USA Landscape Materials

GARDEN PESTS

If we could garden without any interference from the pests which attack plants, then indeed gardening would be a simple matter. But all the time we must watch out for these little foes little in size, but tremendous in the havoc they make.

As human illness may often be prevented by healthful conditions, so pests may be kept away by strict garden cleanliness. Heaps of waste are lodging places for the breeding of insects. I do not think a compost pile will do the harm, but unkempt, uncared-for spots seem to invite trouble.

There are certain helps to keeping pests down. The constant stirring up of the soil by earthworms is an aid in keeping the soil open to air and water. Many of our common birds feed upon insects. The sparrows, robins, chickadees, meadow larks and orioles are all examples of birds who help in this way. Some insects feed on other and harmful insects. Some kinds of ladybugs do this good deed. The ichneumon-fly helps too. And toads are wonders in the number of insects they can consume at one meal. The toad deserves very kind treatment from all of us.

Each gardener should try to make her or his garden into a place attractive to birds and toads. A good birdhouse, grain sprinkled about in early spring, a water-place, are invitations for birds to stay a while in your garden. If you wish toads, fix things up for them too. During a hot summer day a toad likes to rest in the shade. By night he is ready to go forth to eat but not to kill, since toads prefer live food. How can one “fix up” for toads? Well, one thing to do is to prepare a retreat, quiet, dark and damp. A few stones of some size underneath the shade of a shrub with perhaps a carpeting of damp leaves, would appear very fine to a toad.

There are two general classes of insects known by the way they do their work. One kind gnaws at the plant really taking pieces of it into its system. This kind of insect has a mouth fitted to do this work. Grasshoppers and caterpillars are of this sort. The other kind sucks the juices from a plant. This, in some ways, is the worst sort. Plant lice belong here, as do mosquitoes, which prey on us. All the scale insects fasten themselves on plants, and suck out the life of the plants.

Now can we fight these chaps? The gnawing fellows may be caught with poison sprayed upon plants, which they take into their bodies with the plant. The Bordeaux mixture which is a poison sprayed upon plants for this purpose.

In the other case the only thing is to attack the insect direct. So certain insecticides, as they are called, are sprayed on the plant to fall upon the insect. They do a deadly work of attacking, in one way or another, the body of the insect.

Sometimes we are much troubled with underground insects at work. You have seen a garden covered with ant hills. Here is a remedy, but one of which you must be careful.

This question is constantly being asked, ‘How can I tell what insect is doing the destructive work?’ Well, you can tell partly by the work done, and partly by seeing the insect itself. This latter thing is not always so easy to accomplish. I had cutworms one season and never saw one. I saw only the work done. If stalks of tender plants are cut clean off be pretty sure the cutworm is abroad. What does he look like? Well, that is a hard question because his family is a large one. Should you see sometime a grayish striped caterpillar, you may know it is a cutworm. But because of its habit of resting in the ground during the day and working by night, it is difficult to catch sight of one. The cutworm is around early in the season ready to cut the flower stalks of the hyacinths. When the peas come on a bit later, he is ready for them. A very good way to block him off is to put paper collars, or tin ones, about the plants. These collars should be about an inch away from the plant.

Of course, plant lice are more common. Those we see are often green in colour. But they may be red, yellow or brown. Lice are easy enough to find since they are always clinging to their host. As sucking insects they have to cling close to a plant for food, and one is pretty sure to find them. But the biting insects do their work, and then go hide. That makes them much more difficult to deal with.

Rose slugs do great damage to the rose bushes. They eat out the body of the leaves, so that just the veining is left. They are soft-bodied, green above and yellow below.

A beetle, the striped beetle, attacks young melons and squash leaves. It eats the leaf by riddling out holes in it. This beetle, as its name implies, is striped. The back is black with yellow stripes running lengthwise.

Then there are the slugs, which are garden pests. The slug will devour almost any garden plant, whether it be a flower or a vegetable. They lay lots of eggs in old rubbish heaps. Do you see the good of cleaning up rubbish? The slugs do more harm in the garden than almost any other single insect pest. You can discover them in the following way. There is a trick for bringing them to the surface of the ground in the day time. You see they rest during the day below ground. So just water the soil in which the slugs are supposed to be. How are you to know where they are? They are quite likely to hide near the plants they are feeding on. So water the ground with some nice clean lime water. This will disturb them, and up they’ll poke to see what the matter is.

Beside these most common of pests, pests which attack many kinds of plants, there are special pests for special plants. Discouraging, is it not? Beans have pests of their own; so have potatoes and cabbages. In fact, the vegetable garden has many inhabitants. In the flower garden lice are very bothersome, the cutworm and the slug have a good time there, too, and ants often get very numerous as the season advances. But for real discouraging insect troubles the vegetable garden takes the prize. If we were going into fruit to any extent, perhaps the vegetable garden would have to resign in favour of the fruit garden.

A common pest in the vegetable garden is the tomato worm. This is a large yellowish or greenish striped worm. Its work is to eat into the young fruit.

A great, light green caterpillar is found on celery. This caterpillar may be told by the black bands, one on each ring or segment of its body.

The squash bug may be told by its brown body, which is long and slender, and by the disagreeable odour from it when killed. The potato bug is another fellow to look out for. It is a beetle with yellow and black stripes down its crusty back. The little green cabbage worm is a perfect nuisance. It is a small caterpillar and smaller than the tomato worm. These are perhaps the most common of garden pests by name.

FIGHTING PLANT ENEMIES

The devices and implements used for fighting plant enemies are of two sorts:

(1) those used to afford mechanical protection to the plants;

(2) those used to apply insecticides and fungicides.

Of the first the most useful is the covered frame. It consists usually of a wooden box, some eighteen inches to two feet square and about eight high, covered with glass, protecting cloth, mosquito netting or mosquito wire. The first two coverings have, of course, the additional advantage of retaining heat and protecting from cold, making it possible by their use to plant earlier than is otherwise safe. They are used extensively in getting an extra early and safe start with cucumbers, melons and the other vine vegetables.

Simpler devices for protecting newly-set plants, such as tomatoes or cabbage, from the cut-worm, are stiff, tin, cardboard or tar paper collars, which are made several inches high and large enough to be put around the stem and penetrate an inch or so into the soil.

For applying poison powders, the home gardener should supply himself with a powder gun. If one must be restricted to a single implement, however, it will be best to get one of the hand-power, compressed-air sprayers. These are used for  applying wet sprays, and should be supplied with one of the several forms of mist-making  nozzles, the non-cloggable automatic type being the best. For more extensive work a barrel pump, mounted on wheels, will be desirable, but one of the above will do a great deal of work in little time. Extension rods for use in spraying trees and vines may be obtained for either. For operations on a very small scale a good hand-syringe may be used, but as a general thing it will be best to invest a few dollars more and get a small tank sprayer, as this throws a continuous stream or spray and holds a much larger amount of the spraying solution. Whatever type is procured, get a brass machine it will out-wear three or four of those made of cheaper metal, which succumbs very quickly to the, corroding action of the strong poisons and chemicals used in them.

Of implements for harvesting, beside the spade, prong-hoe and spading- fork, very few are used in the small garden, as most of them need not only long rows to be economically used, but horse- power also. The onion harvester attachment for the double wheel hoe, may be used with advantage in loosening onions, beets, turnips, etc., from the soil or for cutting spinach. Running the hand- plow close on either side of carrots, parsnips and other deep-growing vegetables will aid materially in getting them out. For fruit picking, with tall trees, the wire-fingered fruit-picker, secured to the end of a long handle, will be of great assistance, but with the modern method of using low-headed trees it will not be needed.

Another class of garden implements are those used in pruning but where this is attended to properly from the start, a good sharp jack-knife and a pair of pruning shears will easily handle all the work of the kind necessary.

Still another sort of garden device is that used for supporting the plants; such as stakes, trellises, wires, etc. Altogether too little attention usually is given these, as with proper care in storing over winter they will not only last for years, but add greatly to the convenience of cultivation and to the neat appearance of the garden.

As a final word to the intending purchaser of garden tools, I would say: first thoroughly investigate the different sorts available, and when buying, do not forget that a good tool or a well-made machine will be giving you satisfactory use long, long after the price is forgotten, while a poor one is a constant source of discomfort. Get good tools, and  take  good care of them. And let me repeat that a few dollars a year, judiciously spent, for tools afterward well cared for, will soon give you a very complete set, and add to your garden profit and pleasure.

For people who would like to do more gardening but live in a short growing season area, a hobby greenhouse is the answer.  A hobby greenhouse is not large enough to produce vegetables or flowers on a commercial basis.  It will, however, give you a place for a tomato plant or two and some fresh greens even if you live in the northern regions.  Greenhouse enthusiasts even have their own association, called the Hobby Greenhouse Association, which publishes a quarterly magazine.  The organization also sponsers events and helps individuals connect to get help with the aspect of gardening that they are interested in, whether it’s growing cacti or saving seeds.

If you are in the market for a hobby greenhouse, there are several types on the market.  The smallest type is not large enough to walk into and must be accessed from the outside.  It resembles an old-fashioned phone booth made all of glass and outfitted with shelves.  This type is designed to fit as many plants as possible in as small a place as possible.  The shelves are made of glass to allow as much light as possible to reach plants on the lower shelves.  Another inexpensive version of this sort of hobby greenhouse is shelving covered with a zippered tent of clear plastic.  This sort of arrangement is great for the small-scale hobby gardener wanting a place to keep her flowers or houseplant starts.

There are a variety of designs of hobby greenhouse that are large enough to walk into but made entirely of clear glass or plastic.  They are often about the same size as a small storage building.  Some independent builders have started making these to sell locally.  Among national brands, one of the nicest is called the “Solar Prism.”  It is called this because of it’s unique construction.  This hobby greenhouse is made of a single piece of durable clear plastic which is designed to work like tiny prisms side by side.  They trap the rays of the sun and shoot them back into the greenhouse at all angles.  For this reason, these little  greenhouses are said to glow when the weather is cloudy.

Better hobby greenhouses are equipped with automatic sensors that open vents which allow ventilation and keep the interior temperatures from getting too high.  These are a great labor saver, but can get expensive.  Another benefit sometimes found in nicer greenhouses is a built in irrigation or misting system.  Members of the Hobby Greenhouse Association, or HGA, have invented many interesting designs of greenhouses.

If gardening is your hobby, greenhouse growing will interest you.  With a greenhouse, you can have the earliest tomatoes and salad greens all year.  You can also start seedlings for the main garden early in the spring when outdoor temperatures would kill them.  A hobby greenhouse can be a good investment.

The skid loader is a rigid frame, engine powered
machine with lift arms that are used to attach a
wide variety of labor saving tools or attachments.
Skid loaders are normally four wheel drive with
left side drive wheels that are independent of
right side drive wheels.  With each side being
independent to the other, the wheel speed and
direction of rotation of the wheels will determine
which direction the loader turns.

Skid loaders are capable of turning in their own
tracks, which makes them very maneuverable and
valuable for jobs that require the use of compact,
agile loader.

Unlike conventional front loaders, the lift arms
lay beside the driver with the major pivot points
located behind the shoulders of the operator.  Due
to the operator being in close proximity to moving
booms and buckets, earlier models of skid loaders
weren’t as safe as conventional front loaders,
particularly during entering and exiting.

Skid loaders today have fully enclosed cabs and
other safety features that will protect the operator
from injury.  Just like other front loaders,
the skid steer can scrape material from one
location to another, carry material in a bucket,
or load material on a truck or a trailer.

Operation
A skid loader can sometimes take the place of a
large excavator by digging a hole out from the
inside.  The skid loader will first dig a ramp
that leads to the edge of the hole.  Then, the
loader will use the ramp to carry material out
of the hole.

The skid loader will then reshape the ramp by
making it steeper and longer as the excavation
gets deeper.  This method is very useful for
digging under an overhead structure where the
overhead clearance doesn’t allow for the boom of
a large excavator, such as those situations where
you are digging a basement under a house.

The bucket of most types of skid loaders can be
replaced with several specialized buckets or
attachments, many of which are powered by the
hydraulic system of the loader.

History
The first 3 wheeled front end loader was invented
by two brothers, Cyril and Louis Keller in their
machinist shop in Minnesota back in 1957.  The
Kellers built the loader to help a nearby farmer
clean turkey manure from his two story barn.  The
light and compact loader, with the rear caster
wheel, was able to turn around within the length
of itself, while performing the very same tasks as
conventional front end loaders.

Down the road, the Melroe manufacturing company
in Gwinner ND, purchased the rights to the Keller
loader in 1958 and hired the brothers to continue
their loader invention.  Resulting from the
partnership, the M-200 self propelled loader was
introduced at the end of 1958.

The loader featured two independent front drive
wheels and a rear caster wheel, a 12.9 engine and
a 750 lb lift capacity.  Two years later, they
ended up replacing the caster wheel with a rear
axle and introduced the M-400 loader, which was
the first four wheel skid steer loader in the
world.

In 1962, the Bobcat name was added to describe
the key features of the machine - touch, agile, and
quick.  The M-440 was powered by a 15.5 HP engine
and offered a 1100 lb rated operating capacity.
In the mid 1960s, the skid steer loader progressed
with the introduction of the M600 loader.

Years later, the Bobcat skid steer loader experienced
quite a few changes, including the development of
a hydrostatic drive system, enforced cab structures,
radius and vertical lift arm configurations,
deluxe instrumentation, and even heating and air
conditioning.

In addition to the rubber tire skid loaders of today,
there are now all-wheel steer loaders and even
compact track loaders. Compact track loads offer
less ground disturbance and feature better traction
and control in soft, muddy, wet, and even sandy
ground conditions.

Digging trenches is one of the oldest types of work
with both construction and excavating.  Prior to World
War 2, trenches were dug by hand.  As workers dug the
trenches deeper, the sides needed to be shored or
supported, to keep the walls of the trench from caving
in.

Following the World War, several innovations were made
in backhoes, and trench digging seemed to fade away
as a profession.  By 1950, hydraulically actuated
backhoes were developed, which make it possible to
rapidly dig very deep trenches.  Resulting from the
innovations with backhoes, and because there were no
workers inside digging the trenches, the walls no
longer needed to be shored.

All types of trenches have what’s known as a stand up
time.  This time is the amount of time that elapses
from the time the ditch is dug until the time the
trench walls start to collapse.  The stand up time
is dependant on many factors, which include the type
of soil, water content, trench depth, weather
conditions, and whether or not the soil has been
disturbed.

The stand up time can be as short as zero seconds
or as long as several months, as they are very
difficult to predict.  Before the trench can be dug,
someone must take soil samples as way of estimating
the stand up time.  Keep in mind that the soil
conditions can be dramatically different only a
few feet from where the sample of the soil was taken.

After the trench has been dug, workers will go down
into the trench, and perform whatever work is
needed, such as laying pipe or installing telephone
lines, welding pipe, or installing valves.  If the
trench walls aren’t supported, there is the possibility
of the walls collapsing and trapping the workers in
the trench.  Throughout history, there have been
100 - 300 people killed in the U.S. each year
due to trenches collapsing.

The public has become very aware that industrial
progress will often have negative side effects as
well.  The place of engineers protecting the
public from these types of side effects is a very
controversial issue.  The use of trench boxes on
the site, will help to ease this debate.

The trench box, also called a trench shield, may
be placed in the trench to prevent failures from
injuring workers. The trench box consists of two
large plates, normally made from steel, which are
parallel to the walls of the trench, and horizontal
cross members which will hold the two plates
apart.

The lower edge of the trench box rests at the
bottom of the trench, with the top edge of the
box extending above the top of the trench.  The
workers will stay between the plates of the trench
box, so that if the trench does collapse, the dirt
will be stopped by the outside of the trench box.
As the work progresses, the trench box is pulled
along in the trench with a backhoe or other machine.

When a project calls for a large excavation such
as digging the foundation for a tall building, the
supporting structure for the excavated walls will
be specified in the plans.  The big problem with
not using trench boxes occurs in cities, when
water or sewer lines are being installed or
repaired.  The engineer doesn’t specify for the
trench box in the plans, but instead leaves it
up to the contractor.

Anytime you are going to be digging trenches or
working in them, you should always use common sense
and take your time.  Trenches can be very deadly,
especially if trench boxes aren’t used.  To be on
the safe side, you should always use a trench box
if you need to be in the trench.  If you don’t
need to be in the trench - do the smart thing
and let the machines do all of the work.