Cooking, Sewing, Working, Traveling, Gardening and Pondering

Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential.

~Winston Churchill~

Monday, April 11, 2011

Fresh Apple Spice Cake Tutorial or not Tutorial?

I made fresh apple spice cake yesterday and took all these pictures thinking I'd make it into a tutorial.

However, it is just not that exciting of tutorial.


I did get a lot of yard work done- AKA 2011 Grub Worm War. I try to be chemical free in the back yard as much as possible. However, here in southern California I have 3 pests that continue to get the better of my garden - slugs, grub worms and grasshoppers. Slugs I can kind of keep under control with pet friendly slug bait. Grasshoppers there is really no cure outside of stalking them and killing them first hand. Now grub worms are the worst. I've used the chemicals only to have them come back in a week. I'd read of two natural solutions - nematodes and a home remedy you spray on.

I found the recipe for the home remedy online and it is 2 cups mouthwash (unflavored), 2 cups dish soap, 2 cups tobacco juice, 2 cups ammonia mixed into one gallon of boiling water. Mix well and spray on dirt and lawn and areas needing to have grubs eradicated. I mixed it up and used my pump sprayer to apply on all the flower beds yesterday. And I added some chemical granules to the front beds too - just in case. I call it napalming the area.

Then I applied miracle grow to all the potted plants and flowers, staked up my pole beans, removed the overgrown purple basil that hummed with bees, the odd man out lavender, planted okra, weeded the beds and spread out top soil to the bare areas in the yard from all the rain in December.

Today called for 4 advil, yoga, 1.7 mile walk and lots of coffee in recovery.

3 comments:

Regena said...

LOL as long as the cake was good, that's all that matters.

jillytacy said...

I hope you win the grub war! Sounds like a lot of work.

Karen said...

Oh how I hate grasshoppers! Why is it that they will always fly directly at your face when you spray them with the hose? That's just wrong!!!! The cake sounds yummy!

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