335 TRANSCRIPT Roof Rats, Asparagus-Lemon Recipes
Farmer Fred
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Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good gardening information, you've come to the right spot.
Farmer Fred
Rattus rattus. I’m not talking about the 1980’s punk rock band from Finland. Rattus rattus is commonly known as the roof rat, black rat, and ship rat. Roof rats were common on early sailing ships and apparently arrived in North America by that route. This rat has a long history as a carrier of plague. Oh, isn’t that pleasant.
Roof rats range along the lower half of the East Coast and throughout the Gulf States upward into Arkansas. They also exist all along the Pacific Coast and are found on the Hawaiian Islands (Fig. 2). The roof rat is more at home in warm climates, and apparently less adaptable, than the Norway rat, which is why it has not spread throughout the country.
So why are we talking about roof rats on a garden show? Isn’t this just a pest of urban and suburban homes, eating pet food, bird seed and uncovered garbage? Roof Rats require about an ounce of food and water per day. And they do like to grind down their growing teeth on insulated internet cables, too, as I recently found out. Roof rats are known to chew through drywall, wood, aluminum, plastic and as well through insulation and gnawing on electrical wires, potentially causing fires.
In the wild, they eat vegetables, fruits, nuts seeds and snails. So, they’re not all bad.
So you can see where we are going with this. Because these nocturnal creatures have a unique preference for heights, your fruit trees are a target, if those trees are within a 200 foot radius of their nest, usually found in attics.
In agricultural orchards, roof rats climb trees and eat citrus, pomegranates and other
available fruits. If you find a citrus fruit with a large hole in the side and the interior contents missing, that is a solid clue that roof rats are present.
Oh, by the way, roof rats are very fond of making whoopee. They mature at about three to five months of age and can produce two to six litters of six to eight youngsters per litter per year. They live for about year.
The first chat today involves roof rats. And it will be particularly useful for those of you with large yards, or acreage, or even a small farm, in which you have a large orchard. And for those of you suburban dwellers who might have a few citrus trees, or, for that matter, any tree with fruit, well, you know the damage that rats can do to that fruit. But it’s not just the fruit. Roof rats, especially, can girdle your backyard fruit trees, dramatically shortening their lifespan. If your yard is large or your yard is small, and you have roof rats, we have tips, courtesy of University of California’s Ag and Natural Resources retired farm advisor Rachael Long (This is an encore presentation, due to ongoing, noisy construction here).
A few days ago at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center, we talked with Master Food Preserver Myrna Undajon-Haskell about easy recipes using garden fresh asparagus and maybe those lemons that you might have still clinging to your lemon trees.
It’s all in Episode 335 of today’s Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, and please excuse our dust, we are still in construction mode here.
We’re podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the beautiful Abutilon Jungle in Suburban Purgatory, where even the dogs are in hiding with all the construction going on. And watch your step! it’s the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots. Let’s go!
ROOF RAT CONTROLS
Farmer Fred
A lot of homeowners are getting concerned and asking the question: who's eating my citrus? And it's not just eating the fruit, it's just eating the rinds, which is very unusual. And some of the culprits are being traced back to, include roof rats. Guess what? Roof rats are now in orchards. They're in pistachio and other nut orchards, as well. They're burrowing and nesting in the ground, chewing on irrigation lines, causing extensive damage and a lot more. We're talking with Rachael Long UC Cooperative Extension Farm Advisor based in Woodland, California. And Rachael, why aren't these roof rats in roofs? What are they doing in the field? How did they get there?
Rachael Long
That's a good question. And so roof rats just live everywhere. They're very opportunistic and when they find a food resource, they'll just go for it. So this year in particular has been a really big year. It's the year of the rat , certainly. And and all of these rodents do have cyclical populations.
Some years we just do get outbreaks of voles or we get outbreaks of roof rats and other rodents. And I think what happened is last year was such a wet winter and we had tons of weeds that were growing everywhere, producing a lot of seeds, and just provided ideal food resources for that roof rat.
And as a result, these other populations just rapidly built up. These roof rats, each female can have three to five litters per year and five to eight young per litter. And so that could be like 40 offspring per rat. And so you can just see that how quickly a couple of rats can build up to hundreds in a short time.
Farmer Fred
You've been the pest detective on this one, so talk a little bit how you came to the conclusion it was roof rats, because I would imagine that the first suspect would be other rodents or squirrels.
Rachael Long
that's what I thought too. So when I got a call to look at a pistachio orchard, I just thought for sure it's gonna be ground squirrels.
Because that's usually what it. And I went out there and and just didn't see any ground squirrels. ground squirrels are diurnal, so they're active during the day and I just didn't see any. And when I looked at these holes in the ground they were also way too small for a ground squirrel.
So ground squirrel holes will be about four inches or more in diameter. And then you usually see a squirrel somewhere. But there was no squirrel, and these holes were about two to three inches in diameter with a little pile of nuts around it. And and so I knew that it could not have been deer mice or voles because it was too big for that.
The deer mice and voles tend to have holes one to two inches in diameter, and these were three and ground squirrels are four. So I just was really scratching my head going, what on earth is this? Because it just was very confusing; it was just somewhere in between. And so I thought about rats.
But I just didn't know what a roof rat would be doing underground, burrowing underground. I did talk to a colleague and she assured me that that roof rats in the country can burrow underground and nest underground. They're above ground and can nest in ground and of course, they’re nocturnal, feeding at night.
So that's why I didn't see any.
Farmer Fred
For people who grew up on Bugs Bunny cartoons, they may have thought rabbits might have been the culprit in this situation. But actually rabbits don't dig burrows, do they?
Rachael Long
No, they don't. So that was the question. we actually put out a game camera as well, because we thought maybe we could pick something up.
But all we picked up were were rabbits and birds. These roof rats are just sneaky. They're really smart and They hide. And basically if you don't see anything, but you see the damage, then suspect rats. But rabbits, jack rabbits and cottontails, they don't dig and burrow underground.
they may just create a little nest like in that and such, but they're not digging and burrowing underground.
Farmer Fred
And then you have the case of citrus trees. And I understand in some situations the roof rats are nesting in the citrus trees, which must be quite a surprise to anybody out there picking fruit.
Rachael Long
Wouldn't that be awful to reach in and have a rat jump out at you? So yeah, roof rats are opportunistic and if you have cover year round, like an orange tree, then that can form just the perfect protection for the roof rats during the wintertime.
Unlike something like a pistachio orchard or almonds where the leaves drop in the wintertime, and so they don't have any cover, and that's probably why. Then they'll go underground and burrow and nest underground. But in citrus trees they will nest in the tree itself. And what we also see is that not only do they feed on the fruit and typically you'll just find sometimes the hole and then the entire inside of the fruit is eaten.
And you're just left with a shell. And same with pomegranates. There's been damage by rats and pomegranates, but the worry worrisome thing about rats in the in like orange trees is what they're doing is they're actually stripping the bark off of limbs of trees. And so there's, a sweetness to that.
Basically the bark has the sugar conducting part of the of the tree. And the rats are feeding on. But when they strip it they're girdling the tree. And and so you can still have, water conducting up and down but when you take off the park, that, that take, it just basically girdles the tree.
And a lot of the the trees that rats are nesting and feeding in then have branches that are dying back. And that's a problem because then you lose production for years.
Farmer Fred
Have you seen any evidence in a mixed planting situation of the roof rats, basically following the crops?
When they're done with citrus, they'll move to the next crop that's ripening, be it a nut crop or another fruit.
Rachael Long
Certainly they can move around in fields. And we've seen that. I see that more in something like an alfalfa field where if you disc the field, then the rodents will just, of course they're gonna move out.
So you're gonna have gophers and voles that are just dispersing everywhere. And I think that you have two things that certainly lead to some natural mortality. When the food resource declines, then the rat population will go down. But I definitely think that they're going to be moving too.
I have a colleague that told me he caught in Woodland, that he caught something like 50 rats so far in the last six months. In his in his backyard. And I'm like, Lordy, that's a lot. And so I think they do disperse and once the food is gone, then they'll move somewhere else.
Farmer Fred
The University of California Ag and Natural Resources Department put out a publication about four years ago called, Managing Roof Rats and deer Mice in nut and fruit orchards. What is the difference between a roof rat and a deer?
Rachael Long
So the roof rat is big and much bigger than a than a mouse.
but they they both can do damage in an orchard. So again, the roof rat, the hole will be about three inches, whereas the deer mouse much smaller, like a house mouse and the holes will be one to two inches in the ground. but they both actually can cause damage. the roof rats really do move up and down trees and are feeding on the tree and on the fruit. And then in the ground they're just burrowing underground, not necessarily causing any damage underground. But the deer mice, they're everywhere too. And they can actually scramble up and down trees, And also feed on nuts such as almonds, both in the trees and also on the ground. So that kind of surprised me that actually deer mice can go up and down trees and I'm always surprised by the number of, wildlife that does, move around and go, up and down on, on trees as well.
Sometimes I see lizards and trees and I'm like, what are you doing up there? Yeah. So wildlife actually the mice and rodents. So they can move around and certainly cause damage to tree crops and it's rather expensive.
Farmer Fred
I know there was a study done, I think back in the year 2000, about the cost per acre that deer mice can do, and they pegged it at over $20 per acre to almond orchards in Fresno County due to deer mice damage.
Rachael Long
So they can certainly be damaging. The really critical issue here is that what I really wanted to let people know about, Is how to identify these different rodents out in our crops so that we can get a jump on them early and control them early before outbreaks occur.
So that was my intent on putting out a news alert on these, on the rats, was just to say, Hey, this is what the damage looks like. Recognize that. If you can just trap, use snap traps to catch those those rodents and keep them out, keep those populations low because once you get a massive infestation in there, then you can really get a lot of damage, and then control becomes incredibly challenging.
So this is just a really a heads up that rodents are out there and just keep an eye on 'em and know how to look for them. Look for the signs of their activity and then control 'em early on to prevent damage. And I always suggest also, barn owl boxes are good to put up for helping to control gophers. and barn owls will also feed on rats, so they can take a lot of rodents and help us out naturally.
So that's one suggestion is to put up a barn owl box and use your snap traps and just monitor and know what's out there.
Farmer Fred
Let's talk about some less toxic methods for controlling roof rats and deer mice. how effective is flooding, if at
all?
Rachael Long
Oh, certainly for gophers and for ground squirrels it definitely helps to to suppress the rodents. but now we've really shifted a lot towards the drip irrigation and the subsurface drip. and there you do have rodent problems. Because there you can't flood 'em out. And that's why you have to certainly get in there early and manage 'em and certainly trapping works well.
Farmer Fred
And that brings up another added cost. If you're fighting a rodent problem, that drip irrigation tubing becomes a target of thirsty rodents, right?
Rachael Long
Yeah, they do. And in particular sometimes after harvest, like a sunflower seed crop for, that hybrid seed that you're producing, that after harvest and everything is so dry, you do get some cracks in the soil. And then you have seed out there and you have, voles and deermice and house mice that are incredibly opportunistic and they just race out and they're feeding on that seed and they drop into the holes, into the cracks, and feed on that drip line.
And then they cause little leaks that then have to be repaired. And that's costly, actually trying to fix all those leaks. So it is a challenge. And then one of my colleagues is looking at ways to put a little bit of water in the line, maybe after harvest, just to seal up those cracks and and keep the rodents from dropping down and feeding on and nibbling on those lines, because fixing these rodent leaks and those drip lines is expensive and time consuming.
Farmer Fred
you mentioned flooding as a possible control for certain rodent pests. . And you mentioned snap traps for roof rats and deer mice. Are there any other less toxic alternatives?
Rachael Long
So, you do have traps for for gophers as well.
And there's a lot work being done on gopher control in particular, and ground squirrel contro. These different units that use carbon dioxide or something, that goes down the hole and takes care of these rodents.
So there are our options for many of our rodent pests and some of these are registered for organic control as well. I wish there were more options. Some people talk about releasing cats. My concern about cats, certainly, is that they eat everything so well.
They may eat some rodents, but they're gonna eat birds and lizards and snakes or anything out there as well. So that concerns me. people are promoting cats, but cats are not specific on controlling just the rodents. So I wouldn't go that route. But certainly the traps.
And some people use barriers, they'll put a fence down and bury it so that and put it like a foot above ground so the gophers and such can't can't go in. Certainly for us, for some habitat plantings or plants, they'll put something around the root so that so it protects it more from the rodents. You've got tree tubes. So there's multiple ways of trying to control the rodent.
Farmer Fred
So when it comes to roof rats though, there are limited options if you want to try to avoid rodenticides.
Rachael Long
The big thing is with roof rats and rats in general is they are smart, they're very clever, they're shy of anything new and they're very wary.
So the roof rats are a challenge. And so essentially, the best thing, certainly for homeowners, are snap traps. And then try that for maybe a few local infestations on a farm. But if you've got an outbreak and you're getting damaged, then you need to go to the bait stations up in the trees for managing the rodents.
That said, you've really gotta be careful. Know when you can use it, because you can't use it in certain seasons for controlling the rodents. And so that's something to really watch for. And before it gets to that level, it is really important to think about our wildlife and the natural control that you can get out there by the birds and raptors, like the hawks and also the barn owls.
And to try to do the local trapping to keep those rats under control. But some years, like this one, is one of the worst outbreaks of rats that we've had in a long time, in many years. And It's in years like this where you do see a lot of damage, then you do need to be proactive and protect your trees.
Farmer Fred
And if you want more information about Barn owls, for example, theuniversity of California has some great resources at the UCANR page, and check that out. Also, “managing roof rats and deermice in nut and fruit orchards”. That's available, as well, from UCANR. Check those out online as well.
It's the year of the rat.
Rachael Long
It certainly is this year, and it’s always the year of something. And last year it was the year of the vole. I had so many voles out here in the country, It was unbelievable. And now we've moved on and it's the year of the rat.
Farmer Fred
Hopefully next year won't be grasshoppers.
Rachael Long
I hope not. Yeah, I haven't seen those. And just knock on wood that that it's gonna be a quiet year.
Farmer Fred
All right, Rachael Long UC Cooperative Extension Farm Advisor based in Woodland. Thanks for a few minutes of your time.
Rachael Long
You're most welcome.
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Farmer Fred
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ASPARAGUS-LEMON RECIPES
Farmer Fred
Here on the Garden Basics podcast, I'm fond of saying you grew it, now eat it.
So maybe you need some recipes for everything that you harvest throughout the year. Well, that's one of the goals of the Master Food Preservers. You can find Master Food Preservers in many states that are associated with Cooperative Extension offices, wherever you may live. Here in California, the University of California Master Food Preservers are a very active group. And here in Sacramento County, we have some excellent Master Food Preservers who are also great gardeners as well. So they're always looking for recipes.
So let's talk with a master food preserver right now and get some recipes for a couple of crops that you might be harvesting right now. And that would be lemons, if you live in USDA zones nine or 10, and asparagus, which is a very popular backyard crop to grow just because commercially it's very hard to find US grown asparagus anymore. We're talking with Myrna Undajon-Haskell. She is a master food preserver. You have lemons, you have asparagus. What are you doing with them this time of year?
Myrna Undajon-Haskell
Well, tomorrow's Mother's Day, so I am making a tabbouleh salad. I will be making the tabbouleh and I'm adding to it asparagus and tomatoes, which are not in season right now, and mint from my garden and also fresh parsley from my garden. What do you do with the asparagus? Well, what I do with the asparagus, I had to buy it. I don't grow asparagus, but at the farmer's market, they have some really good asparagus out right now. So what I do is I shave it very thin.and I blanch it quickly in hot boiling water, set it aside, you get your tabbouleh ready, which you put boiling water, you cook it till it's dry, and then with that I set it aside to drain, and then with that I add seasonings with it, so to that tabbouleh salad I add shaved asparagus, I also put sugar snap peas, which my husband grows in our garden, and then I make a vinaigrette out of Meyer lemon. So the Meyer lemons I just do a vinaigrette. We have recipes on our website, but we have a good Meyer lemon vinaigrette that we do and in that I put fresh herbs and I put parsley, salt, pepper, olive oil, and that's all you need.
Farmer Fred
No vinegar?
Myrna Undajon-Haskell
Yes, I'm sorry. Well, no, no, no. The lemon juice is you don't need vinegar. You add the lemon juice. That's your citrus that'll kind of brighten up the whole salad. Despite the fact it's called a vinaigrette. Right. Okay.
Farmer Fred
That's good to know because vinegar makes me curl my nose. But it's nice to know a vinaigrette can actually not have vinegar in it.
Myrna Undajon-Haskell
Yes. That's what we do. Anything else?
Farmer Fred
Yeah, I do. I have a question for you. Some of us grew up in households where mom, especially when the asparagus was being harvested, would boil the sucker to death. It's like they thought they must boil asparagus for 15, 20 minutes and it was just limp and very, very poor tasting and mushy and nobody likes that. You said you blanch it. How long do you have it in hot water?
Myrna Undajon-Haskell
Less than two or three minutes. I like it pretty crunchy. That's why I shave it. I have it shaved very thin. What I do is I cut it in half or you can cut it in three pieces just depending on how big you want the slices in your salad. So the water is boiling, you throw it in there, and then you scoop it out and I put it in ice water to keep it bright. And the sugar snap peas, I don't do anything. I just leave them the way I cut them in half and throw it in with that salad.
Farmer Fred
You're waving a piece of paper in my face called “Asparagus Facts and Recipes”. We'll have a link to it in today's show notes. It's produced by the Cooperative Extension people here in California. And there's even a whole paragraph on how to cook fresh asparagus. What does it say there?
Myrna Undajon-Haskell
It says break off asparagus as far down as it snaps easily. Wash thoroughly. Remove any loose scales. Cook stocks by standing on stem and in half inch of boiling water. If the serving is tied into a bundle, it will be easier to handle. Cook uncovered first three minutes, then cover and cook to crisp tender stage. Remove with tongs, season as desired. Well, that's nice and vague. What is crisp tender stage?
Usually I just leave it in for like three minutes. Crisp, tender, it means it's not soft, it's crispy. And it's really, really good that way. It tastes better when it's crisp, tender, because a lot of times you tend to overcook it. We put asparagus on our grill, too. We put it on our barbecue grill. What you do is you season with salt and pepper, olive oil, balsamic vinegar or lemons, and throw it on the grill. Crisp, tender, take it off.
Farmer Fred
You flip it once. I've done that a lot, too, on the grill. And it's like at about 300 or 350 if you have a gas grill and turn it once and you're done like in four or five minutes.
Myrna Undajon-Haskell
Very good.
Farmer Fred
I see there's a section there on seasonings, too, for asparagus. And that those sound pretty good. It says almond.
Myrna Undajon-Haskell
That means you could put toasted almonds on top, dry mustard, nutmeg, tarragon, caraway seed, garlic, onion, curry, lemon, sour cream. Of course, I'm a big lemon fan, so I usually just do lemon, salt and pepper sometimes, maybe some garlic over it too.
Farmer Fred
Since you're a master food preserver, do you preserve your lemons?
Myrna Undajon-Haskell
Yes.
Farmer Fred
How do you do that?
Myrna Undajon-Haskell
Mark, here, gave me a big box of Eureka lemons and I'm going to make preserved lemons and then I'm going to make limoncello too. That's something we don't teach because it's alcohol based. Also I freeze the lemon cubes.
What else do I do with them? I make lemon curd. There's a variety of things you could do with lemons. Let's do something easy I could understand, like lemon cubes.
Farmer Fred
How do you make that?
Myrna Undajon-Haskell Myrna Undajon-Haskell
You squeeze your lemons. What I do is I do it in a strainer so the seeds don't go into the juice. And then I get ice cube packs. Put them in your ice cube pack. Throw them in the freezer. And then when they're solid, take them out. And usually each ice cube pack is like two tablespoons of lemon juice. You put those in a little Ziploc bag and then you have fresh lemon juice all year long.
Farmer Fred
So you could mix that if you're having ice water, you could put that in for a little flavor.
Myrna Undajon-Haskell
True. And then also I do dehydrated lemons, any citrus. That's real good too, because you can dehydrate them and then for your summer parties, you have your ice water, you can do cucumber water, you add your lemons, your dehydrated lemons or oranges, which I do have too, and you add it to your water and it's really a refreshing drink.
Farmer Fred
I have never considered dehydrating citrus before. Is it the same method? If you have a dehydrator, do you cut it into thin slices, maybe a quarter inch, eighth of an inch or so?
Myrna Undajon-Haskell
Yes, yes, you do. I think I use a mandolin. I do quarter of an inch or an eighth of an inch, just depending. And then you just throw them on your dehydrator and they come out really beautiful and I put them in jars. I wish I had one here to show you, Fred, but I don't. I usually bring it right now. I think I'm out of my lemons and I have to dehydrate more.
Farmer Fred
Okay. And how do you rehydrate lemons? Just add water?
Myrna Undajon-Haskell
Just put them in water or what I do is anytime you add it to a recipe it will automatically rehydrate.
Farmer Fred
So it's basically for inclusion in recipes as opposed to snacking on?
Myrna Undajon-Haskell
No, if you like to taste the lemon it kind of comes out sweeter. I've taken one and I've eaten it and it's delicious. Especially a Meyer lemon which is kind of sweet anyway. Yes.
But like I said, we have a few Meyer lemons. This year was a bad year for our neighborhood. A lot of people, their Meyer lemons didn't come in, but I had another friend of mine bring me two bags full, so I have those in my fridge right now.
Farmer Fred
For the tipplers in the audience, which lemon is best in making limoncello?
Myrna Undajon-Haskell
That's a hard one. I have a Lisbon lemon, and I do like the Lisbon lemon. That's what I use. The Meyer lemon, from what other people that have told me about the limoncello,
is a little bit too sweet because you add sugar to it. You want a little bit tart. There is an Italian lemon, which my husband refuses to grow me because I have too much citrus in my yard. So the Lisbon lemon is probably the closest lemon for making limoncello. And again, as a master food preserver, it is an alcohol base. We don't really share that recipe. Also, it makes good marmalades. I do marmalades with it. I do mixed marmalades with a variety of citrus, too. I've done lemon marmalades, I've done lemon jelly. I do lemon everything pretty much.
Farmer Fred
It's the House of Lemon at Myrna Undajon-Haskell's place, she’s a Master Food Preserver and a pretty good gardener too. Hey, thanks for getting us to do something with asparagus and lemons today.
Myrna Undajon-Haskell
Thank you, Farmer Fred. It was a pleasure.
BEYOND THE GARDEN BASICS NEWSLETTER
Farmer Fred
From the garden e-mail bag, Bonnie wants to know: How do you prevent Roly Polys from over-populating raised beds? Using mulch seems to support their growth. They appear to be eating the stems of my bean sprouts, toppling them over like trees. Others tell me they only eat dead material and cause no harm. I am not sure what is true. Thanks for any help you can offer.
Bonnie, that’s a good question to tackle in this week’s Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter. Roly Polys, also known as pill bugs get a bad wrap when garden sprout damage is noticed. Roly Polys tend to linger at the scenes of these horticultural crimes, but there could easily be other culprits to point the finger at, including sow bugs and earwigs. Sowbugs and pillbugs are actually crustaceans, related more to lobsters and crayfish instead of insects. They are omnivores, who mainly (and mainly is the key word here) feed on dead or decaying plants , and are considered somewhat beneficial in our gardens for their role in overturning soil and producing compost. So, what do these somewhat beneficials look like? And what about those earwigs? Are they the true culprit?
All this information is in the May 17th, 2024 edition of the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter, “Don’t Blame the Roly Polys (maybe): All About Pillbugs, Sowbugs, Earwigs”, available now. If you already have signed up, you’ve got it already in your email. For others, you can find a link to the newsletter in today’s show notes, or click on the newsletter tab at the top of our home page, garden basics dot net. The Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter. You can also find it on Substack, at substack.com slash garden basics. Thank You!
Farmer Fred
Garden Basics with Farmer Fred comes out every Tuesday and Friday and it's brought to you by Smart Pots. Garden Basics. It's available wherever podcasts are handed out. For more information about the podcast, as well as transcripts of the podcast, visit our website, gardenbasics.net . And that's where you can find out about the free Garden Basics newsletter, “Beyond the Garden Basics”. And thank you so much for listening.
