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. 

Captain Jack's

DeadBug Garden Dust...

It was a really cloudy and dark day so for most of the morning I thought it was raining, I didn't think to actually check because I was being lazy but around 2pm I went out and it was dry but dark. I went out to check on everything and when I got to Patch I noticed that the radishes had more holes. A lot more. So I went inside to grab the powder, organic pesticide that Mr. S. had gotten along with the Diatom-Earth. It's called Captain Jack's. At first I thought you mixed the powder with water and sprayed it on because the label had liquid conversions on it. For what reason I still don't know, but you don't mix it with water you just dust the plants with it. Makes sense, considering its called Garden Dust. Once I figured that out I went back outside with the dust and started applying it to the radishes. It was difficult because a bunch was pouring out of the salt shaker-like holes and all I needed to do was dust the foliage, bottom and top, but I was dusting the leaves and the soil and myself. So I closed the shaker top and started squeezing. That worked really well. The powder still came out in thin burst with the cap completely closed. I used my fingers to get all the extra powder all over the radish leaves then used the squeeze method to lightly dust the lettuce and the strawberry leaves. It stated very specifically that it was safe for berries and since the bugs eating the radish leaves wouldn't be able to anymore I figured they'd try moving over to my prized berries. While I was dusting the berry leaves I noticed that the 5G bucket plants had shot up about 4 inches but they still don't have any berries growing. They are by far the largest and greenest of the plants but no berries. It's really weird. They don't have any runners yet so that shouldn't be the issue but they just aren't producing berries. I think I may have over planted the container. Online it said that you could fill the bucket and at Home Depot they have tiny containers with 4-5 plants that have berries but I don't know that's the only reason I can think of to explain the lack of berries. Anyway, I'll try some fertilizer (more) and see what happens. Otherwise I might just let the bucket produce runners and new plants for next year. After dusting Patch I dusted the lettuce in Potagar and the green beans. I saw some large pests today, for the first time. I very large bunny and I realized that they always bolt up the hill so I deduced that there must be a hole in the fence by the neighbors house. They aren't getting in through any other fence because we've kept them closed and check everywhere but back there. It's a little creepy dark and overgrown back there. I'll have to check tomorrow. 

After I dusted the green beans I decided to thin them out a little more. I don't want everything to be slow so I am really trying to thin everything down. Now there is about 11 plants in each plot, 2 more and we'll be good. I've been putting all the bean plants I thin in a plastic cup with a little water and the ones i thinned days ago are still green and strong. I might try planting them in a container. I also thinned the spinach. After that I filled a container with plans to plant the thinned beans but I decided to plant a cucumber plant instead. The cucumbers are the only plant that we didn't have an assigned plot for so I figured even if they don't grown fruit it'll be a nice experiment and the foliage will look great. 

Finally, I brought the greenhouse inside and watered the plants in there and the lemon balm. The rain was sure to come and it did just a few minutes after bringing the house in...

Dusted lettuce. It's finally gaining some height and is almost ready to harvest the first leaves. I'm going to go with the continuous harvest method for these and the spinach. Beautiful, I love that green color!

5G strawberry bucket. They've grown about 4 inches taller, but no berries. Dusted.

Dusted 5G bucket from the top.

Lemon Balm seeds on a paper towel. I hadn't looked at this test in awhile and did today and noticed that the lemon balm seeds germinated extremely well on the paper towel. It took them about 3 weeks to get to this stage with "grown up" leaves. 

Dusted radishes. You can see that I didn't know what I was doing here compared to the berries and lettuce. The bugs immediately moved so it works and its organic. The rain doesn't wash it right off but do use the squeeze method. It lightly dusts the entire plant, top and bottom, and looks much nicer. Saves too.

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. 

My Mistake- Picture Insert

Something a little different...

I wanted to do something a little different. So instead of adding these images to today's entry I am giving you a picture insert entry. A bonus, if you may... Below are a few pictures I snapped and zoomed in on to show you a close up of things I've been talking about lately and I'll be adding some tips on how not to do what I've done.

Real "grown up" carrots leaves. The straight leaves are the originals from the seed. Once you've hit the second step of germinating a seed you'll see "true leaves" that means you can start thinning out some of the extra's that haven't made it to that point. Don't wait too long or your plants won't grow at the proper rate. Remember my "slow thumb".

What happens when the newspaper moves? When setting up raised beds on a grassy or organic piece of land you should put down newspaper or cardboard to stifle what will be considered weeds. Be careful not to move that paper when filling you beds or you'll get this... grass growing up through 6 inches of compost to invade your bed. It's impossible to get rid of and a hell of a task to redo the whole thing. Oh and we have a major infestation of earwig babies in there. I guess since it was left untouched the mommies found it to be a perfect place to lay. If you fill your boxes early make sure to cover them with tarp so as to deter pests from making homes and nests. 

Patch Market- as you can see the topsy turvy is on a 7 foot hook. It was impossible to get it there because of the weight. Make sure you have a fresh adjustable hook when hanging containers but if you are hanging strawberries (even in a smaller basket) do hang them high. Mine started to flourish once the sun was hitting them at a higher level.

Holes in the Cherry Belle radish leaves. Some type of insect was eating the leaves. I sprayed with detergent and baking soda and haven't seen any new holes so hopefully these plants will make it through the small chomping.

The small white square on the lantern is the Predalure. It smells like mint and blends right in. I haven't and didn't see any ladybugs today but I'm hoping that by tomorrow it'll have attracted some pest eaters. Great deal, two for $7.

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.

Strawberries Galore!

Or beans...

I went out this morning to water everything. It was a beautiful sunny May day and I had read some tips from Burpee about how to water the tomatoes. I thought I'd tackle that today. Since we don't have a great hose at the moment I fill up a plastic juice jug that holds 3/4 of a gallon of water and then pour that into the water can that holds 2 gallons. It's nice because it's marked from 1/2g to 2g. I filled the juice jug 4 times and poured then started on the first tomato plant. I was able to eyeball when the watering can was about half way full then I'd move on to the next. Since the can only holds 2 gallons and we have 6 plants that need 1 gallon each once a week I had to refill it three times but I think it will be worth the trouble. The Burpee tip, along with other references, said that watering the tomatoes deeply but infrequently was the trick to getting a "bumper" crop. Since Smart Gardener suggested this method of watering as well I went with it. I finally finished watering the tomatoes and moved on to watering everything else. It seems the rain did our garden wonders and I know it seems like "wow one gallon plus all the rain" but that isn't the case. The rain we got lasted 2 days but only have us about .5 inches of water. So I water the beans which are going crazy. We have about 18 plants now and more were popping up. I thinned a couple of the new seedlings because I knew that I'd have to thin them later and didn't see the point of letting them grow any longer. After the beans I checked on the spinach and noticed that the plants are growing there second set of leaves already. They went much quicker than my spinach. I thinned a few plants out the other day and a few more today. I am no longer scared to thin. I officially KNOW that the reason my thumb was a slow was, was because it was actually a slow one. I was waiting way too long to thin and the plants weren't getting there nutrients. I watered the lettuce and the mesclun mix, which also has its grown up leaves coming in, and moved on to the onions, basil and lemon balm. The lemon balm has about 50 bright green and new leaves, the basil is looking fresher every day, and the onions are another inch taller. So things are good in Potagar Schoultz. Once I watered everything there I refilled the can and moved over to Patch. 

Patch Progress...

I watered everything in the raised bed and noticed that my lettuce is not only bushier but taller and more of the carrots have real leaves on them now. Then I moved on to my prized strawberry buckets. The 5G bucket has finally filled all the way in you can't see any of the soil unless you move the leaves over and the 8G bucket has 2 strawberries coming in... SUPRISE SUPRISE!! The container doing the best is the Topsy Turvy it all of the sudden has big beautiful leaves and flowers on it. I couldn't believe it when I saw it. I don't know if moving the container up higher so it got more sun had anything to do with it but it's thriving. I had my major reservations about choosing the Topsy Turvy because of the issues I had in the beginning but I'm glad to be proven wrong on this one. It's pretty amazing to know that those beautiful little white flowers will soon be juicy red berries. I can't wait! 

Finally, I watered all the strawberry containers and all the stuff in the greenhouse and went inside. I wanted to get some weeding, spraying, and research done today but I had a haircut at 2pm and it didn't go well so I put all that off for tomorrow. I spent the day inside trying to fix the disaster I call my hair at the moment but tomorrow I'll set out copper to deter the slugs and snails. I'll pick an insecticide and organic weed killer. And I'll hopefully get the sea magic and "predalure", I mentioned, and spray and put that out.  

Yarn trellis for the beans.

Strawberry flower on the Topsy. Amazing and Gorgeous!

Another Topsy flower just opening up!

The 5G (Right) and 8G (Left) buckets. 

Grown up carrot leaves!

Patch, raised bed. Bushy taller lettuce, carrots, onions on the climb and radishes that have just  hit there growth spurt.