Marigold Myths

[digitS']

I once told you that I had a cousin named Mary Gold. That's no myth ... I could even find her middle name. It wasn't botanical, as I recall .

We like to think that there is help out there, making a gardener's life easier. Of course there is. We cannot provide all that is needed for our garden plants.

There are even companion plants. Although I've read a researcher explain it that one companion benefits from the relationship and the other isn't greatly inconvenienced. That is probably true and the best we could hope for, anyway.

Somewhere on TEG I've linked information from Florida State University, I believe it was, about marigolds repelling root nematodes. Okay, great! I know the bees and butterflies enjoy them. Oh, but they do have problems with mildew and the aphids get on them every year, click bugs, too!

And, here's what happened to some seedlings the other day. I was wondering if it was an earwig, although there were other marigolds earlier with slug slime on them. I think I found that slug but when I set these plants in a basin to soak up water, a carpenter ant crawled to the top!

I hadn't expected that but slugs, snails, mildew, etc. ... I'll see if I can find a picture of Mary Gold ... pretty lady, nothing mythological about her that I know of.

Steve

 

[thistlebloom]

I have found that slugs love marigolds, which seems weird to me. It seems like there would be other plants more suited to a mollusc's
palate.
But deer, who don't like to eat them, do love to pull them out and throw them around. Must be an act of defiance, because they don't do that to very many other deer-resistant annuals. Or any that I can think of.

 

[digitS']

Here she is!

Steve

 

[digitS']

Thistle',

deer will pull green tomatoes off the vines, crush them, and ..

. drop those tomatoes on the ground .

Steve

 

[thistlebloom]

She is pretty. I like the setting too.

 

[thistlebloom]

Yes, I think deer are not the doe eyed innocents they pretend to be...
a cold heart beats within.

 

[baymule]

When deer aren't plotting on how to destroy your garden, they are holding contests. The losers are sent to the highways on suicide missions.

 

[thistlebloom]

The losers that hang out on the highways are sponsored by body shops.
That made more sense in my head than it does here....

 

[ninnymary]

Steve, is your cousin standing by that little cabin you built? She seems like a very nice pretty lady.

Mary

 

[digitS']

No Mary.

The picture was taken on the Fraser River in British Columbia. It was about 20 years before I built my cabin.

I did take inspiration from that log cabin in the picture . I visited there 5 years before I built my own.

Steve