from last year.

2. It’s a little easier to tell everything apart. The two kinds of canes each have their own look. The Damsel will attempt to show you what she means by this.

Let’s be honest. Last year’s canes have a sad, dead look. There’s this whitish, papery layer on the wood, and the canes are brittle. Sometimes they’ll break right off in your hands before you even have a chance to cut them out. Many will have already broken off, pushed down by snow or large dog-shaped horses.

The live canes will have little buds of growth, a lighter color, more flexible, and if you cut them they will have a live, greenish layer in their wood. They will also strive with all their might to snag your ponytail and scratch your arms and poke you in the eye.

Snip the dead ones as close to the ground as you can reasonably manage, and attempt to remove the cut cane from the rest. Not as easy as it sounds, because it likes to tangle itself with its brother canes and stab humans. That’s what kind of creature we’re dealing with.

Here’s an area of the Damsel’s raspberry patch that has been pruned. Notice the live canes reaching out toward her in a menacing way. And the bonus PVC pipe sticking up in the middle. Don’t trim or cut the live canes at all. Berries form all the way out to their ends, so trimming them back means less Berries 4 U.

It’s hard to believe, but soon, these claw-looking thorn-infested canes will be covered with lush green leaves and delicious red berries. (And they will still be prickly and pokey as ever.)

Love hurts.

Ever notice how tomato seeds have a jelly-like substance on them? Sort of goobery? There’s actually a reason for it. That gelatiny goober keeps the tomato seeds from sprouting inside the tomato. Intelligent design!

So in order to save seeds for planting next year, you need to separate them from the goober, and there’s a particular way to do it.

Find a tomato that is your perfect ideal…one that represents all you desire in the tomatoes of your future, and cut it open.

Scoop out the seeds, goober and all.

Put them in a glass jar or dish. A canning jar or old pickle jar would work. Add some water, maybe a cup or so.

Cover it with a paper towel or cheesecloth if you want, and the Damsel says you do want. Because you don’t like fruit flies, and besides, this stuff is going to start stinking. Oh yes. Because you now have to put this aside and let it FERMENT. Fermentation separates the seeds from the goober. It’s going to take 2 to 4 days, so find an out of the way, warmish spot to let this sit…somewhere not right under your nose. Now you must wait. The Damsel hates waiting, has she mentioned?

A layer of mold will form on the top, and the seeds will sink to the bottom. It seems strange to want to grow mold, but press forward. The Damsel has seen pictures of healthy crops of mold with the tomato seed thing, and feels a little disappointed that her jar yielded only a small amount. But it did the job.

If you end up with a big furry thingy of mold on top, lift that off with a fork and get rid of it. Ew! If there’s just a little, don’t bother. Put some more water in the jar and shake to loosen the seeds from any remaining bits of pulp.

Pour off the liquid, and rinse with more water a couple more times. You can use a small mesh strainer if you like. The Damsel didn’t bother because her strainer was busy, and everything seemed to work out okay.

Spread the seeds out on a plate. A paper plate is good. Don’t use a paper towel, though, because the seeds will stick to it and you won’t like it. Nudge the little seeds apart from each other as best you can, and set the plate somewhere warm and dry. Shake the plate at least once a day to make sure nothing is sticking to anything else. This could take a while. Several days. But don’t try to hurry things along with heat, or you might kill the seeds. Just let it be. You’re not in a hurry, anyway, right? It will be 6 months or so before you’ll need these.

When they are completely dry you can put them in an envelope or whatever you like to keep them in until next spring. Your only remaining task is to make sure they don’t get damp, or all your hard mold-growing work will be in vain.

You peek. Pull the husks back gently and see if the kernels look plump. It won’t hurt the corn if you pull it back a ways, far enough that you aren’t just seeing those little tiny kernels around the top. If they still look small, just smooth the husks back into place. And, before you’ve picked much corn, you’ll get a feel for how the cob feels in your hand when it’s ready.

But keep in mind that people often wait too long, and fresh corn is best when it is young. Plump, yes, but not bulging. It’s better to err on the young side. The corn in the above picture might look good, but it’s actually a few days too old.

The Damsel likes to shuck corn right in the garden, in case there are bugs. Especially the dreaded earwig, which in the Damsel’s opinion could be erased from existence, and the food chain would survive just fine.

Getting the silk off the ears is a pesky problem. If you are careful, you can get nearly all the silk off when you are shucking the corn. Don’t pull off one husk at a time, like you were peeling something. Try to get all the way down to the corn with your fingers, and bring off sections of husk and silk all off at once. Very little silk will remain.

The Damsel has heard various silk-removing methods. There’s the dry paper towel method, in which you rub the cob in a circular motion with a paper towel. The Damsel tried this and thought “meh.” You can rub the cob with your hands under running water, which works about as well as anything. Brushing with a vegetable brush works well too.

You can buy a special corn silk brush but if there was ever a “unitasker,” that is one. A “unitasker” is a tool that does only one thing, and the Damsel doesn’t like them. Granted, a corn silk brush is not as bad as this unitasker:

This behemoth does one thing…make pancakes. And take up your entire kitchen. (As seen on www.unclutterer.com)

A soft vegetable brush will probably do just as well. The Damsel likes hers because it even has a peeler on the side, making it more of a “multitasker.”

The Damsel has heard of people meticulously going over their corn with an old toothbrush, getting out every last bit of silk. But for her, this would turn a fun food into a nightmare. She’s learned she has to pick her battles, and there’s a lot more oogie things on the earth than a little corn silk.

Like earwigs.

Besides the Damsel herself, that is.

It’s been soooo hot, which often means a short life span in the Plant Kingdom. Take for example, this marigold, that usually would be going strong for at least another month:

The blossoms are already drooping and drying. Time to gather seeds.

Marigolds are practically the easiest plant to gather seeds from. When the blossoms die, they become crispy. Pull the dried flower parts gently from the blossom end, and there’s the seeds.

Make sure they are dry. If not, they may not be mature, plus they can mold during storage for next year, and you don’t want that.

Same thing goes for the other plant the Damsel gathered seeds from today–cilantro.

The little round thingies are seeds (did you know the seeds of the cilantro plant are called coriander?) and in this picture you can kinda see some of them are dry, and some are green. You want the dry ones. Leave the green ones be. They’ll get there.

Rub them from the stems with your thumb. When they’re dry they come right off, ready to be stored or planted immediately. Because there can never be too much cilantro in the world.

You can store seeds in little jars, ziplock baggies, or even *cough* plastic poptop drink mix thingies. Keep them dry and cool and it’s a good idea to label and date them.

Got a favorite plant you like to collect seeds from? Speak right up. No need to raise your hand in Old School.

Then she found out this many apples is actually BAD for her tree. Too many babies make the momma tired, and could even make it so the momma won’t have any babies next year.

The Damsel feels the need to lie down for a while.

This tree needs to be thinned. The apples that are left will be larger, and the tree will be happier.

In the northern temperate zone, July 1 is a good time to do the deed. The Damsel recommends you simply do it when the apples are small yet well formed, so you can choose which ones to leave. If your apples are the size shown in the pictures, “now” is a good time. The tree still has a lot of growth left in it for the year.

One rule of thumb is to space the apples about a fist’s width apart, although some say even that is too close. The apples are easy to pull off. Figure out which apple is the Chosen One from each little cluster, and gently pull the others off so as to not disturb the Chosen One.

Apple Babycide may be easy physically but the Damsel found it an emotional experience. She’s such a crier. But it really was hard for her to pull off all these perfect, hopeful little apples and throw them away.

Rubbed sage has a unique look. Sort of spongey. Not like dried leaves at all. So, the Damsel worried. How would she make stuffing with a bunch of big leaves? But, after several twinges of nervousness, the Damsel learned it’s quite easy to make your own from fresh sage.

The drying process is just like we did with lavender. Pick a nice bunch. This was about ten stems.

Wash and dry. No bugs allowed.

Secure the ends with a rubber band, and bend a paper clip into an “S” for a hook.

Hang upside down somewhere it won’t be disturbed. The Damsel used her powder room, because it has no windows and is usually dark. Plus the sage looks fancy hanging from the scrollwork of the mirror.

Wait till the leaves are crispy-dry. It took ten days for the Damsel. She hates waiting. She almost died from the waiting. She could have laid them in the sun and they’d have been dry in no time, and color fading doesn’t matter so much with sage. But sometimes she doesn’t act in a completely logical way.

Find a fine mesh strainer and put it over a bowl.

Pick the leaves from your bundle, putting them into the strainer. You won’t need the stems.

Press the crispy leaves through the strainer by rubbing them against the wire mesh. Discard any little sticks.

In the bowl you will find . . . rubbed sage. Spongey and everything. The Damsel was surprised. And excited. And amused, to tell you the truth. She had her doubts this would work. She thought there would be just dry, crumbled pieces of leaf. But it did work, simple as that. And the smell. Oh the heavenly smell. The Damsel went immediately out to her sage plant and picked more, so that in ten more days she will smell that heavenly smell once again.

And the powder room will be fancy again.