What Did You Do In The Garden?

[flowerbug]

Finished killing the destroyed sweet corn. Planted pumpkins there. If they don’t make it, nothing lost.
Harvested cilantro and poppy seeds. Why is it that cilantro is done just as tomatoes come on? I’ve tried to start new seeds for the 3rd time today.
Planted cabbage and bunching onions seeds as well. It will be a miracle if onions come me up as seed is 9 years old....

well one thing about onions is that often you can get so many seeds that perhaps even a few will persist. let us know if you get any to sprout it will be interesting.

 

[Zeedman]

Picked the first harvest from the Spring planting today - some Gretel eggplant. Its a really strange year when I'm picking eggplant before green beans.

 

[digitS']

I have some homemade cages made of heavy duty fencing panels. Some of them are older than I am, and still going strong. Last year I had problems with the wind knocking them over, and by the time I got them secured with t-posts and wire it was such an eyesore my family complained....my veg garden is in the front yard, lol. I promised to try something a little less embarrassing this year.

I have seen those flimsy tomato cages used turned upside down in pots for climbing flowers, and also as a base for lights and greenery at christmastime

Before I began growing so many tomato plants in the garden, I had homemade fencing cages. They were secured against the wind with a stake. Then, I felt that they needed 2 stakes, with some - I put in 3.

Looking at this, I thought "what the heck am I doing?" The next year, I just used 3 stakes and twine. After I began to add more plants - I quit trying to give them support and just allowed them to sprawl. It sure isn't the best system, either.

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

weeded a lot (a few thousand square feet) of the limestone mulched areas. i originally went out to weed in the fenced gardens, but never got that far.

it wasn't too bad, but i want to head off any of the seed droppers from getting to where they will have pods to drop. scan the area and plan my route to clear it. bada-bing-bong and it gets done.

hot and humid. i only was able to stay out for about an hour and a half and that was enough.

will have to make some dill pickles later. that's enough for a mid-summer hot day...

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

Max the cat brought in a live shrew. Its holed up behind my very heavy, anchored to the wall (earthquakes), china cabinet. Sigh...

 

[Prairie Rose]

Very little garden work done this week, in spite of the beautiful weather. Cornfield I am surrounded by is pollinating, and trips outside are limited to mad dashes to the car and back, since my eyes are swelling up even through allergy meds. I did water the veg garden, pull a few weeds in it, and redust my tomatoes for worms after the rains we had on monday. The DE i put on first only slowed them down a little, but I had some sevin dust out in the barn. Only use it when I have no other choice, but now the big beefsteak tomatoes are definitely going to survive to give me more than a handful of tomatoes each. I will probably pull the romas once the tomatoes ripen. Even if they recover, they aren't going to give me anything else before frost.

 

[flowerbug]

mowing, weeding, picking cucumbers, making pickles. looks like another nice day today so more weeding for sure.

 

[Zeedman]

On the pest front, the first Japanese beetles have shown up. I'm experimenting with a couple traps this year, about 100' from the gardens, to see if they can intercept some of the beetles as they emerge. I also found some SVB eggs on the squash, because the rain had prevented me from covering the plants with floating row cover as I usually do. I'm experimenting with Neem this year, sprayed directly on the eggs, to see if it will be effective. Twice while spraying, a couple of the moths appeared - so I sprayed them too. The egg-laying period is later than usual (as is everything else this year), but hopefully ends soon. Time will tell, I'll report back on the results.

An update. I had purchased two different JB traps (Bonide and Spectracide) and ended up placing both about 30' from the East side of the longest garden, 20' apart, for comparison. After 24 hours, it was obvious that the Bonide trap was MUCH more effective; the beetles were several layers deep in the bag, while only a dozen or so were in the Spectracide trap. I purchased two more of the Bonide traps, placing one between the two gardens, and one on the West side.
I have been emptying the traps daily into a bucket of soapy water, about 100-200 beetles a day. All of those would likely be munching on the beans & soybeans otherwise, requiring constant patrol on my part, with a hand sprayer, to keep them in check (as I did last year). The results on the East side of the gardens are remarkable - not a single beetle yet on the beans & soybeans planted there... last year, that was the area most heavily attacked. The trap on the West side has been only minimally effective, though, still seeing 10-20 beetles per day on that end... so it seems that locations downwind are the best placement. Unfortunately, downwind from the West side would place it mid-garden, and I don't want to attract the beetles there.

The beetles only appeared here 4-5 years ago, but their numbers have been increasing exponentially each year; so I guess traps will be the norm from now on. I've never been interested in spraying anything on my lawn either, but will try milky spore to reduce the beetles in the grub stage. I sure wish the bird population would take an in interest in the JB's.

As for the SVB... it appears that I missed a few eggs. The infestation does not appear to be severe, though, and the vines are still healthy. 4 of the 9 plants show no sign of infection at all, which given the large number of eggs observed on all plants, indicates that the Neem killed most of them. I would still prefer to use floating row cover during the egg-laying period, but I'm glad there appears to be a good backup plan.

 

[flowerbug]

JB's have been around here for quite a long time.

i finally got rid of most of the wild grape vine that was their main congregation point but of course they are happy to eat beans and some of the other plants here. when they start showing up i get out in the morning and hand pick those i can find.

we don't have much grass/turf here but there is plenty along the roads and other people who keep huge lawns.

 

[Zeedman]

Over the years, I read of the JB problems of those just East of me (which probably included you, @flowerbug ). They were spreading Westward, and I dreaded their inevitable incursion into my area. They do move slowly, though. My rural garden, only 6 miles West, is only beginning to be infected. All of the intervening farm fields between here & there probably slowed their advance. Maybe they choke on all of those GM soybeans... I should be so lucky.