Breeding ... frogs - for pest control (Interesting experience :)
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FROGS AGAINST GARDEN PESTS
When winter begins to recede and the snow almost completely disappears, there is no strength to sit in a city apartment! Therefore, we go to the site as soon as possible, despite the fact that it is not close, about sixty kilometers.
We usually close the greenhouse at the beginning of the second decade of February, this allows the high (35 cm) beds to warm up well, and soon I sow the seeds of cabbage, cauliflower and kohlrabi, as well as beets, radishes and dill. On the street, after hibernation, I free the garden bed with garlic and tulips from covering material - let them dry and warm up. I am also preparing a place for the main sacrament that takes place every spring - the birth of a new life. And I want to tell you about very important helpers in gardening, at least in my opinion, about frogs.
COUNTRY INCUBATOR OWN HANDS
Reading the magazine, I became convinced that throughout our vast mother Russia, gardeners suffer from slugs, snails, wood lice and other not very pretty animals, poison them with chemicals, at the same time treating the beds, which means the harvest and ultimately themselves. Someone is trying to get by with folk remedies, which also does not help much, they collect these slimy bastards by hand - an occupation, say, not a pleasant one, she did it herself. Who has chickens and ducks in the courtyard, they help, but there are few of them, and you have to take care of the birds, but here the helpers are gratuitous.
It’s not the first year, as soon as the temperature stops dropping below minus, I put a baby bath in a place protected from the cold wind, pour melt water and wait for the frogs to finally crawl out of their secret shelters and start spawning. About seven or ten years ago, I didn’t even dream of finding a frog or a toad in the garden - they didn’t exist at all, sometimes, very rarely, loners appeared, and they were silent, didn’t sing. Now you can see and hear.
There was a time, my husband and I went to the swamp for frog caviar 5 km from the dacha, now I go to the ravine and there I recruit newborn helpers from the puddles. I take a cut-off 5-liter bottle, scoop up water, fold the caviar, bring it and carefully pour the contents into the bath, after putting some rotten leaves on the bottom - that's it, my incubator is ready.
The sun quickly heats the water, and after a while the tadpoles appear. I always make sure there is enough water.
When it gets really warm, I top up my incubator to the brim, and put a thin and light piece of wood about 30 × 20 cm into the water. It performs several tasks at once: first, it creates a shady corner where the water is not so hot; the second is a shelter in the shade under the board from possible fans to feast on tadpoles. As they grow, the kids stick around the floating island from all sides, and I don’t know why, but they freeze for a long time, clinging to the edges of the piece of wood.
Well, the last. As soon as they have legs, they get out together and ride the board from above, wait until their tails fall off completely and their paws get stronger, and at one fine moment they jump off into the big world. I put them on a slope from the bath to the ground board or move close the leaves of the iris that has grown to that time (photo), which surrounds my incubator.
Willow branches, on the contrary, I clean away, otherwise the ascorbic acid contained in it will destroy the frogs.
As soon as the first amphibians left their home and dispersed around the garden, they immediately set to work, trying to grow up and get stronger: they greedily absorb everyone who crawls under their paws, at first only small, and then the main pests of the garden-garden. They - food, we - clean beds.
See also: Frogs in the garden - A HUGE benefit!
USEFUL FOR EVERYONE
The most interesting thing is that the incubator bath, filled with water, does not stand idle any longer: it is occupied by tiny, 3 cm long, tree frogs of different colors - from bright emerald to dark green and brown tones. These kids are unusually vociferous singers: as soon as the sun goes down over the horizon, they start their song. The male sits down on a wooden island and calls his girlfriend, and when the eggs are swept away, he guards the tadpoles, and does not go far from the bath.
So, from early spring to late autumn, two or three generations of frogs manage to hatch in my “reservoir”. It is also a source of water for birds, they calmly sit down on a floating island and drink. I saw a chipmunk doing this activity, which has been living in our country house for three years now.
Here is my simple, inexpensive and useful way to deal with pests. Try it and you, in any case, you will not harm either the garden or yourself, but the benefits are obvious.
© Author: Nina Valerievna GULIDOVA, Vladivostok
NOTE: INfusion WITH YOUR HANDS - WEEDS ARE GOING TO BE USED
I plant different vegetables every year, but most of all I like to care for tomatoes. A week after planting the seedlings in the ground, they need to be fed, and once it happened that I did not have manure. What to do? Then I remembered how my parents prepared an infusion from fermented grass. Chopped weeds - nettle, celandine, plantain, dandelion - were placed in a barrel and filled with warm water. When the liquid began to ferment, my mother added a glass of urea and left it to infuse for another week, stirring occasionally.
I did the same, only replaced the urea with superphosphate. I used a liter of infusion for a bucket of water. A week after feeding the tomatoes with this infusion, I water the plants with water. So that the soil does not dry out quickly, immediately after watering I add dry tea and coffee residues, which I collect during the winter. They serve as an additional top dressing for tomatoes and help retain moisture, so I spend less time and effort watering my pets.
Since then, I have not returned to the use of manure, because herbal infusion is cheaper and less labor-intensive to prepare. At the same time, there are many benefits: it helps plants develop faster, and also increases yield.
© Author: Anisya PROKINA. Saransk
Reference by topic: How to attract birds to the garden and how to scare them away ...
THE BENEFITS OF TOADS AND FROGS FOR THE GARDEN-GARDEN: VIDEO
Below other entries on the topic "Dacha and garden - with their own hands"
- Folk remedies for pests - proven methods from gardeners: collection 3
- Weed and pest control in the fall - so that they are not in the spring
- Potato diseases: description and treatment
- Cherry slimy sawfly - how to fight (folk remedies and pesticides)
- How to get rid of mistletoe weed (photo)
- Diseases and pests of seedlings: memo tables from a specialist
- A hunting belt from pests and a trichoderma mushroom from garden diseases
- Apple-tree commander scale - how to fight (+ PHOTO)
- Fight with late blight - experienced tips
- Diseases of garlic and how to treat it?
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