Garden Update

Under the light of day I did find some things wrong with my garden, but none that I could have avoided even if I were here. My pumpkin vine is dead. The leaves are all brown and shriveled. The poor pumpkin is only half ripe. I kept holding out hope that it would have time when I first saw it, but I knew it was not likely. I'll leave it in the ground for a while longer, but how can it ripen without any leaves to make energy?

The bed that I've been renovating for my garlic and onions have developed holes. I suspect voles, but I suppose it could be chipmunks too. The holes are large enough for a chipmunk to squeeze in. I think even if the rodents are using that area I'll be ok. Most of them aren't into the allium family. Usually you are told to plant them around the garden to repel rodents. So they probably won't be taking bites out of them. But you never know. That one chipmunk did insist on tasting my chili peppers. . . once.

Though the tomatoes are still going, especially the Sungolds, the rest of the summer crops are about done. I started pulling up the Kentucky Wonder beans today. I'll finish it up tomorrow. They were planted to shade the lettuce, which was great in the summer, but now it is slowing the growth of the lettuce down by too much. There is so little sun here in September anyway. They need to get ripped out.

The eggplants look pretty, but they have no fruit left on them. Now that the nights are so cold, I don't think anymore will set. So tomorrow I'll pull them out too.

Autumn Has Arrived

The warm weather crops are really starting to slow down these last couple of days. Our temperatures have only been in the 60s during the day. Brrr. The eggplants are no longer growing to 5 or 6 inches. Now they are starting to ripen at 3 inches. They are cute little tiny eggplant. It takes a few to make anything with them.

The newly set jalapenos are falling off the plant before they grow. The older ones seem to be fine, but unless our weather warms up significantly no more will grow.

The beans are taking ages to grow. Usually my Kentucky Wonder beans have a window of about a day where you can pick them before they grow too large. Now they are ripening slowly.

The cucumbers are only giving me one or two a day. They used to produce twice as much.

Fall is definately in the air. That prompted me to check out my pumpkin. It is starting to turn orange. The plant itself looks pitiful, all covered in powdery mildew, but I think the pumpkin might actually win the race over the mildew. I hope so. I can imagine the taste of pumpkin pie every time I look at it.

Reclaiming My Sun

A couple of years ago I got rid of my little water garden. Into its place I moved most of my herbs. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with the space where the herbs used to be. Some of them are still there. I have a lemon thyme, one of my oregano plants, my sage and one of my chives. To keep the place presentable I split some hostas and plunked them in. It isn't a good spot for hostas. It is in direct sunlight. As I said before full sun is now hard to come by in my garden. I decided the bed has to be put back into production. It has sun. How could I give it to hostas? Really, what was I thinking? But what to do with the ripped out hostas?

The fairly incompetent landscapers that mow my yard have been weed whacking down my hostas on the other side of the fence (see before and after photo above). This is the spot under the crab apple tree where nothing grows well and is in full shade. Usually hostas do ok there, but not if they get weed whacked to death. So I've moved the other herb garden hostas to their place. They are much bigger hostas then the old ones. Do you think the landscapers will notice them and leave them alone? I can only hope.

Now that the hostas are gone, I have a better sense of what is left to do. I need to consolidate the herbs that are left. I think I will get rid of the extra chive plant. I really don't need two of them. I only use one. I've transplanted a part of the oregano to the bare spot between the sage and the thyme at the end. I'll rip out the rest in a bit, but right now the wasps are loving the flowers.

My big impediment to finishing the project is the pumpkin vine. You can see it in the path. It travels from the left hand bed where it was planted, travels along the path for about six feet then heads over the fence. It has no leaves on it anymore. They were killed by mildew. However the plant is still alive on the other side of the fence, and the pumpkin is still growing. It looks like I can just move the vine and dig, but pumpkin vines root into the ground at the leaf nodes. That vine may not have leaves but it does have roots. I really don't want to kill my pumpkin.

So right now I'm stuck. The path is way too wide right there. It should only be 18" - the width of the brick paver I put in the path. It needs to be turned over and compost turned in and allowed to decompose for a while since the compost is still a little green. I'm going to plant garlic there this fall at the end of October. So I do have some time, but not much if I want to use that compost.

Pumpkin Reprieve

Today I noticed the mildew starting to take over the cucurbits again. The older leaves always get hit first. I mercilessly hacked off more leaves starting at the bottom. I have about ten feet of pumpkin vine defoliated. My yellow summer squash looks kind of funky since it is now in the path and no longer in its bed. I think I ought to cover crop that section too. I'll get to it, but not today. As I hacked off leaves I did see that the borers are in my summer squash. Frass can be seen everywhere. The writing is on the wall for these plants.

This is very normal around here. The vine borers move in and it weakens the plants enough that the mildew kills them off. I'm trying to keep the any leaves with mildew picked off. It should help keep it from spreading. I'm thinking they have just one or two weeks left of life. Now don't feel sorry for me. If they do make it that long it will be a record for my summer squash. I've always lost it in the middle of August before. And wonder of wonders they are still producing. I picked two zucchini today.

I do have my two late planted summer squash, again one of zucchini and one yellow. They won't get borers so I'm hoping they can withstand the mildew. This might just be wishful thinking since I've had to clip one leaf off today. Luckily tomorrow is spray day, so that ought to help them. They are still so tiny and are only producing male blossoms.

I've never done a late planting before. It will be interesting to see if the experiment works. I'm wondering if it is really worth it or not though. I saved a 4'x4' planting space for them (which I should have cover cropped in the spring but didn't, or at least grown onions or something there). Zucchini is so productive it is worth the experiment. I didn't weigh my summer squash - next year, but I have gotten a lot. I doubt a fall crop will be as productive since it is cold and not as sunny.

Yesterday I was talking about ripping my pumpkin plant up. This morning I was weeding the perennial bed (where the pumpkin vine has sprawled) and lo and behold there was a pumpkin that I couldn't see from inside the fence. It is nestled next to my iris and on top of my daphne (which I only grow because I like the name ;). It is 3 1/2" long so far. So the pumpkin vine has been given a pardon and will live - or at least be allowed to die slowly, since that seems to be its unenviable fate. We might actually get a pumpkin this year. It is still not guaranteed, but we now have a chance. That made my daughter ecstatic and me too since I love pumpkin pie and these are pie pumpkins.

Pumpkins or Cover Crops?

I've been contemplating ripping my pumpkin vine out and putting in a cover crop. It has yet to set any pumpkins. All of the female flowers have fallen off due to stress (vine borers and mildew). But every time I think about it, I look at the flowers. My bees are so happy with the pumpkin blossoms. Plus they help to fertilize my summer squash.

So instead of ripping them up, today I just sowed the cover crop over the area. When it germinates I might pull the pumpkins up, or I might wait until the cover crop is a little bigger. The pumpkin vine is not in its planting spot anyway. The vine took off over the fence into the perennial border and the old leaves have all died off, so that patch of ground is bare - but not for long.

I tend to cover crop my garden sporadically. If the area is bare and I don't plan on planting anything for the fall, I'll put something in - provided I have seeds on hand. This year I remembered to order seed so I'm all set. In the past I've used vetch and rye, both are hardy in my climate over the winter. But rye is allelopathic (puts out chemicals the inhibit growth of other plants). Sadly it is the only winter hardy grain here. But UMass Extension has done some research on production, and even though oats die off over the winter it still makes the best pairing with vetch. So this year it is oats and vetch.

The Quest for the Impossible

Perfection only lasts so long in the garden. The beautiful bloom fades. The slugs invade. The hail shreds your leaves. The heavy winds knock down your dill heads. Chipmunks eat your ripening tomatoes. Sigh. Today I had more bad gardening news.

The first was the return of the chipmunk. He has been getting bolder. I went out to check my tomatoes this morning. The Orange Blossom tomatoes had previously set 7 tomatoes. The chipmunk ate part of one yesterday. Well he obviously enjoyed it. Today there were only 5 tomatoes left on the vine. Arrggg. They weren't even close to ripe yet. He picked a green one and totally made off with it. Not a shred of evidence left. So I picked the two that were blushing yellow. They will have to ripen in my kitchen. I'm crossing my fingers for the last three. At least they are higher up on the vine. Maybe he will overlook them. Then I found a half eaten green cherry tomato lying on the ground. He obviously liked the Orange Blossoms better since he took the whole thing.

But he still wasn't satisfied. He ate one of my squash blossoms. It was a female blossom. I guess I can't complain too much since I'm getting way too many zucchini anyway. Tomorrow I'll probably know if it had time to set. I may get fruit regardless. He also took a small bite out of an unset cucumber. No big loss. Most of those don't end up setting anyway. Then for his next trick I got a good laugh. I can't imagine he liked his treat. He took a bite out of one of my super chili peppers. These have the heat of a cayenne pepper. Most adult humans can't handle that straight up.

With so many bites out of so many plants, I'm thinking he liked his taste of ripe tomato yesterday and he is looking for more. Maybe the taste of pepper will scare him away, but I doubt it. I'm hoping not to have a war with the little guy, but I might have to.

That was just the first of the bad news. The second was the vine borers. That one vine borer I caught previously did indeed lay eggs on my pumpkin. I noticed that my pumpkin was wilting in the heat this afternoon even though we have had plenty of rain. That is a sure sign of borers. Since they live inside the vine, you have to find out where they are. They leave telltale holes and frass outside the holes. Sometimes you can see the side of the vine with a yellow spot on it. So I took my sharpest knife and carefully split open the vine near their holes, trying to stay straight and not crosscut the stem. I pulled out several of the little worms.

Then I tried to repair the damage. I wrapped the stem up to protect it. One of the slits was a good six inches and had a couple of them inside. I recently made a circle skirt out of dark green cotton, so I thought it a good color for the bandages. Now I pray I got them all and the damage to the stem isn't too severe.

Remember yesterday when I talked about gardening insanity and doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I do that too many times. I know not to plant pumpkins here. They never live. It is an impossible quest. But it is so hard when my daughter asks for pumpkins to say no. The mini pumpkins sometimes work. They can set their fruit quickly and will often make one or two, but real pumpkins just aren't worth trying. Next year - butternut squash.

Sneezing

My allergies and my love for my garden are at war with one another right now. I can breathe and be almost sneeze free if I stay inside. But that is not likely to happen is it?

Today is beautiful and it rained yesterday. I thought I would be relatively safe after a good rain. Not so. Weeding my perennial bed doesn’t take long. Maybe 15 minutes. But that was enough to set me off.

I had a couple of other things to do after my sneezing started. My chamomile came up very strong in spots, but not in others. So I moved the little plants around so there wouldn’t bee so many gaps between them. While I was doing this I found the soil was not really wet. It ought to have if we got the official amount of rain (0.7”). I’m thinking we may have gotten a quarter of an inch, but not any more.

Last evening’s thunderstorms were very intense but brief (45 mins) and I can imagine that the rain was spotty and our spot got short changed. Because of this I decided to hold off picking my last early lettuce plant. I watered it well instead. I’ll pick it tomorrow morning and thin the later lettuce.

I tried to find the cutworm again near my turnips, but there were no knocked down plants there. On the other side of the garden however I had a basil plant mowed down. I found the evil creature and dispatched it. I had a left over basil plant still in its little pot; so planted it. This is the second basil that has been chomped down. Since I’m worried about the rest of the basil, I put little sticks right up against their stems. Hopefully that will prevent them from dying. I thought about doing it to the pumpkins too since they are in the same bed, but all six of the seeds I planted came up. If a couple of them get eaten by the cutworms, it is just thinning out my pumpkins. All of them dying would be bad so put just two sticks up.

Always Room for One Little Pumpkin

I’ve never in my 17 years in this house had a brassica family plant grow well here. I’m really trying this year, but maybe it is not meant to be. This morning I had another pest invade the plot – flee beetles. The row cover is supposed to keep them out, but I obviously don’t keep the edges tacked down well enough. This is not too surprising if you look at my row covers. I don’t dig the edges under the dirt. I just throw whatever is lying around along the edges; rocks, t-poles, bricks, or anything heavy enough to keep it from blowing away. I was really more worried about cabbage butterflies and moths than flee beetles.

So it was off to the internet to find a solution. The most common solution was probably to use a row cover. Too late for that suggestion. I don’t use broad spectrum pesticides, so pyrethrin and rotenone are out. I had to laugh at the next organic solution. Plant a trap crop. Sounds nice, but what are the trap crops? Diakon radishes, mustards, choi, and napa cabbage was my answer. Of course I already had every one of these in my garden as my MAIN crop. I guess my mizuna might survive as the only crop not on that list. So I have the tastiest plants in existence for flee beetles. Sigh.

On to the next suggestion - sticky traps. It seems they like the color yellow. I could go out and buy a trap, but I figure I might be able to improvise. I have white plastic containers and if I put water and a little soap and a little yellow food dye, they might just be stupid enough to commit suicide. How smart can an insect 1/16 of an inch long be? Well I had no yellow food dye. I had blue, green and red, but the yellow one was mysteriously missing. The only yellow item I could find was construction paper left over from when the kids were little. Why not? I cut out rectangles to fit the bottom of my flat containers, filled them will water and a drop of soap and put them out in the garden. I swiped one of my Napa cabbages with my hand and a few beetles duly hopped into the death trap.

BTW the silliest suggestion I ran across was using a catnip spray on the crop. I could just imagine what would happen to a catnipped plot in suburbia. I wouldn’t dare plant it. Usually the myriad of cats in the neighborhood stay away because of the dog, but with catnip sprayed on the plants they would fight the dog for it.

Today was a beautiful day and the perfect time to buy the rest of the seedlings that I need. Tomorrow I’ll get the tomatoes that I ordered. I need my peppers, basil and some flowers. I grew some basil from seed, but the seedlings look sick. I’d rather have healthy ones. I bought the traditional jalapeño and super chili peppers. I never grow the sweet kind; they aren’t really prolific enough here; but the chilis do quite well. Sadly there was no basil. They have always had basil seedlings before. I’m so sad. I’ll have to look for them elsewhere.

Since it is so late in the season, the garden center had all of its seeds on sale 50% off. Who can refuse such a sale? Certainly not me. I wanted to pick up some more peas for the fall. They were very sparse. Most of the peas were English peas and I wanted snow peas, though I would settle for snap peas. I finally found one last packet of snow peas. Since I only needed to buy fall peas, I of course picked up five other packets of seed; arugula, kale, two lettuces and some rainbow chard.

And then my daughter decided we had to plant pumpkins. She wanted the Jack-be-Little pumpkins, but since they were all out, she ended up with a sugar pumpkin. We sometimes can grow pumpkins here. It depends upon how many vine borers visit. But we can always try. I hadn’t planned to put in a pumpkin and I don’t have much room left in the garden but you can always shove one more plant in right? Ok I have planted pumpkins before. I know they are monsters that take over the garden but when Beth asked for pumpkins, I immediately said “sure.” I figure we will plant them next to cucumbers and shove the basil that was going to be there, next to the leeks. We will have to train it up the fence to keep it from smothering the rest of the plants. So as soon as we got home we planted the hill of pumpkins right next to the cucumber plot. They have about a 3’x 4’ plot in their immediate vicinity and lots of fence space.