Hornworm Ho!

Yuck...

I went early this morning to try and catch the squash flowers at a time when they were open and check on everything else. The squash has been teetering on the edge of just being nice foliage, unluckily, because the insects aren't cross pollinating between gender and gender enough so I wanted to pull some make flowers and rub there stigma into the female stigmas but, again unluckily, only one male flower was open and all of the rest were closed. They're supposed to open during the day but aren't which leads me to believe that the insects would pollinate enough if the flowers would open up. Anyway, I moved on to check on everything else and was about to start pulling the suckers off of the tomato plants when I saw it, a disgusting long, fat, branch colored caterpillar. YUCK! It scared me to death, almost. I went inside and told Mrs. S about the horned worm sitting on the branch. Eventually, she offered to get rid of it for me. I handed her a gallon size ziplock, a pair of gloves, and scissors. She cut away all the blocking foliage put the bag over the branch with the caterpillar on it and cut the branch into the bug. Then she asked if we should move it or kill it. I figured if we moved it would just find its way back so she put the bag with the branch in it on the ground and smashed it with her foot. The whole thing was very courageous of her. I would never have been able to do that. The caterpillar exploded, disgustingly inside, and we trashed the whole thing. Afterwards I googled "green caterpillar with red horn" and found out that are disgusting little friend was a tomato hornworm. They feed on and destroy tomato plants. I'll be working on finding out how to keep them away for the rest of the day. There gross scary and dangerous. They'll kill the entire bed if given the chance and deter me from reaching in and picking tomatoes. So either way we won't get any fruit. 

Can you find the hornworm? It blends in so disgustingly well. 

Pea Trellis, Peanut?

Early Morning...

I woke up very early this morning, around 7am, to spray the grass in the far beds. I realized that the beds get the best sun from when it comes up around 8am to about 12pm so to burn the grass properly I needed to spray before the sun. I grabbed the EcoSmart and sprayed all the grass and for good measure I spray again with the vinegar/detergent mixture I had left in a spray bottle. Then I went back inside. 

Early Afternoon...

I had plans to go to the salon with my Mom today so I wanted to get the watering done before I had to leave at 2pm. I filled the watering can, grabbed a peanut plant, the shovel, and headed over to Patch Market first. I wasn't sure I'd have time for everything before I left but I wanted to get the Peanut plant into my bed before the sun moved. I planted the Peanut, watered everything, and pulled out the jalapeño sign. 

I ran out of time rushed inside to change and left. 

Peanut plant.

Strawberry blooms overnight.

Late Afternoon...

When I got home I changed and went out to do some more watering and planting. I wanted to plant the pepper plants and put the green bean trellises up. Before I did that I went I to Patch Market to show Mike my strawberry flowers. I'd noticed that they'd all bloomed overnight and wanted to show them off. After he left I noticed that there was clover on the left side of my bed. All of the sudden it made sense that I had those red velvet mites that like clover. I didn't know why they'd shown up without the proper food, maybe radishes were a type of clover leaf was one thought, but no there was actual clover. So I went I side to grab the vinegar mix and sprayed the clover until it was soaked. I'm hoping the little red nasties will move on now. The radishes are gone and now the clovers smell bad and will die. 

When I was done spraying I grabbed the pepper plants and looked on the back of there labels to try to figure out the spacing. I couldn't figure out my plan for that box without the Potagar Schoultz diagram from Smart Gardener. I went inside pulled up the diagram/plan and went back out. We'd have one extra pepper plant. I planted the golden bell & jalapeño pepper to the left of the green beans and the red beauty peppers in the 2x2 plot left. I watered the peppers and sprayed them with epsom salt. Now that those were placed and the bed was full I was able to insert the trellises without worrying about the space the legs were taking up in the surrounding spaces. I made a tepee trellis by leaning 2 square wooden trellises against each other for support and aesthetics. 

I was going to plant the remaining pepper plant in a 12x12inch container but the Mosquitos were eating me alive and I'm allergic. I forgot about those pests during my craze and fear over the others. They are actually the bugs in least afraid of but they affect me the most. If I get more than 3-4 bites I get a fever. So I ran inside. 

Once inside I grabbed the nail polish remover and the jalapeño marker I'd brought in and removed the nail polish. I grabbed black and brownish polish and painted the word "peanuts" and pictures of 3 peanuts in there she'll on the tile. I blew on it to dry it and quickly ran back out to switch out the paper marker, that read Have you ever seen a peanut grow?, for the tile one in the bed. 

I ran back in to avoid any bites and I put everything away then of to shower.

Pepper plants; Golden bell (L), Jalapeno (M), Red Beauty (Front R).

Trellises over peas.