Advice From A Master Gardener

Last summer, we planted a tangerine tree in the backyard. Truthfully, to call it a backyard is to compliment it. It's really just a little pathway to the garage. Anyway, that tree is just getting eaten down to the ground by grasshoppers. I love tangerines and I've waiting for the tree to mature so I could pick them right off my own tree. The grasshoppers don't touch the navel orange tree or the fig tree, but they are all over the tangerine tree.

This weekend, my mom and I stopped by Botanical Building in Balboa Park and spoke to the master gardener. It's so awesome that the master gardeners are there to answer questions and help make local gardeners successful.

I asked the master gardener what to do and she looked at me very, very seriously. She gave me this advice. "Grasshoppers are a difficult problem for any gardener to resolve. When I see grasshoppers, I think it's best to take my garden shears and chop them in half. I find that to be the best way since they are very hard the catch and stomp on with your foot." I don't know why, but I found this advice to be hysterically funny. Then she followed up with this. "You should know that after they're halved, they'll hop around for a bit. You need to be prepared for that." That's funny stuff.

Unfortunately, it's also advice I don't have the heart to follow. No tangerines for me.