Hey Gardening Granny
A buddy of mine said that if I go out and pee around my garden the smell will keep the raccoons and deer out of my sweet corn? Is that true?
Tommy Joe from West Virginia

Well Tommy, remind me not to eat at your house. Let me ask you this. Did you ever go deer hunting with that buddy? Did you pee in the woods when you were hunting? Did you ever see any deer?

Pee doesn't keep animals out of the garden very long, even if you get fancy and buy that bottled stuff from Mountain lions. And if you are going to pee all over your garden you may as well buy your food from China.

Squirrels are just nasty little rats with furry tails. They are extemely destructive. But there is one thing squirrels are good for. If you bury one under each tomato plant you will get a bumper crop. It works good for roses too. And the good news is that if you keep fertilizing your plants this way you won't have to worry about squirrels eating your flowers.

I have one word for you Bobby. Carpet. Yep. Carpet. Now Bobby, you don't go out and buy carpet for the garden. Hardly a day goes by I don't see some carpet thrown out by the road. Pick it up and bring it home. Cut that carpet up and lay it in the rows. If you happened to pick up some pink stuff or some other unholy color just turn it upside down. Carpet smothers weeds and holds moisture in. Keeps your boots clean too. If you want to start a new garden just lay some pieces of carpet down in the area the summer or early fall before you want to plant. You can also make circles of carpet around trees and shrubs so you don't have to weed whack there. If you or your significant other is real fussy you can put a little wood chips or straw on top the carpet. If you take the kind with jute backing and turn it upside down it don't look half bad.

Heat up your skillet Lorie. There's nothing better than free meat. Heat up a good skillet greased with a little lard until a drop of water pops and sizzles. Then swoop up them little red and black bugs, put them in the pan and pop them like corn. An excellent snack for hungry kids after school- then you can eat the pork rinds.

Farm stores are just filled with neat stuff every gardener can use Take cattle panels. Hog or cattle panels are very handy in the garden. These are large panels, 16 foot long by about 40 inches high, of heavy-duty wire. They can be cut in half with bolt cutters to make them easier to transport or store. With a metal post at each end they can form a trellis for tomatoes, cucumbers,grapes, gourds, etc that is sturdy yet easy to take down and store. They can be bent in an arch and used as a trellis also, or covered with plastic and used as a large row cover or small greenhouse.

And talk about posts! There are usually many choices. For easy flower stakes buy step in posts for electric fences. And buy an electric fence to keep the deer out of the garden while you are there.

They are using metal horse troughs in all the fancy magazines to make water gardens. I prefer using plastic ones, that come in dark colors and are less toxic to fish. These are also excellent for mixing soil, storing soil and keeping baby chickens safe too. A really big tank makes a good hot tub for rednecks.

Farm stores usually have farm toys, like miniature John Deer tractors that look really cool in container gardens. And chicken feeders and flat sided buckets make good container gardens.

Farm stores also have good prices on gloves and heavy duty aprons and they often sell garden seed in bulk, letting you buy just what you need. They can order parts for your mower and sell you oil for your chain saw.

Here's a redneck tip from Gardening Granny. If you have an old car around the place, maybe one your spouse was planning to fix once he got down to the scrap yard and found the right parts, you are in luck. Go out and mow a path to it and see if it still has good windows and could keep the critters out. It should be a car that's sitting in the sun, if there are choices on the property. This old car will dry your herbs and flowers real quick. Just place what you want to dry in brown paper bags and put them inside the car. [If you are messing with an old car make sure the kids can't get in it and lock themselves in. You don't want to dry them.] Check on them every day or so,[the plants], and turn them over or rearrange bundles if needed. If you are real sure the car is still critter proof you can even dry things like sliced apples and other fruits. Now if your spouse sees there is a path to that old car he may remember why he parked it there and get to working on it so you better warn him it may smell a little better than what he's used to.

And hey if the path is still open maybe you can hide those Christmas presents there later!

A wonderful way to use old tires. Cut the tire in half. Use a few pieces of wood in an L shape near the top of each cut end to hold soil up higher for planting. You can use screws to hold it in. Then attach eyebolts and chain to hang it. You could also screw the tire to a rail or wall.

My Dogs love cats, they think they taste just like chicken. This cats name is Sex. Hey, I just thought it might increase the site ratings. No cats were hurt in making this module.

How do rednecks make compost? They take the garbage out to the pigs. And there ain't no better place to have a garden than where the pig pen was last year. Pigs are about the best tilling machines you ever saw. They will work that soil up for you real fine. It's tilled, fertilized and composted all in one swoop. Plus you get bacon!

Hey Gardening Granny.
This is a true story. There was a skunk under our porch. It smelled a lot. Mom said not to bother it but I thought I could scare it away. So I got my paint gun and I crawled under there and I shot it. And then it shot me. Mom won't let me in the house. What can I do?

Dear Jeffery
HAHa Ha ha ha ha Mom always knows best! If she will let you use the tub half fill it with warm water and add 2 bottles of hydrogen peroxide, 2 large cans of tomato juice and some bubble bath, take your clothes off and get in. Wash your hair with this stuff too. When you are done soak your clothes in the water a couple hours, then rinse them and wash in the washer. Good Luck Stupid Boy.

Home grown taters are about as good as it gets. Little baby redskins steamed in a little butter and garlic- yum yum and you can grow them too.

Sprouted potatoes from the store will work or you can buy seed potatoes. If you use large potatoes that have sprouted cut them in several pieces, each piece with a sprout or two and let them dry for a day.

Now here's the fun part. Get some of those old tires found laying in every country ditch. Place several layers of newspaper on the ground in a sunny spot. (The grass should be cut real short or removed first.) Put a tire on them. Place a potato piece inside. Throw a couple inches of soil over the potato piece. Water well.

Some of you may think - gee - tires in the yard are just ugly. Well, get creative and paint them. Bright colors, white, fantastic scenes, cute flowers or maybe green to look like grass.

As the potato piece grows continue to add a little soil, compost, chopped leaves, old straw or other material so that you keep the only the first two sets of leaves above the covering material. Chuck in a handful of slow release garden fertilizer when the tire is half filled.

When you fill up the tire let the potato grow a few inches then add a second tire, stacked on top. Keep filling that tire as the plant grows too. When you see the potato flower it's time to stop adding fill.

Around this time you can look for "preemies", teensy tiny spuds down in your tire fill. Feel around carefully so you don't disturb the roots too much and gently remove a few. The plant will keep growing. Just remove a couple babies from each plant. These are sooo good you probably won't want anything else with supper.

Keep the tire taters well watered. A few weeks after they bloom they will look like they are dying and thats ok. When they are totally dead looking you can knock the tires apart and pick up your taters. Not hard at all!

If you are a really lazy gardener you can just buy several 20 pound or larger bags of potting soil and do this. Lay them on the ground, run the pitch fork through the bag a bunch of times for drainage, flip the bag over and cut a hole in it on top to insert a potato piece or two. Just let them grow and dump out the bag at the end of the season to collect the spuds.

Be careful when using bags that the soil inside doesn't get too wet if you have rainy weather. If it stays soggy for a few days you may have to open the top of the bag more or poke more holes in it.

If the soil in the bags doesn't have plant food added you may want to add a handful of slow release garden fertilizer when you plant.