Abundant Appreciation for Autumn Alyssum

The weather has turned into a yo-yo, dropping into 20's and decimating the garden with frost before bouncing back up into the 70's for several days of gorgeously warm weather.  So what's a pollinator to do with most of the garden blooms gone?  The last remaining flowers are getting swarmed with bees: the Sheffield Mums, the handful of Autumn Crocus, the last of the blooming Asters, and a couple annuals that can tolerate a light frost - including the impressively hardy Sweet Alyssum.

I have talked before about how useful Alyssum is in the garden - it's drought tolerant, easy to grow, makes a great border in the garden, has a great fragrance, and attracts beneficial insects.  But it's also a great boon to a fall garden.  Sometimes it can flag a bit during the height of summer, especially further south, but by fall it rejuvenates.  And, to the appreciation of the local pollinators, established Sweet Alyssum plants can take light frosts.

Alyssum is part of the botanical family Brassicaceae, aka the cabbage and mustard family, interestingly enough.  It is native to the Mediterranean region, Canary Islands, Azores, and the Bay of Biscay in France, among other coastal regions, which is how it ended up with the botanical name Lobularia maritima, with 'maritima' meaning 'of the sea'.  It grows naturally on sandy dunes, which explains why it is so fabulously drought tolerant.

Of course, the ability to be drought tolerant and reseed itself around can be both a blessing and a bother.  As great as it is in my garden, beware that in dryer, sandier areas it can be a little too giving, and in California it has managed to land itself on the invasive list.

Sweet Alyssum thriving in my hellstrip

Would you be surprised to find out that Sweet Alyssum can actually be a short-lived perennial?  In warm climates, it will live more than a year.  It has no chance of living through our type of winter, but for now all the little blooms are a welcome addition to the fall garden...

and much appreciated by a lot of little guys.

The Dark Side of Gardening

I felt something.  A terrible suspicion entered my mind, so I went upstairs, took off my shirt, and looked in the mirror.  Sure enough, there it was, crawling across my stomach.  Trying not to scream and alarm the children, I grabbed it and ran half-naked through the house to the bathroom.  (Sorry to any neighbors who might have been glancing at our windows at the time.)  I threw it down the sink and poured water down the drain for about 10 minutes, as there was no way I wanted that sucker to come back up.

There it is, folks, the dark side of gardening or being outside in general, especially if you live in my neck of the woods.  It is a very tiny but extremely scary foe:

TICKS.

If you thought I was going to stop and take a picture of the tick on me, you thought wrong.
Here is a pic from Wikipedia.

The next day I went out to the garden again.  This time I was prepared, having sprayed myself liberally with Eau de Deet.  I was working in my vegetable garden picking bok choy when I happened to look down and spotted movement.  There was another one, its little red and black body standing out in stark contrast as it crawled along my cream-colored shirt.

Yes, I look this good while screaming.

Apparently it did not get the memo that it was supposed to keep away from anything with Deet.  A pesticide developed for use by the Army for jungle warfare after World War II, one that I try to avoid putting on my own children, is apparently just not good enough for my backyard ticks.  Either that or I have extra dumb ones.

And yes, now I have become rather scared of my own backyard.

The scariness of ticks is not the actual tick or even the way the little insect turns vampire and sucks blood into its increasingly bloated body (ew).  It's more because of all the diseases it could be carrying.   In the Northeast, sources say 50% or even up to 75% of the adult deer tick females (the only deer ticks that suck blood) could carry Lyme disease.  Almost everyone you meet up here has some horror story of someone they know with Lymes that has had serious health complications - even including death.

"Lyme Disease Risk Map" by The Center for Disease Control and Prevention 

That's scary stuff.

And that's not even counting the other tick-borne diseases that are also rearing their ugly heads up here: Rocky Mountain Fever, Powassan Virus, Borrelia miyamotoi disease, babesiosis, and several other unpronounceable ones.

So, what's a girl to do?  I garden extensively, and my exercise of choice is hiking through the woods.  I don't want to give up my favorite activities.  (That would be letting the tiny terrorists win!) So far my plan of action has involved more Deet, tucking my pants into my socks within my gardening boots (better look like a dork than the other option, right?), and spend a good amount of time stripping in front of a mirror each time after I go outside.  So far, so good (knocking on lots of wood).

photo source

So now you know what I am afraid of this Halloween.  (I can't even imagine what would happen if some kid wore a giant tick costume and came trick-or-treating to my door.)  As always, happy gardening after reading this post - and good luck out there.

Jump School

All right, birds, listen up!  We are here to learn about seed extraction techniques for the Large Annual Sunflower.  

This is a little tricky, but I promise you, it is well worth it.

There are two main techniques for this here Sunflower.  First up is the Pivot Technique:

Step to the edge of your Sunflower.

Grasp the flower firmly with your talons and then pivot, upside down. 

Clamp down on the seed aaandd pull!

See, nothing to it!  Now you try.

Come on, don't be shy!

Pivot, pivot... 

No, no, don't lose your footing!

Okay, we might need more work on that one.

Alrighty, on to the second Technique!

This Jump and Grab approach for seed extraction is quite simple:

Jump up, using your wings to give lift, and grab the seed.

Then land on the Sunflower head or drop lightly back to the ground.

See?  Quite simple!

Now you do it.

Yes, good jumping.

Get that seed...

Now either grab on or drop...

No, no, no, what are you doing?!

Oh, dear.

This is going to be a long class, isn't it?

p.s. This week's guest blogger over at GardeningKnowHow.com is yours truly!  You can check out my post on my Hellstrip Garden on their site.   And as always, happy gardening!