A Green Thumb's Guide to Surviving Football Season and Garden Pests

Are you ready for the roller-coaster ride of emotions that come with being a die-hard Jets fan? I've experienced it all; from the sky-high thrill of trading for Aaron Rodgers to the crushing disappointment of his unforeseen injury. This journey hasn't been easy, but it's provided some unforgettable moments, ones I look forward to sharing with you. Amidst the tumult, I've found solace in an unexpected hobby — gardening. From battling foxes to nurturing sunflowers, my green-thumb exploits have become a source of joy, and I hope, an inspiration for you.

Now, imagine that you've just planted your first vegetable garden. You've got corn, squash, tomatoes and so much more growing out there. Then, you face the inevitable - pests. I've been there, trust me. From birds to foxes to squash bugs, I've encountered them all and managed to ward them off using natural methods. I've got stories to tell, tips to share, and I'm eager to hear your own gardening experiences and learn from them too. So, join me as we navigate the highs and lows of fandom and the rewarding journey of gardening.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

What's up? Welcome back to the Come On you Know podcast. So I almost forgot how to do this. It's been so long. I know. I know that's my fault. Well, it is my fault and because I have been going through some issues, I'm going to call it a jet depression. So I am a die hard jet fan and I am dying hard. It's been a couple of things going on past couple of weeks. I know you probably don't care because you're probably not a jet's fan, but I am and this is my show, so I'm going to spit it out. So I'll start on quarterback Aaron Rodgers. We traded for Aaron Rodgers, got him so happy. Green Bay Packers was actually my number two team. Little half halfway disclosure I am a one share owner of the Green Bay Packers. Anyway, that's my number two team, so happy.

Speaker 1: 1:12

Aaron Rodgers came to the squad to the mean green, gang green, and what like 70 seconds into his first game he popped his Achilles. That's a tough injury to get over. So you definitely you know he's out for the season. He's rehabbing, all of that. But I think I was watching that game.

Speaker 1: 1:39

When I saw it I probably had the same reaction as every jet fan on the planet. It's like first of all, aaron, get up, stop playing. Is it like this? Far too far from April, april Fool's Day, pardon me, get up, don't play. Don't play with my emotions like that. Man, I'm going through enough in life, get up. So it gets up, goes back down. It's like why are you going back down? Man Like, this joke has has gone far enough. And that was it. Dude, stayed down, stay. He was out of the game not too far into his backup, which was Alston last year. I'm not going to say his name, we all know it was Zach Wilson. It's like dude, are you serious?

Speaker 1: 2:29

So anyway, I've been watching Jets news every day to see what we're doing to mitigate this. We had a couple of games we lost, of course, because we went back to our backup Talking a lot of football and no, you don't care. That is why I got straight up and down. That has been my life for the last couple of weeks and I'm tethered to the Jets. Die hard, jets fan, I'm dying hard. So, anyway, there's some light at the end of the tunnel.

Speaker 1: 3:03

Just to give you all a update, if you care or not, but Aaron Rodgers is, he's older, he's an older quarterback, so this injury is very significant. All bet is significant to anyone but him. Rehabbing at this age is a gamble. Not the rehab he's going to have to do that anyway as a human being. But rehabbing and then coming back to a high impact game professional sports it's going to be pretty tough at this age, I don't know. So you know all you die hard team sports fans. I know you know what I'm feeling.

Speaker 1: 3:51

Sometimes your team's up, sometimes it down, and you get into a mood. I've been trying to been looking at the news every day to see how it mitigates this and have to make certain moves. And we are the hot topic in the NFL right now, the Jets talking about this. That coach is going to lose the locker room because he's sticking with the backup quarterback. That isn't too good. This and that and I've been calling in to my favorite like Jets fan, youtube sports radio. In my opinions too, we just got to tough it out, but we tough it out all the time. We just there's no pot of gold in the rainbow for us. So anyway, I've talked about the Jets for four and a half minutes and that is. That's just what I meant.

Speaker 1: 4:51

So I don't have a specific topic or subject or this epi. I'm just kicking the tie myself, I'm just rushing dust off because I haven't done the show in a while. So I'm like, hey, I don't even know if I still know how to do this. I know how to talk. I've forgotten how to talk, but it's like the whole flow thing and at this point I was supposed to have folks dialing in. I'll get to that point. You'll be able to dial in and curse me out and give you opinion and all of that. So this episode, this show, I just wanted to go rando. Let's talk about Rand. I'm calling it rando Randall thoughts that I've had.

Speaker 1: 5:41

I wanted to talk about me getting into my hobbies. For those of you that don't know like I recently started Gardening. I actually did pretty well at it. I grew everything from what corn, squash, cornwall, melons, herbs of course that's easy peasy, squeezy sunflowers, potatoes, carrots, peppers, all of that stuff, and it was a gamble and that's actually what I wanted to talk about. See if you out there in the podcast audience world, if you have any trade secrets in here, you gardeners.

Speaker 1: 6:30

So I use raised beds. I monitored the soil pH. I monitored that pretty closely. I did a lot of research and it was fun. I yielded a significant amount produce, still learning all the terms and stuff. But I started in May, which was pretty late because I was still researching everything and I didn't realize that.

Speaker 1: 6:57

What is it? The first frost? I didn't know. My first frost date, oh, my last frost Pardon me, my last frost date. I didn't know all of that. So I was just like rando plant, dropping seeds boom boom, boom. Raised beds, building the raised beds, getting the raised bed soil, dropping the seeds, boom boom, boom, body being boom, boom. I didn't know anything about the three sisters. What is it Three sisters? They had beans corn and tomatoes and beans corn or something else. So when I figured that out I had to rearrange the seeds, but I had fun with it. That's just one of my newest hobby that I dove into. That was pretty cool, but anyway. So if there's any of you out there that have any tips, I grew corn. I know where I messed up with the corn. Although I did yield some decent corn, it wasn't a huge yield. I know I planted the corn too close together and I know better next time, but my tomatoes were plentiful.

Speaker 1: 8:13

Cucs that's my favorite thing to grow now cucumbers, because first of all, they were good when I grew them and it's like I just planted them and left them alone and they just grew. They grew peppers easy. What I loved about peppers and I mean like hot peppers, like I grew ghost peppers, tabasco, cayenne, barbenero, my pepper chainie didn't make it and what else. That's it. Those are the only peppers. One thing I like about peppers is that none of the animals mess with them, although I know like birds, like peppers are hot, mammals can't take peppers but birds can. But the birds didn't mess with my peppers. The birds did steal my blueberries though Blueberries gone. So I know that for next season, like don't like wrap them up or something.

Speaker 1: 9:11

All the bird thieves took my blueberries and a couple of squirrels took my sunflower seeds from my sunflowers and I literally and like these pests are very, very like they don't care, they're just straight up brazen about it. Like so I go outside and I just see like all these sunflower seeds on top of my fence. I'm like what's going on? Like how is that? And I see you on all this, like the squirrel is just eating them. He's like, yeah, I'll just took your seeds and I'm out. Like thanks, like are you serious? And snails. Snails ate almost strawberries.

Speaker 1: 9:50

I had issues with a fox or maybe a family of foxes, I don't know what you go foxes or fox-eye, I don't know what the plural is, a camp of foxes. But I go outside one day and I see a fox hopping over my gate to my fence. I'm like, get out of here, this is not your property. And then I turn and I see on my squash plant is a big steaming pile of fox fox, internal deficit defecate. I'm like, are you serious? So the dude comes to my squash, you know, pumps out a load, rolls out and was like yo, I'm out, I'll be back tonight, and this is like in a daytime and foxes are not eternal, but anyway. So I learned my lesson with that.

Speaker 1: 10:49

Ironically, after he did that, my squash plant thrived. I mean it, it it throwed straight up Like. But the only thing is, after that with the squash comes squash bugs. So anyway, all you gardeners out there, you know if it's something you do, something you've done well in the past or you are good at, let me know. I need some squash. I need some tips on. Yeah, I really need tips on squash.

Speaker 1: 11:23

Or bet, I did grow spaghetti squash. It wasn't pretty. It didn't end up being big. I grew a little cute size spaghetti squash, a couple of them. They were little mini sizes but I didn't like I kind of let those go. I didn't think they would make it. I thought the squash bugs would take those over but they didn't. Somehow the spaghetti squash made it. So that's interesting to me, like my spas Spaghetti. Spaghetti spaghetti squash made it, but my regular squash did not Like.

Speaker 1: 11:56

The squash bugs just wreaked havoc. It's like they were waiting. It's like, hey, we had nothing to do, you know, from December to May. And then once you planted those squash, that squash plant in May, it's like all bets were off. We're attacking Every day. I was plucking them off. I didn't want to use any pesticides part of me so I didn't. So I would just like manually take the squash bugs off, spraying with water, pick them up, like I was like straight up, like picking them off with my hands, and I mean it was fun because I was taking care of my plant and I didn't want to use any like pesticides. But that was my claim to fame, pride and joy. Like him and grow all his food not using the pesticides. And I didn't.

Speaker 1: 12:46

And one thing I did use which was very it was a very successful tactic or lady bugs. I would order lady bugs, live lady bugs maybe every two weeks or so and I was throwing my garden and they would. Just, they don't damage your plant, they will just eat like regular pests, regular bugs and stuff. But the only thing about the lady bugs is like and I I know to do better next season, but think about the lady bugs is that they fly away. So I mean they will be. You know, I would place them in my garden one day. Maybe three or four days later they're all gone. They just, like you know, give me free out what and I know it's like ladybug food that you could use. It's like man, I'm not smearing some more junk on my plant so they could stay. Like me, I kept my plants moist, so there's that anyway. So if there's any of you out there that give me some tips on growing squash, just let me know.

Speaker 1: 14:00

Tomatoes easy peasy. Cubes, easy peasy. I grew a lot of lettuce. Lettuce is like the easiest thing to grow. I ate my lettuce salads and stuff like that. I'd try to grow rice and I know you have to keep rice moist and I tried to be a jerk to that. I grew rice and I grew like cotton next to cotton next to the rice. So both I don't want to say both did not make it because it came.

Speaker 1: 14:32

It was a point in time where I was like, okay, I'm not tending to the rice anymore, so, and it was like a I'm in zone seven. So it was like a. It was a stretch where it was really really hot for like two weeks and I didn't have my automatic watering system supplying water to the rice and the cotton, so I had to manually do it. So it's like that's the hard part, and it's not hard to water stuff. But if you don't water it, you know early, early, you know it has a full day of 90 degree weather, something. You come home and you got to wait until it gets a little, you know, a little late in the evening the water is. It just became it grew, they grew, both grew, both grew, but they also they were burned. So I know I know what to do and I also know like I crammed.

Speaker 1: 15:28

Everything was an experiment. I had in my brain like, hey, some things won't grow, so I'll just put all these things together, like I put broccoli with my okra next to beans, and then the bleep, the beans just flourished. So I have no issues with beans. Like beans were like. The beans were like growing up the trellis themselves. I didn't even, like you know, I didn't have to put them on the trellis somehow, they just found they their way to the trellis and climbed up. And there were different type of beans to like lime is pole beans, some other beans and some other beans.

Speaker 1: 16:10

I grew a lot of basil. I tried to grow tea flowers but the only thing that made it was holy basil. So now I know like I tried to go chamomile. I tried to grow some other tea. What is it the? What is it? Borough, borough, grater, whatever. I forgot what it's called. Whatever you make Earl Grey with, I tried to grow that, but the, the holy basil, basically strangled everything and out everything. Good tea, a lot of medicinal, medicinal uses, usage, usage. I mean I don't know if it's you know, that's just what's out there. I don't know if it's like scientifically proven, but that grew like straight up.

Speaker 1: 17:01

Nothing else was in a little section over there cantaloupe, easy, um, cantaloupe grew. Watermelon not so easy, and that's that like. I found that to be odd. So if there's any gardeners out there, growers out there, then I know, have some tips about growing. Well, watermelon, like, let me know, because the watermelon I tried to grow watermelon in two spots and it just didn't work. But the cantaloupe was like boom and then like part of me and just had dinner. So, like cucumbers, are melons right and I don't know like cucumbers, they just grew so easily. So here's my thing cucumbers grew easily, canelo grew easily, watermelon not so easy. So give me some tips on what, watermelon, and give me tips on the grapes. Well, I don't need tips on grapes. I tried to grow grapes.

Speaker 1: 18:14

Japanese beetles destroyed my grapevine, destroyed it. They went to town. They were like hey, that's for the Thanksgiving meal, we're on it. Yum, yum, yum, chop, chop, chop, chop, brr, brr, brr, brr, brr. They just like straight up. They just took it, they took it. You know what? Broccoli, if anyone has any tips on growing broccoli, I could not grow the broccoli for some reason. So I need tips on broccoli, watermelon, squash and actually soybean.

Speaker 1: 18:56

I tried to grow soybean. I know that's a hard thing to grow. I researched it a little bit and it's moderately difficult and I can. I can attest to that it is so, but I still would like to grow it. So if there's any, if you give me any tips on soybean growth, let me know. Oh, and here's the thing too. So I tried a few things.

Speaker 1: 19:25

I try to grow a few things indoors and like replant them outdoors and what I'm like hydro, grow them or whatever you call it, like the little hydro joints you know you get in this water, you go via water and like I was successful with beans. But here's the thing is very hard. So I grew beans indoors with the hydro thing and like I don't like them and this is just my personal preference now Like I like them in the beginning because it's like, oh, things are growing, low maintenance, you just have to make sure it's water in there and then the fertilizer and things do grow. But they really outgrow the system really quickly. Even if it comes with the trellis, it's like you get more growth than the actual piece of equipment can like withstand. So the whole point of it is to grow, to start stuff, grow it and then transport it outside. And so when you transport it, you're transporting it into soil and you're going from water to soil. Like I'm growing the roots straight in water. Now I'm putting them in soil and I have to, like, monitor the water so they're not going to get as much water that they used to growing up in water. So it's like I don't like that and you're not like when I grew everything outside. You need that space If you think, if you want to get a lot of crops, want to get a lot of produce, and that's not going to happen indoors, like straight up, so like, and I bought a couple of them too, like I'm like, hey, I'm going to get a couple of these like indoor hydroponic system things and grow, grow, grow. I did it and I don't like it. So there's that. But so also grew flowers, roses. Roses turned out well, it really nice. Back to Troy King.

Speaker 1: 21:42

Why I said plant strawberries, my strawberries. Ongoing battle with the strawberries because I had them on the ground and then it was like snails. Just they just had a field day. It's like I was feeding the snails. Wake up, go outside and check and my strawberries would have like a perfect curved C shape in them and that's the snails. So my snails were killing them. So I raised them up and grew a couple, but like a whatever. The strawberry season was over At that point.

Speaker 1: 22:29

Tell you one thing I grew mustard greens, collard greens. My collard greens strangled the mustard greens. Collard greens came out great, though Cook them up. I have. I make the best collard greens this side of the Mississippi and I would challenge anyone. I grew them and I made them, yeah, so anyway. So use raised beds, any garden and tips are welcome.

Speaker 1: 23:01

I'm going to continue. I'm excited for next season. I know what to do better and I know what to change, and I know I said this episode was going to be rando, so I'm going to talk about different things. I just ended up talking about a garden in which I owe my garden and hobby an episode, because that's really why I wanted to start the podcast to talk about my hobbies and what I like to do, my perspective, and I didn't give any of my hobbies any love, but there's one and you know I'll continue to try to give you all my experiences with my hobbies and stuff that I like to do, and I know that's like who cares, but I care and I have some fun stories and funny stories.

Speaker 1: 23:57

It's like my all-out war with my garden pest and are you experienced and skilled gardeners out there? You've. You know what I'm talking about. You got to fight four-legged creatures and insects and feathered like creatures and stuff like that, and it's like dude, these things were punking me, taking my fruits and my veggies. But I like to think I won. I won that battle because I had a decent harvest and it came to a point with a foxes weren't coming to my house anymore, got an electronic device, kept them away.

Speaker 1: 24:36

The birds what did I do to stop the birds? Oh, you know what I did. I put plastic forks around certain plants to simulate or emulate rather a predator, like you know. So the birds land, they get politely, ouch, ouch, I get us right. So I set little like not traps, but little little things to kind of like the electronic device, things to kind of facilitate offensive tactic to keep these things away, the pest away, ladybugs, plastic forks, electronic pest deter. Those things did actually work.

Speaker 1: 25:26

So maybe I should be the one given advice. But no, so I don't know. Put it in the comments if you had any, if you are a gardener or what not, like you have a green thumb or not, if you have a piece of information that can help me, or if you want me to help you, well, I can't help you because I don't know. I wouldn't know you anyway. Have you had any memorable garden garden in the experiences? If you did something like, hey, I put apples, put apple slices in my pineapple soil to help it grow, or something like that, let me know because I will use your knowledge to my benefit. I would definitely do that. But I don't know if I could call this episode rando. I guess I could call it gardening and my jetsicles. But anyway, thanks for listening. And so I got.