Good to know, David! Looks like you can buy castor oil at the drug store.

ssg- you mentioned an Ace Hardware soil product, for seedlings, that you like? They have something for vegetables, Gardeners Gold? It didn't come up on the website. The Edgewater Ace that Judy goes to has a great horticulturist. He did side by side trials of this mix with something else, and they took pictures showing marked difference. They seem to have a good quality in their gardening lines. They sell a lobster compost, too. In fact, I remember posting that there is a web cam on their composting facility.
http://coastofmaine.com/produc...
I cultivated around the asparagus and I want a little more cold and weather to try and get any beetle eggs that might be there. Then I think I'll top with some lobster compost. Ace sends 5$ off 35$ or whatever coupons now and then.

or maybe I will send Mark for some Veteran Compost
http://www.veterancompost.com/

Sally, the product I like is called Black Gold. I'm not sure if it's related to Gardener's Gold.

I've always wanted to try lobster compost. I wonder if the price is reasonable.

SSG, sorry the voles got all your ajuga. When I was out in the yard just now, I noticed that our patches have been spared. You are welcome to come dig replacements. No need to be without.

I've been busy clearing the leaves out of various beds, and it seems that something feasted on a favorite clump of ginger.

Pat!

I do have some surviving ajuga on another part of the garden so I'll be transplanting them as soon as I have better control over these voles. I'll post on the upcoming swap thread if I need more.

My ajuga has spread, SSG, if you'd like some for spring swap.

SSG Ric used Lobster Mulch. He should jump in and have something to say about it. @Eric4home

Sorry to hear about your ajuga SSG If it makes you feel any better, I found a dying shrew (I think) in my garden on Sunday. I put it out back where I put dead animals to mysteriously get taken away in the night. Not a vole but at least in the same family. We have mole traps around the house with bait in them. My thinking was that the little guy ate some and was in the process of having his light turned out if you know what I mean.

I caught my second rabbit last night and relo'd him/her to a nice spot by a creek several miles away. The trap is out again tonight. Fingers crossed. I wasn't going to put it back out after the first one until I saw fresh heavy damage to the tulip sprouts and crocuses. The soldier daffs are slackin' and the Milorganite isn't working at all. I noticed that my michella repens I bought last year as an experiment is completely gone. Disappointing but I can't say I didn't expect it to some degree.

I'd be so mad if they ate my crocuses, too!

Too bad about all the rabbits, Jeff. Well. At least they're cuter than shrews.

ssgardener said: I'd be so mad if they ate my crocuses, too!

Too bad about all the rabbits, Jeff. Well. At least they're cuter than shrews.

Sequoia - shrews may be related to mice, but they are not likely eating your plants. Shrews have very high metabolic rates, therefore voracious appetites, and eat as much as twice their body weight daily. Their high metabolic rate necessitates that their diet is nutrient rich, so they mostly eat insects, worms, small animals, etc. Nuts and seeds are the main plant components of their diet, not foliage. A shrew placed in a cage with several mice will be alone with a skeleton collection within a couple of days and quickly perish once the mice have been devoured. Shrews help control mice and voles rather than being a threat to your plants.

Edit: I went to verify what I had written above and found I misspoke; our local species of shrew can eat up to 3 times its weight daily, and voles are a preferential component of its diet. For more info see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Our yard is still sopping wet, but the good news is almost all the snow has now melted. There are only a few small patches left.
SSG, I have used the lobster mulch but had blight so bad I'm not sure how effective it was. I will be using it again this year in my container tomatoes.

Jeff, Milorganite doesn't seem to have the effect on rabbits that it does on deer.

GT; the shrews are more of collateral damage to control moles and voles. It may not actually have been a shrew as I find it hard to tell the difference but prior to posting that I did some research on the internet and it looked like a shrew.

Ric, the Milorganite used to work on my rabbits but not any more. Oh well, nothing works better than the trap and release program.

I have lots and lots of shrews here in my garden. As I like to mulch really heavily, they really love living here. Plus the mulch draws the earthworms and I have a heavy population of earthworms for the little shrews to eat. In spite of that they don't seems to overly damage the local earthworm population.

They really don't do any damage to anything.

Sometimes two of them will meet up and then they will fight, you can hear those high pitched trills that they make.

@Newyorkrita Can I have say a half dozen of your shrews They will
be well taken care of

Shannon said:@Newyorkrita Can I have say a half dozen of your shrews They will
be well taken care of

Build a big mulch pile in a corner of your property and make sure that it stays there and I bet they will come.

All I have are Voles... Shrew " FooD "

Oops! I've been so busy that it slipped my mind that all plant entries for the flower show in York were due today. It's probably not a bad thing since the weather wasn't warm at all today, and pick-up is Sunday. It would have taken at least a day to groom them and swap out some of the pots for the show, and then getting them registered and classified.

Okay let me try this again I missed the entry date for the York Flower show.