After a bit of research, I found two great options:
Chickens and Toads
My first choice would be to get me some chickens! We'd have fresh eggs, they're natural aerators (through their ground scratching), they LOVE to eat bugs, and they'd provide natural fertilizer to the yard.
I've been wanting chickens since we've moved out to the country. However my husband, being a city guy, will have nothing to with farm animals on our land. During my research, I thought that I'd finally found a solution to convince him that chickens were a great idea. I learned that they not only eat grasshoppers, but spiders too!
Nope, no matter how much convincing and begging, he wasn't going to give in.
My second option is a toad! A gnarly, healthy, knobby, rugged, local toad. I knew that toads live just up in the foothills from us (about a mile away), because I see them when ever I run at dusk. Now a toad isn't a farm animal. Who is my husband to say anything about a local toad moving in.
Now to research toad attraction to my garden - who by the way don't eat your veggies like the chickens will.
I found that toads like to burrow in cool, damp, shady spots. Now here's the thing, our yard isn't old enough to provide lots of damp shady spots for them to burrow in and live.
Imagination, here's your cue! So I call upon my imagination and figure how to create a toad pent-house haven (let me tell you, if I were a toad, I'd totally live here!)
I got a large shallow terracotta tray, built a shallow hole under it, and placed it near my ornamental grasses growing next to my garden. I then created a 'rain fall' from our irrigation pipes that'd fill the shallow dish and keep the ground wet around it. Perfect!
Once I finished the toads pent-house, I thought, and felt (very important step here), what it would be like to walk out to my garden and find all my vegetables in pristine condition. The leaves and veggies would be untouched by those jumping flying grasshoppers. I felt what it would be like to walk around and not flinch when an unexpected large flying grasshopper jumps out at me - they still startled me even after almost 40 years. Ahh what a great addition this toad would make to my organic garden.
Then I let it be.
I would imagine a toad living under that tray, and think about how exciting it would be to one day find him in my garden happily gorging himself on grasshoppers.
Then I'd let it be - not worry, not stress, not obsess.
I even let the nasty growth that builds on the bottom of the tray stay (my dogs love getting a drink out of it - so gross).
To my husband, I've become a bit crazy. Preparing, setting up and feeling what it would be like to have a garden toad, before we EVEN have a garden toad. I kept just telling him, and my daughter, that a toad will come, I know it. I've sent it out to the universe, and I'm letting the universe figure out 'the how' a toad will make it's way to this upscale toad house.
A couple of weeks later, I was over at a friends house, when a teenage boy thought he would try to scare a few of us gals by shoving this extremely large (about the size of a dinner plate) toad in our face and yelling 'blahh' at the same time.
I quickly jumped up, not in grossness, but in excitement. I grabbed the toad out of the kids possession, and almost kissed it. I did refrain from kissing it, only because it would confirm the belief of many that I may be off my rocker a bit. (BTW I rock on my rocker!)
The owner of the house, Matt, piped up, "Yeah I've got several of these toads around the yard, however this one hangs out on my driveway every night." That was my cue.
To my husband's dismay, we drove home with a toad!
Now to research toad attraction to my garden - who by the way don't eat your veggies like the chickens will.
I found that toads like to burrow in cool, damp, shady spots. Now here's the thing, our yard isn't old enough to provide lots of damp shady spots for them to burrow in and live.
Imagination, here's your cue! So I call upon my imagination and figure how to create a toad pent-house haven (let me tell you, if I were a toad, I'd totally live here!)
I got a large shallow terracotta tray, built a shallow hole under it, and placed it near my ornamental grasses growing next to my garden. I then created a 'rain fall' from our irrigation pipes that'd fill the shallow dish and keep the ground wet around it. Perfect!
Once I finished the toads pent-house, I thought, and felt (very important step here), what it would be like to walk out to my garden and find all my vegetables in pristine condition. The leaves and veggies would be untouched by those jumping flying grasshoppers. I felt what it would be like to walk around and not flinch when an unexpected large flying grasshopper jumps out at me - they still startled me even after almost 40 years. Ahh what a great addition this toad would make to my organic garden.
Then I let it be.
I would imagine a toad living under that tray, and think about how exciting it would be to one day find him in my garden happily gorging himself on grasshoppers.
Then I'd let it be - not worry, not stress, not obsess.
I even let the nasty growth that builds on the bottom of the tray stay (my dogs love getting a drink out of it - so gross).
To my husband, I've become a bit crazy. Preparing, setting up and feeling what it would be like to have a garden toad, before we EVEN have a garden toad. I kept just telling him, and my daughter, that a toad will come, I know it. I've sent it out to the universe, and I'm letting the universe figure out 'the how' a toad will make it's way to this upscale toad house.
A couple of weeks later, I was over at a friends house, when a teenage boy thought he would try to scare a few of us gals by shoving this extremely large (about the size of a dinner plate) toad in our face and yelling 'blahh' at the same time.
I quickly jumped up, not in grossness, but in excitement. I grabbed the toad out of the kids possession, and almost kissed it. I did refrain from kissing it, only because it would confirm the belief of many that I may be off my rocker a bit. (BTW I rock on my rocker!)
The owner of the house, Matt, piped up, "Yeah I've got several of these toads around the yard, however this one hangs out on my driveway every night." That was my cue.
To my husband's dismay, we drove home with a toad!
A toad named Matt.
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| Here's a close-up of Matt |
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| Here I am showing Matt his toad pent-house  |
While working in my garden during the day, I try not to lift and look for Matt in the toad pent-house, especially since they are crepuscular animals (out during dusk and dawn). I'm just letting, not obsessing, over Matt. He is a wild local type of toad after all.
I just let him be, let him be him, and do his thing.
The other night, my neighbor tells my husband that he saw this really large toad in his rocks. He couldn't believe how big it was. I knew he saw Matt.
I sure hope he returns, cause I know of a great toad pent-house in the garden next door!
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