Extension Offices – Odd Questions

University of Georgia Extension offices are sometimes the place of last resort for people with odd questions. Extension agents and their assistants sometimes, however, get questions just a bit beyond the pale.

Aaron Lancaster, Extension agent in Bibb county, posed these questions to her Master Gardener training class:

The situations below are real questions received in Extension offices. Select and answer five (5) of the questions -your choice! Please attach your answers to the exam. Any insight you may have would be greatly appreciated. Maybe you’ll be able to come up with better answers than we did.

1. How do you keep birds out of trees?

2. Where can I buy kudzu plants?

3. Can I farm at night?

4. Do you know anybody that grows black widow spiders? I need 3000 of them.

5. What is the best spray for pre-adolescent fleas?

6. Will a flame-thrower control chickweed? [The answer to this question by the way, is yes].

7. Are horny toads dangerous? (Horned toads).

8. Lightning hit my pecan tree…can I still eat the pecans?

9. How do you get rid of tentacles?

10. My father-in-law urinated all over my beans last night to keep the deer away. Can I still eat the beans?

11. Should I plow my vegetable garden from left-to-right or from right-to-left?

12. I smell vinegar in my backyard; does this mean that I have termites?

13. I have fire ants in my sofa. How do I get them out?

14. If I put sugar around my sugar maple tree, will this make the leaves more colorful?

15. If I grind up banana peels and spread them over my yard, will the grass be greener?

16. Bluejays are attacking my yard! Does Ortho make a product called ‘Jay-Away’?

17. What was the price per pound of green peanuts in 1981?

18. How do I keep rats from chewing holes in the radiator hose on my ’92 Buick?

19. Do boxelder bugs live in boxelder trees?

20. Can I put formaldehyde on my vegetable garden to kill Fusarium wilt on my tomatoes?

21. I have a plant in my yard, I do not know what it is, and it is been there awhile. Do you know what it is?

22. When I moved into my new house, the builder advised I should water my new lawn 3 times a day. How long should I continue to do this? I’ve lived here for seven years now.

23. I need help. My lawn is infested with piranha! (Poa annua, Annual Bluegrass).

24. When is the best time to plant containerized plants? I took out all of my shrubs and trees and put them in the garage before the last hurricane and now I want my garage back.

25. I need a conical (cone-shaped) evergreen shrubs that stays under 3 feet tall and never needs pruning?

26. How many Krispy Kreme doughnuts will one red wiggler worm eat in a day?

27. Where do I buy “human feathers” to use for composting? Even after repeating the question 3 times -and- spelling out H-U-M-A-N feathers, the caller kept saying “Yes, I want human feathers”.

28. When I eat blueberries, my teeth hurt. Why?

Other situations…

29. An older gentleman who wanted to know where to buy “heirloom hybrid beans” and Amish ploughshares and horses so he could move to the North Georgia mountains because Atlanta was going to be under 200 feet of water and he needed these supplies to grow “heirloom hybrid beans” for their survival. After all Brazil was going to the new North Pole and India the new South Pole! He directed the program assistant to a website (zeta.com). Afterwards, she realized that he meant “hybrid beings” and their ability to not reproduce. Go figure.

30. One UGA Extension Agent had a site visit at a nudist resort.