An Aside By Richard Rohr

 

Some simple but urgent guidance to get us through these next months.

I awoke on Saturday, September 19, with three sources in my mind for guidance: Etty Hillesum (1914 – 1943), the young Jewish woman who suffered much more injustice in the concentration camp than we are suffering now; Psalm 62, which must have been written in a time of a major oppression of the Jewish people; and the Irish Poet, W.B.Yeats (1965 – 1939), who wrote his “Second Coming” during the horrors of the World War I and the Spanish Flu pandemic. 

These three sources form the core of my invitation. Read each one slowly as your first practice. Let us begin with Etty:

There is a really deep well inside me. And in it dwells God. Sometimes I am there, too … And that is all we can manage these days and also all that really matters: that we safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves.

—Etty Hillesum, Westerbork transit camp

Note her second-person usage, talking to “You, God” quite directly and personally. There is a Presence with her, even as she is surrounded by so much suffering.

Then, the perennial classic wisdom of the Psalms:

In God alone is my soul at rest.
God is the source of my hope.
In God I find shelter, my rock, and my safety.
Men are but a puff of wind,
Men who think themselves important are a delusion.
Put them on a scale,
They are gone in a puff of wind.

—Psalm 62:5–9

What could it mean to find rest like this in a world such as ours? Every day more and more people are facing the catastrophe of extreme weather. The neurotic news cycle is increasingly driven by a single narcissistic leader whose words and deeds incite hatred, sow discord, and amplify the daily chaos. The pandemic that seems to be returning in waves continues to wreak suffering and disorder with no end in sight, and there is no guarantee of the future in an economy designed to protect the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor and those subsisting at the margins of society. 

It’s no wonder the mental and emotional health among a large portion of the American population is in tangible decline! We have wholesale abandoned any sense of truth, objectivity, science or religion in civil conversation; we now recognize we are living with the catastrophic results of several centuries of what philosophers call nihilism or post-modernism (nothing means anything, there are no universal patterns).

We are without doubt in an apocalyptic time (the Latin word apocalypsis refers to an urgent unveiling of an ultimate state of affairs). Yeats’ oft-quoted poem “The Second Coming” then feels like a direct prophecy. See if you do not agree:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Somehow our occupation and vocation as believers in this sad time must be to first restore the Divine Center by holding it and fully occupying it ourselves. If contemplation means anything, it means that we can “safeguard that little piece of You, God,” as Etty Hillesum describes it. What other power do we have now? All else is tearing us apart, inside and out, no matter who wins the election or who is on the Supreme Court. We cannot abide in such a place for any length of time or it will become our prison.

God cannot abide with us in a place of fear.
God cannot abide with us in a place of ill will or hatred.
God cannot abide with us inside a nonstop volley of claim and counterclaim.
God cannot abide with us in an endless flow of online punditry and analysis.
God cannot speak inside of so much angry noise and conscious deceit.
God cannot be found when all sides are so far from “the Falconer.”
God cannot be born except in a womb of Love.
So offer God that womb.

Stand as a sentry at the door of your senses for these coming months, so “the blood-dimmed tide” cannot make its way into your soul.

If you allow it for too long, it will become who you are, and you will no longer have natural access to the “really deep well” that Etty Hillesum returned to so often and that held so much vitality and freedom for her.

If you will allow, I recommend for your spiritual practice for the next four months that you impose a moratorium on exactly how much news you are subject to—hopefully not more than an hour a day of television, social media, internet news, magazine and newspaper commentary, and/or political discussions. It will only tear you apart and pull you into the dualistic world of opinion and counter-opinion, not Divine Truth, which is always found in a bigger place.

Instead, I suggest that you use this time for some form of public service, volunteerism, mystical reading from the masters, prayer—or, preferably, all of the above.

        You have much to gain now and nothing to lose. Nothing at all. 
        And the world—with you as a stable center—has nothing to lose.
        And everything to gain. 

Richard Rohr, September 19, 2020

 

 

 

Slugs and snails: how we love them and how they love our lettuce!

 

They will go for the lettuce right from the moment the seed burst from the ground further more it has been estimated that there are 50 slugs for every squire meter of your garden.

You will know that you have them because you will either see them or see the chewed leaves of your lettuce.

Solution: As growers we have a big problem here because slugs and snails thrive when protected from frost, drought, wind just like lettuce, so in a way we are creating the right environment for them.

However, what we can do is make it as unpleasant as possible for them. Keep our beds tidy with fine raked soil, the reason for this is that the slugs will have no where to hide and the birds can get them.

As far as I am aware there are no lettuce slug resistant varieties, so no help there

Make sure that your bed is well drained and that you have a good soil structure.

Encourage natural slug predators.

 This is a bit of a two edged sword because if you make your bed friendly to beneficial creatures by not using harmful sprays and providing habitats for them your are also helping the slugs survive. Just hope that there are more predators then slugs.

This is the main method of getting rid of the slug; Hand picking. Go out in the evening and early morning pick them up and chuck them in a bucket.

Snails and slugs love the smell of beer; so you can put out a shallow container of beer and the slugs will drown in it. Check the trap out every morning and empty the dead slugs, refill and wait for the next lot.

Another good lure to attract slugs is to place comfrey leaves around you bed.

 The idea here is to get the slugs to feed on the comfrey leaves and not you lettuce. The comfrey leaves will need checking every now and then because the slugs will hide under them; you can just put them in your ‘slug bucket’ and await the next lot.

Barriers have always been a good method to deter slugs and they consist of different types. Grit or sand around your plant/bottle cloches; remove the bottom half of a clear plastic bottle and place around your lettuce/ You can buy slug collars which are a plastic ring with a sort of lip put around your plant to make it difficult for the slug to get to your lettuce.

Give the slugs a meal of Bran in a bowel near your lettuce. This fills them up and they will not trouble your plants.

A word about slug pellets: 

There are two types:

Ferric phosphate pellets: The idea here is that the pellet is eaten by the slug and the slug will die and another other creature that eats the dead slug will not be harmed. They are only successful up to a point; I assume that not all slugs are attracted to them.

Metaldehyde pellets: These pellets are 100% sure way of killing off any snail or slug that eats them, however they will also kill off any creature that eats the dead slug.

LETTUCE PEST

 Lettuce Pest

There really are too many pests to mention each and every one, so I will just look at a few.

Aphids, slugs, snails are by far the most common and the most serious pest of lettuce (as well as other garden crops)

1. Aphids: Symptoms of damage is yellow mottling of the lettuce leaf and distortion.

2. They really are a nasty beast to have around.

3. They feed on the sap of the plant.

4. Shed their skin a number of times, this leaves a sticky mess on the lettuce.

5. On top of that, Aphids give birth to pregnant females that means they will rapidly increase in number.

Solution:

1. Grow resistant varieties of lettuce; Avon crisp, Lakeland, little gem and sylvesta to name but a few of them.

2. Because Aphids prefer soft young leaves, it is best not to grow or use any form of artificial fertilizers, which encourages raped soft growth.

3. Aphids are also attracted by single planting of lettuce it is a good idea to mix and match your plants. Lettuce among onions or mint, for instance.

4. Cover your lettuce with a horticultural fleece, these are most effected.

5. You may be surprised to learn that you can buy ladybirds for use as a form of biological control. Aphids have their problems too, for ants capture them and herd them like we do cattle. Ants are even known to have ‘herds’ of dairy aphids.

Lettuce Disease

 Here we will look at the main disease that you might encounter in your lettuce patch:

Root aphid: The first sign of this is your lettuce will be stunted with yellow wilted leaves and if you pull one of the lettuce up you will find white waxy powder on them.

Solution: Two ways to avoid this is to keep the lettuce well watered and to grow a resistant variety. Deddy or Lakeland are two of the varieties that I use. This problem only effects lettuce between mid-may till the end of June.

Mosaic virus. Your lettuce will have puckered leaves with yellow blotches between the veins also it will be stunted.

Solution: Only thing to do here is to destroy the affected plants.

Bolting: This is an effort by your lettuce to seed. In other words, a flower head will form. This is caused by hot weather or a check to growth.

Solution: There are varieties of lettuce that are resistant to bolting. I grow 'Radichetta' Supply some shade during hot weather and keep harvesting your lettuce; they do not have to reach mature for you to eat it!

Botrytis. This is a grey mould that roots the plant at root level; your lettuce will then collapse. Affects lettuce grown under cover more then those grown outside.

Solution: destroy the affected plant.

Tip burn: The first sign of this is brown dry leaf edges. This is caused by sudden loss of water from the leaves. Your plant should continue to grow normally.

Solution: No harm will come to your lettuce. When your harvests cut the brown bit off and pop in a sandwich.

Butt rot: Stems will have hollow leaves and be rotten at the base.

Solution; Destroy the plant.

Downy mildew: The signs of this are yellow patches on the plants leaves with white growths on the underside of the leave. This is a fairly common fungal disease of lettuce

Solution: destroy the plant. There are resistant varieties, Tin Tin is a good one to use or Breen.

There is not too much to worry about there really. Just have yourself a good program that provides good disease control. Give your lettuce space in-between them so they are not touching each other, make sure they have water and shade if need be. Grow them in healthy soil. I have made no mention of fungicides; I assume that you have no wish to cover your lettuce with chemicals

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Growing Lettuce

 Protecting Your All the year round salad crop

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Growing Lettuce

What do you dream of; neat and tidy lines of lettuce in your garden? Why not, they are quite easy to grow with just a few needs.

Regular watering to keep them crisp and succulent.

Common or garden soil should be good enough.

There are also many varieties to choose from; just go down to your local store to see the staggering array, I can assure you that there will be enough there to keep your growing interesting.

However you are not the only one who likes lettuce, there is a whole host of ‘lettuce lovers’ out there just waiting for you to drop the first seed in the ground.

Slugs

Snails

Aphids

Rabbits

Mr frost

Floods

Hail

Disease

Birds

Possums

To name but a few of the perils of lettuce growing. 

How to deal with rats

 Rats have been around with mankind from the beginning of time. We are told that nobody is further away from a rat than six feet, at any given time. I do not believe that is necessarily true, however there are a lot of rats around.

Apparently there are 60 species of rats in the world. The smallest one is about four inches long and the biggest one is called a Bosavi woolly rat that weights in, at over three pounds, about the size of a cat.

Rats are not your "simple" little animal, they are very intelligent. This is proofed by the fact that they are used to sniff out gunpowder and are very clever at solving puzzles and can find they way round mazes.

17 species of rat are known to transmit fatal diseases to mankind: weal's disease, plague, viral hemorrhagic fever and Q fever. Rats do not sleep a lot and most of their activity takes place during the hours of darkness.

Apart from me, rats enemies are many; cats, foxes, dogs, snakes, large birds like falcons, hawks, kites and, of course, the owl.

I have no experience of catching rats in a house, because, as far as I know I have never lived in a house with rats. However, my sister, who lives in Washington, had a neighbour who kept a python lose in the house that lived on rats. You could try that if you like, I would rather not because it might well eat you one day.

My serious rat hunting days began three years ago (2017) when rats eat all my beetroot and apples crops down on my allotment. I knew they were around because I used to see them running around on occasions. I thought nothing of it, just a few rats. How wrong I was:

2018 I caught 53

2019 I caught 84

One night in 2019 I caught two young ones in one trap ( cleaver are they? ). I also caught a very large slug.

This year, 2020, I have only caught two so far. The reason, I think, is that my allotment has been flooded for nearly two months at the start of the year and they have been drowned or moved away for the time being, however I did see one the other day. So they are back, but so am I.

So, how do I catch them. Well, first off, I do not use any form of poison. I think that is not safe and the rat takes three to four days to die. When you poison a rat it will hide somewhere and die, and then there is a possible that something will come along and eat it and that animal will also die. So by using poison you lose control of what happens and you could be responsible for two or three very painful deaths.

I use rat traps, the wooded ones, not the plastic ones because they will break up in the sun. The bait I use is peanut butter, I find this best because the rat has to spend some time under the spring licking the bait off. I always wear gloves when I handle the traps, the reason is to keep my scent off the trap.

Rats, like us, are very much on the ball however also like us, they are creatures of habit. I take advantage of that fact in the following way.

I have five traps and bait them everyday, but I do not set the trap. What I want is the rat to come get used to taking the bait. So, every third day, I set one of the traps and always catch a rat.

People always what to know what I do with the dead rat, why I do not know. Although, it is interesting, because it shows up another animal behaviour.

As I said, I always wear gloves so when I have a have a rat to get rid of, I put my gloves on and take the rat in the trap to an open pice of ground on my plot and drop the rat on the ground and go and have a cup of coffee to await what happens next.

This all takes place between four and four-thirty in the afternoon: while I am sitting in my chair, a red kite appears in the sky, glades round and then swoops down, picks up the dead rat and flies over the near-by trees. This has been going on for the last couple of years, summer and winter.

So to catch rats, you need: rat traps, peanut butter, gloves, patience and a routine.

Richard Haigh writes regularly at http://the-organic-grower.blogspot.com/ and invites you to read more of his articles about organic gardening there.