Tomato Hornworms! and a New Website…

Tomato Hornworm

Meet the newest addition to our little garden. Yes, I pulled 4 of these suckers off of my tomato plant the other evening. Haven’t seen anymore since, but I am certain that they will be back!

I also discovered a new website that has greatly impressed me. It documents an urban homestead, completely self-sufficient on 1/5 of an acre! Seriously. Check out Path to Freedom for more info and details!

Spider Mites

After a few days of worrying over my tomato and bean plants and the weird spots I finally saw a web.

Yup. Spider Mites have moved in.

I went out this morning early and sprayed down the leaves of all the plants. I will be spraying daily. Apparently mites don’t like wet. Well then, these leaves will be wet every morning. Hopefully we can control them that way. Otherwise I may have to take stronger measures, though still organic!

A Neglected Garden Blog is a Sign of a Cared for Garden?

Let’s just pretend, okay?

But I have been busy in the garden. With every change, and every unexpected bump I have to remind myself that this was supposed to be a learning/experimenting year.

So what have I learned as of July 1st?

• Squash vine borers suck. Literally. They wiped out my squash for the most part in just over 3 days. Thankfully, I had gotten about 5 pounds of squash off of the plants before the little buggers struck.
• Dwarf is a relative term. Again with the squash. The plants were HUGE! They shaded out the cucumbers and were inching towards the broccolli when the borers struck. Granted, they may have been smaller than a regular squash plant, but still… We decided to add another, smaller box next year for squash only.
• Broccolli really isn’t really worth the time and effort on this scale. It took forever to do anything. We netted 3 small heads off of 9 plants. And I had to spend 1 million hours picking cabbage loper worms off the plants. And they still ate most of the plants. Very disappointing.
• I need to have a better plan for succession plantings. Once the radishes were done I had no plan for what to put in their place. Whoops! So that square has sat empty – partly because I lacked a plan and partly because I underestimated how big the broccolli would get and it shaded that square completely anyway.
• Tomatoes should be caged, even if they are determinate… that’s all I’m sayin’.

Mid-June Garden Update

My little square-foot garden is doing so much better than I ever imagined! Here’s the harvest so far -

4-5 pounds of green beans

5-6 pounds of summer squash

3 okra

1 cherry tomato

24 radishes

2 bell peppers

I am so excited I can hardly see straight.

More Plantings

We planted: Sweet Corn, Yellow Squash, and Okra yesterday. Making for gumbo… Yum!

So far the only harvest so far has been strawberries and we’ve gotten about a dozen little red jewels from those three plants! They are little berries, but they are so much sweeter than the giant berries at the store. Captain Chaos picks and eats them straight from the plant. It’s very funny!

Oh Happy Day!

I was out in the garden this week and what to my wondering eyes should appear? Tiny leaves on the tomato sticks (as we had come to call them). I had heard a local gardening guy talking on the news right after the monster frost that tomatoes that have been buried deep can actually make a comeback after a frost if you just pinch back the damaged areas. DON’T cut them with scissors! They need to be pinched so that the wounds don’t stay open and allow buggies to enter!

So I pinched back and hoped. YAY! They are coming back, slowly, but surely!

I think the same applies to the pepper plants as well, but the jury is still out there as what looks like new leaves may yet just be teasing and not new leaves at all.

In other news the radishes are looking marvy. The broccoli is still sitting there. The beans are coming up seemingly overnight. Good times.

Wanna see some pictures?

Here’s the broccolli – the purple leaves, I am told, indicate exposure to cold (ummm, yeah, we got that).

Here’s the radishes. They make me happy!

A close-up of one of my bean plants. They also make me happy because they are doing so well!

Here’s a row of beans. They came up overnight, I swear! It was amazing…

And last, but not least, one of my valiant tomato plants in the throes of a comeback. I am so proud!

One hundred and eleven

You may be asking why that number is important enough to warrant a place as the title of this post. Let me present the facts:

1. I planted a lovely raised-bed square-foot garden this year. It’s the first year I have attempted to grow my own veggies.

2. Our average last date of frost is March 15th.

3. We had a freeze on March 27th and 28th.

4. We had a freeze last night, April 6th/7th.

It’s the first time in 111 years we have had a freeze this late in the spring. 111 years. I take full responsibility. I planted a garden. It’s all my fault.

Sad Day at the Funny Farm

A freak cold snap came through this weekend. <Sigh>

We covered the plants, but apparently it wasn’t enough. The peppers and tomatoes do not appear to have survived. I am going to pinch back the burned parts and see if they can be resusitated, but I am not holding my breath, they look pretty dead to me. Party Boy and I talked about it and we decided that we will replant if the plants do not spring back.

Lessons learned:

1. We need better covers for next spring. Or a cold frame. Or both. Party Boy will be handling these projects for next spring. We even already have the designs in mind.
2. If we do not have better covers we will be waiting until April to begin planting warm weather crops (i.e. peppers, tomatoes, etc.).

The good news is that the broccoli, radishes and cucumber seedlings seem to have survived alright. The cucumber seed leaves have yellow tips and one that was just starting to emerge seemed to have been burnt. The others haven’t emerged yet or were still in the ground enough that they were protected. We’ll see what happens over the next few days.

I started all of the bean seeds inside and they have germinated, so they’ll be going into the ground today.

Then once it warms up properly we’ll be starting okra and corn.

I am hopeful that this really was our last freeze. Oh, the joys and sorrows of gardening.

Well, that was quick…

I transplanted the germinated cucumber seeds into the bed today. Apparently they liked the warm on top of the dryer. Next to the nursery – bean seeds! Yay!

In other weekend news, we worked outside all day on Saturday. We started it all with a trip to Lowe’s (of course) for an aerator. Then it was off to the Feed Mill where my new best friend (and the owner of the Feed Mill) Mr. P talked compost and tomatoes with me. I love the Feed Mill.

We came home and got right to work. Party Boy started by beginning the yard aeration. It was tedious work walking through the yard and pulling little plugs from the ground. The good news is that the yard was perfectly prepared for the procedure – just the right amount of moisture, which in the clay soil makes the job much easier.

I pulled the weeds that had popped up in the front flower beds and then took turns with Party Boy aerating the lawn.

After the yard was fully aerated we put down the fertilizer, Texas Tee. Then we moved back to the backyard where my tomato plants were eagerly awaiting transplantation.

We planted 4 tomato plants in the raised bed – 2 Homestead heirloom determinate and 2 Patio cherry determinate. Four more Homesteads went into pots. Three more went home with my mother-in-law this afternoon. Somehow, I will have homegrown tomatoes this year!

After that was done we cleaned up and put all the tools away, swept off the porch and watered all of the plants. It was a good day and we had fun working together, but I am glad it’s done. Now to hope that the “severe weather” that’s supposed to move through here won’t crush, mangle, or maul my poor plants!!

Cucumber Conundrum

Following the advice read in books, online, and the back of the seed packet – we planted our cucumber seeds (Ferry-Morse Pepino) on March 7. It’s been 2 weeks and….nothing. No sprouts, no nothing. The package says they;ll germinate in 8 days. It’s been 14 days. Hmmmmm. What to do?

I truly don’t think it is the fault of the seeds. I think that perhaps the weather worked against us. The week after we planted the seeds we suffered through a cold, rainy three days. This would have been right when they were germinating. <Sigh.>

I am willing to give the seeds even more time, but to mitigate the damage I looked up online how to germinate seeds inside. So, I moistened a paper towel, placed it in a plastic baggie and put the seeds on top of the paper towel. I sealed it up tight and put it in the nice warm laundry room. Once we have germination we’ll transplant them outside.

In the meantime, the others might still come to life I suppose…

That’s the hard thing about gardening. It’s just a waiting game.