For two days I have found small pieces of clear jelly substance (imagine small roughly diced pieces of agar-agar, although one piece I found yesterday was as big as a fist) lightly burried around the the edges of my seedling pots (basil in particular). I actually saw a neighbour putting them there. I suspect it to be a weed killer of some sort, but I cannot find anything on the 'net along these lines. Any advice on how to research this? Any suggestion on what this substance could be? (I have saved some in the frigde)
Sounds a bit like the water-storing polymers that are used in some potted plants, but I can't imagine why your neighbor would be adding them to yours. sed5555
There is a contagious lack of civility in neighborhoods these days. People should know that they shouldn't set foot in your garden without your blessing.
The message from "Doug Kanter" contains these words:
Kindness, or helpfulness because he too enjoys her potted plants?
How dismal, Doug.
On the other side of the coin, I've occasionally come home to find people wandering or sitting in my gardens, just enjoying them. Neighbours sometimes bring their visitors for a look-see.In summer, I don't fill the birds' peanut feeders; but every so often, they are mysteriously filled up with fresh nuts.. and new plants are anonymously left on the porch. I don't know who does those kind things and rather like it that way.
I think you based your remark on the previous theory that someone may have deposited a watering aid. In fact, we haven't seen proof of that yet. But, even if the stuff turns out be an attempt at helpfulness, I still don't think it's appropriate for anyone to fiddle with your plants unless you've had a chance to size up the person first. After all, how often do people return from holiday only to find their houseplants looking pathetic (or worse), and wonder about the friend who agreed to keep them watered?
Perhaps your garden has pathways. My situation consists of a big front lawn with a deep border against the house, and people are welcome to come close and enjoy it. But not step in the beds or deposit anything, unless someone crazy feels like hanging money from the branches. :-)
Then, there's my new vegetable garden, which I will set up like my previous one: There will be 18" square stepping stones, just wide enough for me to kneel on. It would make me very uncomfortable to find an unknown individual in that garden.
I had a few neighbors like that, Janet, and I enjoyed it. But, they all sought some kind of affirmation that it was OK to get intimate with my garden, before they set foot RIGHT in it. Actually, the children were rather charming in this regard, but that's because they're so much smarter than adults. I ended up transferring ownership of two rows to them because they wanted beets, and more carrots than I was already growing.
But, you have to understand something about the Untidy States of America. A rather significant portion of our population is exquisitely ignorant and holds the belief that god has a special place in his heart for chemical companies. Therefore, there is no way those companies would EVER sell something harmful. If you believe otherwise, you're an atheist, a communist, gay, a hippy, and all sorts of other awful things. I lived next door to such a person, and literally stepped in front of her lawn care guy, who was seconds away from hosing down my vegetable garden with a spray that was not intended for use on food crops. I won't go into the discussion that ensued, except to say that the bewildered cops stood there with handcuffs ready until they figured out that the chemical guy was in violation of the law.
So anyway....if *I* saw someone placing strange gelatin-like blocks of something in my garden, there would be trouble. Subtract evil motives and what's left is simple: There's a 50/50 chance that the person doing it is just plain dumb.
When I'm home I don't mind when kids knock on the door to ask to play with the rats or look at the salamanders but it's alarming to come in from gardening to find the neighbor kids already in the house. Or neighbors bring visiting family members to circle my house exploring the gardens whether or not I'm here. It has kind of creeped me out to come home from an errand & find a neighbor launging in the yard, or getting the crap scared out of me coming around a corner only to encounter someone from down the block is standing there. Once I heard strange noises & went outside to find a half-dozen visitors who claimed they knocked first & thought I wasn't home, so invited themselves out back -- when I first saw them I thought the house must be burning down or something or why would so many people be gathering around the place.
I don't complain but it's not a comfortable thing to have happen. It's rare enough to not make a big thing of it, & I'm already always struggling against a misanthropic nature & have to stick to this effort to not discourage the neighbors from liking me. I guess as I've aged I've come to be seen as the neighborhood's harmless old aunty; I miss being able to scare people with a glance, but a gardening outfit with sun-hat doesn't have the same impact as my old leather jacket with chains.
I find it bewildering that people think they can open a gate, circle through gardens to a very quiet fully enclosed obviously private area, & just sit there for a while like it was a public park. Worse, at least one unknown visitor stole blooms. Well, my most common visitor is a bit addled & has mistaken me for her best friend, but that group-visit was astoundingly bizarre to me. It would not be within the realm of possibility for me to trespass uninvited into someone's back yard, let alone pick a bouquet for myself as I was wandering through. People are just nuts, even friendly well-meaning people.
It sounds like you live in a truly wonderful place. Here we have a neighbor who wants to kill the hedge between our yards just because they don't like it. It's been there for over 30 years and was turning into a lovely small tree border when they lopped it of to 3 foot tall (it had been 12) They asked if they could "trim" the hedge. And one of the other neighbor's kids is a junior thug-in-training and likes to put chunks of concrete through car windows...
Hmmm I think I'll look into moving to your neighborhood :)
Once when we lived in New Mexico in the mountains a whole family came up to our house and were looking in the window. Faces pressed against the glass while we were having dinner. My dad went out to see what they wanted and they actually wanted to come inside and look around. They were tourists whose brains must have gone to Alaska for vacation while they went to New Mexico.
The only thing worse was when we came home from work to find about 7 guys on our roof. They claimed we called to get a roofing estimate. Only problem was we hadn't and their company didn't exist when we checked. Very disconcerting.
The message from "Doug Kanter" contains these words:
Well spotted, Sherlock.
Neither have we seen any evidence that it was something harmful. Nor have we seen proof that the neighbour put the gel there. He might have chased off the gel-depositing mad axeman, then rushed over to find out what the gdma put in the pot.
But,
I'm ashamed to say IRTA "pants". Anyway, she has. It's her neighbour.
After all, how often do people
Search me, I've never had that happen.
I understand. Obviously, you'd need notice to de-activate the landmines. It would be too bad to have your ripe pumpkins exploded by an Avon lady.
You missed out my favourite American insult, "liberal".
Look, I know you're a godfearing lot, kneeling to pray on the veg garden paving stones that the neighbours won't creep up and shoot you. I'm just a simple atheist.. but isn't god supposed to take care of all that in His Own Country?
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