The Tomato Hornworm is laid by the Hawk Moths I see fluttering around my tomatoes in late May.  It starts out the size of a grain of rice and matures over the span of a month into this leaf chomping monster.

Despite their 3-4 inch size the hornworm can be hard to spot with its green camouflage.  I scan my garden daily too keep their numbers at bay.

One hornworm can strip a tomato plant clean of its leaves in a few days.

I have a favorite stone step in the garden that has hosted the execution of many Tomato Hornworms.  The hornworm is no match for shoe and concrete.

I was tired of paying through the nose for fruit and veg at the grocery.  The higher and higher prices for inferior taste, toxic pesticides, and playing Russian Roulette with tainted produce is just ridiculous.

I wanted to break with the conventional wisdom on gardening and focus on low cost, convenience, and staying organic.  After lots of searching I found the revolutionary technique of hay bale gardening.

The hay bale gardening experiment began back in March.  I got some old dried out hay bales from a local farmer who was happy to be rid of them.

The next step was to find a good spot in the yard for my experiment.  The only real requirements are full sun and a ready water supply.  The roots of your plants stay within the bale, so you could put your hay bale garden on pavement or a deck.

Bales that have been outside for more than a year don’t need much prep work.  Just use a trowel to slice in to the bale and throw a little potting soil or peat moss in to give your seedling a nice inviting home.  You can sow your seed directly into the bale, but you’ll want to use more potting soil for that.

Green bales need to be seasoned before you can plant in them.  I bought two green bales a month ago, and here’s the seasoning process:

Days 1-3 – Water the bales twice daily to make sure they stay wet.

Days 4-6 – Sprinkle a half cup of ammonium nitrate on the top of each bale and water it in.

Days 7-9 – Cut the amount of ammonium nitrate back to a quarter cup a day.

Day 10 – Water in a cup of 10-10-10 fertilizer on each bale.

Day 11 – Start planting.

A green hay bale is an organic bomb waiting to go off.  Once it gets wet the microbes inside begin to digest the hay.  The by-product of this feeding frenzy is heat.  My bales went from ambient temperature to 150 degrees Fahrenheit before they cooled back down.  Barns have burst into flame due to leaky roofs and stacks of green hay overheating.  Imagine what 150 degrees would do to a seedling.  This is why seasoning is essential.

After planting your only task it to water diligently.  I rigged up a drip irrigation system on a timer to free myself from this chore.

I’ve been harvesting regularly for about three weeks now.  My only problem is I planted way too much.  I’m running out of friends and neighbors to share the bounty with.  I’m drying, vacuum packing, and pickling what I can’t give away.  My pantry should be stocked in no time.  I’d call the hay bale garden experiment a success.

I put more pictures of the hay bale garden results in this photo gallery .

Thankfully, June in Mississippi also means the blackberries are ripening.

There are few things in life as reliable as the arrival of the blackberries in the deep south every June.  You may not get your big haul in the same week of June every year, but there are berries to be had all month long.

Picking wild blackberries is not ordinary foraging and it isn’t for the weak.  Besides the steadily increasing temperatures and humidity, you also have to contend with the gnashing thorns, whining clouds of mosquitos, and an endless army of ticks marching up the inside of your pant legs.

The only real defense you have against the elements is a thick pair of jeans and bug spray with a ridiculously high percentage of Deet.  I used a spray with a 40% concentration of Deet for my last foray and my skin is still red wherever the noxious liquid made contact.

Why do I do this?  For those sweet sweet berries of course.  Wild blackberries are a gift from nature.  They have the same subtle nuance of taste you would find in a fine winemaker’s grape, their bounty encourages the reckless abandon of overindulgence, and they’re fleeting.  Blackberries just don’t keep.  They barely last a day once you pick them, and once June is gone so are they…till next year anyway.

Wild blackberries tend to move around alot too.  A spot that was productive one season might be baron the next.  While their requirements for good irrigation and sunlight stay the same, the big clumps of berries seem to migrate or drift from one year to the next.

I’ve found a premium spot this season though.  The road that leads to the Trail of Big Trees in the Noxubee Wildlife Refuge is lined with hedge after hedge of huge plump blackberries.  I filled my first container in 20 minutes.  There are lots of red ones left too, so the berry picking should still be good into next week.  The shear number of fruit in one place could make this my biggest blackberry season ever.

I posted this picture last week of nature taking over an empty farm homestead; a situation repeated on many old farms in the rural deep south.  Well, here is a picture of the same farm house a year later.

It looks like the vines have opened the screen door and are making their way inside.

This is a recurring theme in the deep south of the United States.

As children move to larger towns and cities the old homestead is left behind to fight a losing battle against mother nature and time.

It’s probably been 30 years since the family gathered on this front porch to watch the summer sun go down.  Someone used to sweep that stoop religiously.  Somebody once sweated buckets giving this house a fresh coat of paint.  Those days are over.