Ladies Present

Runners... 

There hasn't been much to do in the garden not even watering because we've been getting light rain and sun. The one thing I did do was pull off a few runners from the most beautiful strawberry plants ever. I pulled off about 6 runners. The rest of the plants didn't have any yet. I'm sure they will be growing some soon. A runner is a strawberry stem that grows horizontally to the soil and "runs" across. The part of the stem closest to the crown is usually reddish in color but does not have to be. 

Ladybugs...

I finally saw a few lace wings and ladybugs. The one ladybug I noticed first was happily ass deep in a tomato plant eating up all the aphids it could get. I am so glad that we finally have some ladybugs in the garden. The tomato plants were becoming aphid infested. The dark spots on the branches in the picture. Are clumps but the ladies and laces have been doing there job well because the whole plant used to be a dark spot. Yay!! We might need to buy some ladybugs but I'm not sure yet. The Predalure doesn't seem to have work as expected. We do have some lacewings and ladybugs but I don't know that there are more then usual. It actually seem Ike there may be less ladybugs. So a Predalure may be a waste of money, I'll keep you posted.

First tomato in Potagar. A mortgage lifter.

Patty-pan squash blossom, edible. 

Crookneck squash blossom, open then closed. Attached to a 2 inch squash. Ready to harvest at 6 inches.

Largest strawberry on Topsy Turvy.

Danver126, carrot greens, largest and tallest yet. 

Crawling Killer

Pest Killer Powder...

Yesterday when I was trying to get the weeds out of what is supposed to be our melon bed, about a million baby earwigs popped out of the compost I was digging into. I was so startled I almost fell back onto the onion, herb, tomato bed. I, obviously, stopped working on the weeds right after that and went inside. I was completely freaked out. I'd already been thinking about earwigs since that one grown up one popped out of the trellis but I never thought we'd have such an infestation. After reading about how much damage a few could do I frantically emailed Mr. S. about trying to pick up some Diatomaceous Earth. It's not usually used outside but it is 100% organic, food grade, and effective crawling bug killer, so I went with it. I emailed saying that "we can kiss our gardens goodbye" if we didn't take care of this problem before the earwigs spread. Luckily, he is as invested in his garden as I am in mine and his, so he got the email and went straight out at 7am to get the powder. Turns out the hardware store didn't open until 8am but he went back out to get it then and lined all the beds and poured a generous amount on the dormant beds. THANK GOD! When I got up it was all done. He didn't spread any in Patch, I think because he knows I like to deal with Patch alone, but I did. I sat and watched, after outlining the bed, containers and Topsy hook, I watched a potato bug crawl into the powder start climbing up the brick wall of my bed, fall, crawl a little more, try again, and die. IT WORKED! I actually kind of felt bad for the little guy because the powder was meant for earwigs but I think potato bugs are bad for veggies too so I got over it. Considering that Diatom-Earth isn't really for outside use we'll have to re-do everything after the rain but I'm hoping that by then it'll have taken care of the major infestation and just left a few crawling pests and the flying ones behind. Mr. S. picked up something else that we can use to protect our plants against our 6-8 legged pests but I forgot what it was called. I do know it's 100% organic, supposedly effective, and it can be sprayed directly on veggies, fruits, berries, and herbs. I'll spot test it tomorrow and let you know the name and what happens. 

Other than that I didn't do much in the garden today. I just checked on everything and made sure the soil was moist. Like I've said before I am trying to suppress my urge to over water so I didn't because it was beautiful but mildly chilly and all of the plants seemed perky and well watered. I think the Sea Magic has helped them out too. The radishes looked bushier and didn't have anymore holes in them. Now, as long as the earwig invasion has been controlled we'll be fine until the "Predalure" kicks in. As of this afternoon I hadn't seen one lacewing or ladybug. If those things don't end up working I'll be pissed. They seemed like such a nice and organic way to deal with pests. I hate having to use powders and sprays even if they are organic. Now, don't get me wrong, I would have used straight poison on the far bed to kill all of those earwigs but those were extenuating circumstances. 

This is the brand and exact bag we bought. It's 4lb for about $8. Worth it in a pinch.

What diatom earth looks like. 

Magic Juice

Arrived...

This morning my order finally arrived. I had placed the order for Sea Magic and a Predalure on April 29 and April 30th they said the "order shipped" but there was no tracking number or estimated delivery date so I just kept checking for it everyday. I didn't check today because I really didn't expect it and, of course, it came. I immediately opened it and look through all the instructions. At first, I was extremely confused by the Sea Magic directions. It said to pour the contents of the package into a 1 gallon bucket or bottle and that was it. I said to Mike "what is going on? Burpee advertised 60 gallons." What I didn't realize was that after you dissolve the contents you use that as your concentrate and mix 3 tablespoons of concentrate with every quart of water. Obviously, they weren't going to expect people to have a 60 gallon container to mix the contents into. So I mix half of the contents into 2 liters and zip locked the rest. I didn't even have a gallon bucket/container. Then I put it in a cool spot, as recommended, and went outside to hang the predalure. It actually came with 2 so I hung them both. One in patch and one on the Shephard hook in Potagar. We have a major earwig infestation in one of the empty beds so I figured we'd need all the help we could get. 

Sea Magic...

A few hours later after Mike left for his weekend trip I went upstairs to mix up a bottle of Sea Magic. I put 1.5 tbsp into 1.5 cups of water in a spray bottle. I sprayed all the plants, liberally, and watered the ones that needed it. I am so excited to see if this stuff works. I had to make 3 spray bottles but I finally got everything sprayed and watered. To be honest, I thought the plants were responding pretty instantly to the spray. They looked perkier after there spray down. The last bottle had about 1/2 a cup left when I was done so I poured it into the Topsy Turvy. You can water the plants and spray them with sea magic. Its up to you. The product is 100% organic so it doesn't matter how you use it, it's supposed to work.

Thinning...

After I finished spraying everything down I thinned a few of the plots. I thinned the green beans down to about 30 plants. I know I still need to thin them down to 18 plants but I want to figure out the trellis issue before I do so I thin the ones that aren't in prime placement for the second twine trellis, we'll need 2. I moved on to thinning the spinach. It's 4 plants per plot and 4 plots. At the moment, even after thinning, we have about 30 plants so I need to thin a little more there too but they are still in early stages so I want to give them time to show me there strength. 

Fencing...

Mr. S. built the first furry pest barrier today and I helped him staple gun the netting on before heading inside. 

Green beans I thinned today.

Roots of the thinned beans. I thought it was pretty amazing that the root system was already so big.

Fencing, its pretty amazing that you can hardly see a double layer of black netting around the bed. All you can really see are the posts and the corners of the netting.

Container spinach in progress.

Lemon Balm in progress.

All the watermelon seedlings I have so far. The count is 7 and they were all planted at different times in different forms.

Predalure Hurry

Twine Trellis Crazed...

So last night after I wrote my last blog entry I looked up "twine trellises" on google. I found a bunch used for beans and decided to try a few out. I wanted to see which would be the best. Since I was basically out of twine I used heavy duty yarn and made 3 different types. I finally chose the tallest wrap around version. I put it in the garden and took a look with a flashlight. It looked great at night. This morning, the first sunny day in 3, I went outside to check the soil moisture, temp, and have another look. The red yarn I used didn't look so hot. The trellis itself looks great. It is space evenly the beans will grow up the yarn perfectly and they'll need it because they've double in a day. We had 7 plants now we have 14+. Its amazing. I'll have to thin them out but I won't be able to do that until they are long/tall enough to reach the trellis. I didn't plant them for this type of trellis so it is going to come down to which ones reach well and will grow well up the trellis. The rest I'll thin. I thought abbout going out to get some twine and making yet another trellis but the beans have gone so crazy and will grow so quickly that the yarn will be covered in no time. Now the only thing that I'm worried about is the shade the beans will create once they've grown. They will end up shading a few of the square feet allotted to the pepper plants, which need full sun, and that won't work. I'll have to think about what I can switch around if anything. I may just end up planting more beans in those plots and making a tepee string trellis. The sun will hit the sides fully and the center will be unused. 

Otherwise not too much work in the garden which is too bad. The rain stopped me from working over the weekend and today was my moms birthday so I ran errands until we met for dinner and by the time I got back it was dark. I have a lot of weeding, organic pest removing, fertilizer, soil preparing, and etc. to do in the next few days. I don't want to get behind on this stuff because all of the garden references I look to for info have said that the best way to keep pests away, insects worms and the lot, is to have healthy plants. The more healthy the plants the less attractive they are to insects. Irony of irony's the insects deteriorate the health. Organic insecticides were the one thing I didn't research to death before planting Patch or Potagar so I don't have any real clue what I am going to use. At the moment to aid with the health of the plants I've purchase Sea Magic. A seaweed concoction that you mix with water (makes 60 gallons) and spray on your plants. It apparently, like all sea weed products, helps plants grow my 30% or more. It keeps them insanely healthy and speeds growth. The other thing I got is a "predalure" it is a tea bag type thing that you hang in the garden and whatever is in the bag attracts ladybugs and lace wings. Both bugs eat pests like aphids, larvae, white flies, and etc. I'm hoping it works quickly so that I don't have to worry too much about making and testing baking soda and oil, oil and soap, and other mixes. 

I will test them for your sake on the test plants but that will help me more for next year. I do want to test those types of mixes I just don't want to be in a hurry to test them on my actual garden until I've had a chance to really test them on test plants. I'll be letting you guys know which ones work once I figure out the actual gardens. I've already seen earwigs, potato bugs, and a few weird flies so I need to get going. HELP!!!! 

This controlled release attractant is a magnet for beneficial, predatory insects such as lady beetles and lacewings that aggressively feed on aphids, mites, scale crawlers, caterpillar and beetle eggs and larvae and many other pests.

Sea Magic micro-nutrients, amino acids, growth-promoting and disease-fighting powers help deliver magical yields: 24% more tomatoes, 47% more peppers, 34% more cucumbers and 25% more grapes to name a few.