Karen, if you dig the pellets in a little bit around the plants they won't form that 'scum' before they start to sink into the soil. I made some alfalfa 'soup' a couple of times, and poured the stuff around my plants, which then formed that layer.
Yes, it takes some fortitude, and getting used to the 'living in a zoo' down here. You absolutely must be able to tolerate every kind of bug, fungus, plant disease and animal that comes along. If you don't, as you say folks don't last long with a garden here. My dh is not a gardener, so was not quite as quick to adapt, but now the snakes are the only thing that really bothers him. Even so, he helped me untangle a black snake from some bird netting I had wrapped around an orchid. The snake got its head and part of its body through the netting, and got stuck. It was making off with my orchid attached to it. So he had to hold on to the orchid with the snake attached while I cut a big enough hole for the snake to escape.
All that bragging aside, we have not encountered any venomous snakes here yet. I know they are around and how to ID them, but they are very shy, so no worries. The black snakes are 3ft. long, very fast and impressive looking but harmless and keep the rodent population in check. You see, if you killed the snake, and the cat you'd have more mice and rats to deal with. It's all nature's balance. You just have less nature to balance up there. But you have to put up with months of winter . . . I'll take wildlife over winter any day!
