Come closer, dear students, and the Damsel will tell you.

The Damsel lets her chickens run loose in her large fenced yard, eating mosquitoes and possibly earwigs. For this hope alone, it’s worth the risk they pose to the garden plants. They do like to peck and tear at the tender leaves. But although most of the plants have managed to grow faster than the chickens can peck them down, there is one sad row in the Damsel’s garden.

Behold the chicken devastation.

This was once a happy little row of beets. The Damsel had hoped for a few meals of beet greens as the plants were thinned, and then the rest would be ultimately pickled as shown in this post: Pickled Beets. But the greens have been pretty thoroughly whittled…maybe they’ll recover a bit, but hopes of beet greens are sinking low. Who knows if there is enough left of the tops to support growth of the beetroots?

Yes, the plants could have been covered with netting and thus saved from being pecked to within an inch of their little lives. But with the other, earlier-planted veggies, the chickens pecked at them rather half-heartedly, lulling us to believe they weren’t going to do any serious damage. Then the beets were planted. Before we knew it, the Beetgreen Devouring Festival had begun and it was all everlastingly too late.

Thank goodness the chickens didn’t kill the tomato plants. If that had happened, the Damsel just isn’t sure what measures she’d be required to take. She hopes she will never be asked to choose between tomatoes and eggs. Some choices are just too awful to contemplate.

Sets are baby onion plants you buy at the nursery. It only takes a few minutes to plant a bunch of these, if your garden is ready. The Damsel planted both yellow and red varieties on this bright spring morning.

For root crops like onions, it’s best if the earth is well-tilled and relatively stone free. Now that you mention it, that’s the case for pretty much any crop, not just root crops. But while onions will grow around a stone, it can make them misshapen. And who wants an ugly onion? Hmmm?

Poke a little hole in that perfect garden soil.

Stick in one of the baby onion plants and firm the soil around. It’s ok to plant them sort of close, if you have plenty. Once they get growing, you can thin them and eat the thinnings for green onions.

That’s it.

Now dream of the salsa that is to come.

1. eggshells are free.

2. planting in eggshells adds good nutrients to the soil, strengthening the little plant.

Starting seeds in eggshells now, for later planting in the garden, is so easy a child can do it. As a matter of fact, this makes a good kid project. And isn’t that why we have kids? To create our own private workforce?

Pardon while the Damsel attempts to stop laughing hysterically.

Begin by cutting off the top of the eggshell, fairly close to the top. The Damsel used a sharp, slightly serrated knife, and got it started by gently whacking the knife into the eggshell. Then she carefully cut with a sawing motion until the top was cut off. Your mileage may vary.

Pour the egg into something to reserve for another use. You can wash out the eggshell now if you like, but it’s not necessary. The Damsel just HAD to because of the goober factor.

Poke a few drainage holes in the bottom with a straight pin or some such.

Fill the egg with potting soil and add water until the soil is nice and damp. Plant one or two seeds, your choice, according to the depth the seed packet specifies. (After the sprouts come up, choose the strongest to be the Chosen One. Ruthlessly pull the other one out.)

Set the egg in a nice warm spot, using an egg carton or a ring of paper for it to sit in for stabilization.

Now here’s the cool part…when the sprout is big enough to plant outside (and the weather is right) you can plant it as is, egg and all, into the garden. Some folks say to crush the eggshell a little in your hands right before you plant it, to make sure the roots can make their way out. The eggshell will add nutrients to the soil and your little seedling will be off to a great start.

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.