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.

Twine Wall

...Trellis...

Last night when I was looking through the Pinterest gardening section I came upon a pin about a twine ball trellis. It looked amazing and decorative but also sounded like it would really work. What you had to do was build a tall frame out of bamboo shoots or wood and wrap twine from the top to the bottom and back until you got to the other side of the frame. Then you put the tip of each bean plant in the loops made out of wrapping the twine and they would, eventually, grow up the twine in fancy little lines. Mike's dad had just advised me that the bean poles were too short so I took a screenshot and saved the directions. 

This Afternoon...

I started building the frame, it was about 5 feet tall and then I leaned the frame against the wall and started wrapping the twine around it. When I got half way done the frame started warping. I held it between my toes on each foot to try to keep it straight and it worked but the second I let go it would lean heavily to one side or the other. Finally, I decided it was because the frame wasn't evenly put together. I started pushing and pulling, trying to get it even but that didn't work. I finally got so frustrated I ripped the whole thing apart and took the twine off. I sat down and started wrapping the twine back into a ball so that I could try again with a shorter frame. I used 4 bamboo shoots and made a new 3 foot frame. I wrapped the twine around and it was good. It leaned a little but not as much as the first. I took it outside, in the constant drizzle, and tried it out. It was too small. I knew it would be so I grabbed one of the worthless tepee trellises and brought that inside. I dried it off and started taking all of the poles off except for the 4 I needed for the frame. I untied each piece of twine and set it aside. As I was working through this I suddenly see an EARWIG. I abhor earwigs. They are so disgusting and they have pincers and they're extremely bad for veggie gardens. I didn't know what to do I didn't have anything on hand to smash it, not even a shoe. So I grabbed the closest book and SLAM. I smashed it. UGH! Then I put plastic kitchen gloves on. I was too scared to touch the trellis without them. I figured it had been hiding in the twine or in one of the holes in the shoot. So I continued and finally was down to 4 poles about 5 feet tall and 3 feet wide. I wrapped the twine, lifted it up, and it didn't lean. I had done it. It looked good too. I took it out and put it in place. It really adds something and I think that the beans will look all that much better when there growing individually up there piece of twine. It'll look decorative and we'll be able to see there progress easily. 

Patch...

After that I went to check on Patch. The constant light drizzle has done everything really well and so has my thinning. I didn't realize how important thinning was until today. My radishes are like 3 times the size they were before, the carrots are sprouting real leaves like crazy, and the spinach is an inch taller. The inch doesn't seem like much but believe me it is... they've only grown 5 inches in more than a month so one inch in a few days is major. On a not so nice note the 7 strawberry plants in the 5G bucket don't have any flowers, not one. They are bushy and growing like crazy but they aren't blooming. I don't know if I need to thin them out a bit or if they are just going slower or what but the Topsy Turvy has flowers and the 8G bucket has a strawberry starting and several flowers. The 5G bucket doesn't even have the promise of a flower. All the new growth close to the crown looks like leaf growth, no buds. I hope they bloom soon because I would be disappointed if they just turned out to be greens and nothing more.