Applestar's 2016 Garden

[nltaff]

Everything looks so beautiful! Wondering, how did you get rid of the mite infestation on the tomatoes? And hasn't the weather been just so so uncooperative? I've awakened to 40, even 39 degrees for a little over a week now, and I'm just tired of carrying my basil flats in and out of the house. My poor tomatoes and peppers get wind-whipped every day! Thought of you as I cleared the weeds from the asparagus bed. Threw all the slugs into the woods, found a toad, so I installed a flowerpot house for it!

[applestar]

Everything looks so beautiful! Wondering, how did you get rid of the mite infestation on the tomatoes?

THANK YOU!

Mites -- Pest mites are my nemesis. Overwintered tomatoes and lately even seedlings started in late winter when the mites are at their worst due to heat-dried indoor air are infested with one kind of mite or other. One year, I had (never before seen or heard of) two-spotted mites on a tomato in one bedroom, nowhere else. I tried to save it but couldn't. After that, I realized I had better things to do with my time than to try to kill invisible pests and save the plants.

Even before that, the quintessential houseplant pest -- red spider mites -- had been an occasional problem. And every single time, if I could just keep the plants alive until it was warm enough in spring, all I had to do was to acclimate and put them outside, and they recovered. Now I have TRM's (Tomato Russet Mites) and possibly Broad Mites, too? I can't see them without going to the trouble of using the microscope or other magnifying gear? BAH forget it.

~~ If I can just get them out where they can be found, the Invisible Garden Patrol will get to work, eradicating the near-invisible pests. ~~

It's the same for these tomato plants. Once hardened off and planted in the ground, most of them will turn around. It's the ones that are still in tiny seed starting containers that are still suffering. Too much stress and I think the appropriate Garden Patrol can't find them as easily. I do put the seedling flats on the ground among flowers that they like, and I was trying to uppot them and turn them around and get them to grow back enough to plant, but I'm seeing signs that that's a wrong way of thinking. They won't turn around unless I plant them in the ground. Some I planted as nothing left but sticks are now starting to re-grow.

~~ This is why I won't use pesticides of any kind unless for very limited use with limited group of plants. I don't know what I'm doing, but THEY DO. ~~

I planted a few more "nothing left but sticks" We shall see.... If the humid/muggy season with accompanying fungal issues, and high temps and drought will hold off a little longer, they might be able to make it even if they have been considerably set back. Once they settle in after planting and the root system find good soil and earthworms and the rest of the soil foodweb become integrated and established, hopefully they will take off.

[applestar]

...And hasn't the weather been just so so uncooperative? I've awakened to 40, even 39 degrees for a little over a week now, and I'm just tired of carrying my basil flats in and out of the house. My poor tomatoes and peppers get wind-whipped every day! Thought of you as I cleared the weeds from the asparagus bed. Threw all the slugs into the woods, found a toad, so I installed a flowerpot house for it!

39-40°F ? -- that's tough Too low for even tomatoes, so warm weather plants must be suffering. For me, the sudden cool down to overnights in the 50's have actually been a blessing since the peas and broccoli that were threatening to finish up and die due to the "skip spring temperatures and go for full burn heatwave" have had a reprieve.

(That said, it's 87°F out there right now. )

...I'm honored that you thought of me as you were throwing away (or was it WHILE YOU WERE COLLECTING) slugs.....

[applestar]

Yesterday, I went around tucking in pre-germinated okra seeds in here and there, dry basil seeds, dill seeds, cilantro seeds, edamame seeds, and one variety of bush beans.

Looked at one narrow Unprepped bed thinking I had planned to put something there, but couldn't remember and was also not up to getting out the tools to weed, hoe, fork, amend and fertilize... So that will be for another day. (Realized after coming inside and updating my maps and garden journal that I meant to sow a bunch of bush beans there -- definitely need to get that done)

Another weird day/night -- went up to 90°F and currently 80°F out there (it should really be in low 60's, even high 50's). This is going to precipitate spontaneous emergence of bad bugs. ugh.

[imafan26]

You are having wierd weather. I am getting rain now but the temperatures are 78-86 which is pretty normal for this time of the year.

[applestar]

Those loose garlic -- I noticed one of the Tzan Turban garlic foliage had gone completely yellow and tried to dig it up. The yellowed stem came off and the entire bulb was in the process of losing all of the paper to spoilage. But when I washed off the dirt and broke up the cloves to rub and rinse off all the softened layers, these clean and firm cloves came out. They look good and usable right away, though obviously not for storage.

The other one is from SFHX -- probably a smaller elephant garlic.

The big onion is the one that I'd stuck in the corner of the SIP with Hari and Pea eggplants last year. Even though I had laid the tub on its side for the winter, it just kept going and didn't bolt when grown alongside the spring broccoli (when I planted the broccoli earlier in spring, the onion looked so pathetic I was going to pull it... But didn't). The neck fell over a couple of days ago so I decided to harvest it, especially since I can't let the SIP dry out.

Smaller onion came from the hanging basket of crazy strawberries that I had overwintered in the garage V8. I stuck a few ONION bottoms in there,must for fun. I harvested this one today and another one about the same size a couple of days ago, but there is a monster red onion in the middle of the basket still growing. I think I must have went way overboard with nitrogen rich organic fertilizer when I first planted, thinking this will feed the onions. (and obviously it did) But the strawberriy's foliage has also been growing like mad and it's only just this past week that it has started to bloom.

[applestar]

Here's an update on that tiny VGB patch of Kandy Korn x Glass Gem F1 that I interplanted with Marrowfat peas. Obviously not all corn plants are growing well -- making their own selection -- but the ones that ARE doing well look pretty good, I think.

One of them was obviously having trouble despite a good start, and I was starting to see chewed up leaf edges. After wondering if it might be slugs, I tried pouring some water in the center tubular cup of leaves -- for no reason except that I wanted to see how the new leaves were growing or not growing more clearly, and it looked "muddy" in there.

...As soon as the water washed clear, I could see a FAT cutworm coiled up in there. All gone now and the same plant is looking great!

[lakngulf]

Produce looks great.

[Lindsaylew82]

Produce looks great.

Sho do!

[nltaff]

applestar wrote

thinking of me when throwing away slugs

Actually, no, not the slug part, the fetching a pot to half-bury for the toad part. I once paid a student of mine, back in the 90s a nickel for every toad he brought me (I supplied the shoeboxes).
As for the temps, the tomatoes and peppers have done fine during all these cold morning starts, especially the ones in the bales (because I haven't fully removed the cover). Looking at the forecast, I promised them full freedom tomorrow (as tonight's low is the last one in the 40s for at least a week and a half. Everyone around here is shaking heads over this strange stint of April-like weather. Anyway, I haven't lost anything yet, and everything is producing blossoms. As a bonus, usually, by this time the beet greens are looking ratty, but they are, to date, pristine and looking yummy. Cold has kept the earwigs and other munchers at bay.

[applestar]

Chickpeas are starting to bloom

[Lindsaylew82]

Are the chickpeas viny or bushy?

[applestar]

Bushy

[rainbowgardener]

Oh wow! Something I never thought about growing and they are beautiful! Once I get more beds built!

[applestar]

Here are some more snapshots from the Spiral Garden. I do like the feathery blue-green foliage of the chickpeas

[applestar]

Here's Spiral Garden Annex. Kakai hulless seeds squash have taken off and are threatening to overwhelm the one Uncle David"s Dakota Dessert squash in front of the center fence post. That one looks stunted. The three H-19 Littleleaf cucumbers are poised to take over from the Blauschokker Blue soup peas which were planted too late and not doing very well except where sufficiently shaded.



I'm thinking of planting two medium height pepper plants here since Uncle David didn't over run this area as expected. One of them -Pasilla Chili- is hardening off.

[applestar]

I took down the string trellis and pulled the yellowed pea vines in the SFH today. The pea vines were put down between the corn rows as mulch over scattered organic fertilizer (Chickety Doo Doo).


When corn was first planted back in May vs. today's corn :


With string and without except for the last row on the right :


Latest map of the Sunflower House



Today's harvest including test pulls of elephant garlic and a couple of purple Tzan Turban garlic

[Lindsaylew82]

What are the little balls on the ends of the roots there. On the garlic.

[applestar]

Elephant garlic tends to produce these small hard cloves outside of the main bulb. The wrapper is thick, hard, and brittle. They are 1/2 the size of small cloves of smaller garlic and maybe 1/8 the size of elephant garlic clove, and can be used as garlic in cooking -- a little less tender but who cares if you are going to smash them -- and keeps extremely well in storage.

If you plant them with regular cloves, they make small undivided rounds next year, and then, theoretically, full divided bulb the following year. One of the test pulls was planted as a round, and I haven't examined it closely, but it looked like a bigger round but with the external cloves attached....

[applestar]

Upstairs window view



...it's always tricky taking a photo here in the morning because the morning light reflects off the window screen whether the sun is hitting it or not...

The birdscares, toy and garden hose "snakes" and the picnic plate covers are no longer helping -- the wiley and brazen catbirds have been getting in the raspberries and I watched one gobble up a barely blushed fruit. NO wonder I'm hardly seeing even remotely ripe looking ones in the last couple of days.

I am realizing that last year's success with protecting these raspberries was mostly due to Robin that was nesting in the tall shrub (Arrowwood Viburnum) below the window. The pair was dedicated to chasing off any intruder birds from the vicinity, including the catbirds, and they preferred to gorge on wild strawberries under the shrub and the mulberry in the back.

As soon as DH finds fishing lines that he can spare, I'm going to try stringing invisible lines all over above and alongside the raspberry row. I'm not going to try to net it unless I can construct a support system that can hold the netting away from all the bristly thorns and that would be a major project. If I'm making something like that, I might as well build a chicken wire berry house....

I'm thinking I'm going to have to re-allocate the strawberry netting to protect the (thornless) blackberries which are full of green fruits now. Seas Scape may sporadically produce more berries,Mobutu hopefully, I can protect them individually.

[applestar]

Sunflower & House in morning light. A volunteer sunflower insisted on growing here to legitimize the name of the bed.

This is a 10 ft diameter circle

[applestar]

So... This wasn't a Kakai -- I can't remember if I had started some seeds from a volunteer pepo (this blossom doesn't look maxima, does it?) or if I accidentally used unisolated Kakai seeds....



Odd thing is so far the butter yellow baby fruit looks like Red Kuri or another volunteer maxima, but I'm pretty sure the pointed petals look pepo and not frilly rounded petal of maxima. Pepos and maximas don't cross do they? Hmm... Maybe these are two different plants.

[applestar]

More garlic harvest sitting in front of a fan on standard size webtray turned upside down.



One full-size elephant garlic...I think I'll dig up the rest in couple of days. Thinking of planting sweet potatoes in the SFHX bed and rest of the pepper seedlings in the Outer Apple Guild bed after the garlic are harvested.

[applestar]

Some photos of the VG beds and VGE-SIP -- I removed two of the broccoli and planted two eggplants -- these are the overwintered White Comets, as well as a couple of the given up-as-duds squash seedlings that sprouted in the Dwarf Moringa pot in the back. I stuck a cutting of Chicago Hardy fig in the back.

VGD pallet sided high raised bed has been taken over by Fordhook vining nasturtium. I always planted Jewel and other bush types so I never realized how rambling these are. Good thing most of the other seeds I intended to grow here had failed to sprout

VGB - Corn (Kandy Korn x Glass Gem F1) and Marrowfat peas are taking off, and you can see I really need to take that insect screen cover off of VGA... I haven't looked inside in several days, almost a week.

[applestar]

Chickpea Pods



...there's a point when you are supposed to let the soil get really dry for them, but I can't remember when...hopefully not yet because I just accidentally really flooded the Spiral Garden swale/path

[applestar]

It turns out that lone larva curled up in one of my corn and munching away was a mature armyworm that I guess managed to overwinter, and not a cutworm as I had thought. So I learned something new.
I found another one today in one of the SFH corn.

One of the tasseling Mirai350bc corn is all shredded looking -- the armyworm was not in this plant but another plant several plants away



It looks like in my garden, I need not to expect too many appearances due to the winter freeze (and I do have several species of ground beetles in my Garden Patrol, along with the other listed predators)

armyworm, Pseudaletia unipuncta (Haworth)
https://entnemdept.ufl.edu/creatures/fie ... myworm.htm

The importance of natural enemies, especially parasitoids, has been studied, though nearly all data are derived from periods of high armyworm density, which is not typical for this insect. Over 60 species of wasp and fly parasitoids are known, and vary considerably from time to time and place to place in importance. Examples are the wasp parasitoids Meteorus autographae, and Cotesia marginiventris.

Predators readily consume armyworm larvae. Ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) are especially effective because larvae spend a great deal of time in association with soil, but various predatory bugs (Hemiptera: various families), ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), and spiders (Araneae: Lycosidae and Phalangiidae) also feed on armyworm.

Avian predators are often credited with destruction of armyworms. The bobolink, Dolichonyx oryzivorus (Linnaeus), prospers during outbreak years and has sometimes been called the 'armyworm bird' in North America. Other birds of note include the crow, Corvus brachyrhynchos Brehm, and starling, Sturnus vulgaris Linnaeus.

Diseases commonly infect armyworms, especially during periods of high density. Bacteria and fungi, particularly the fungus Metarhizium anisopliae, are reported in the literature.

Nematodes are sometimes considered to be important mortality factors. However, undoubtedly the most important diseases are viruses; several granulosis, cytoplasmic polyhedrosis, and nuclear polyhedrosis viruses often kill virtually all armyworms during periods of outbreak, especially when larvae are also stressed by lack of food or inclement weather.

...do you suppose if you regularly use fungicide, you might end up helping them from getting the fungal disease mentioned here?

[applestar]

Robbed some new taters

[applestar]

Espalier Fence Row • Haybale Row • Sunflower House


Spiral Garden

[Lindsaylew82]

Those are georgeous potatoes!

Army worms...

I use neem and baking soda. If I didn't use them, I wouldn't get the yields I normally get. I do try to keep the sprays off the tops halves of the plants. Mainly because I like my new friends the aphid midges!

I get more army worms than hornworms. And army worms do more damage to the actual FRUIT than hornworms. I don't think I'd call what I get an infestation, or even high counts. Honestly, I think I find them more because I'm very observant, and I inspect often and thoroughly. The sick hornworm I was watching disappeared. I think something ate it. It did do some damage, but not a lot..I think because he was sick. Anyway, I think you would need to have peak volume or infestation to see the predatory fungus being effective. (Did I read that right?)

I've been seeing a lot of armyworms egg clusters, but they turn black and don't hatch. Parasitized? Idk...I've been meaning to research! Ha!

I really do like the potatoes!

[applestar]

You DO get more pesky bugs, Lindsay. I noticed when we had that mild winter with hardly any lows below 20's that there were more unusual pests in the summer garden.

I LOVE growing potatoes. They are so gratifying when they do well, and the rummaging around in the loose soil and mulch -- TREASURE HUNT!

...harvested some more garlic today. Purple striped ones are Tzan Turban that are borderline winter hardy here. I harvested all except one -- it turns out TT makes tiny top sets rather than flowers in the "scape" (like wild garlic) so I'm going to let these mature and try growing them. One BIG and one small elephant garlic and some Music garlic.

[applestar]

I'm also starting to harvest nice little carrots for the DDs to snack on


Kaleidoscope Mix (Atomic Red, Bambino, Cosmic Purple, Lunar White and Solar Yellow), Danvers, Scarlet Nantes

I sowed some Yellowstone recently, too.

[applestar]

The tiny VGB Korn Patch (Kandy Korn x Glass Gem F1) was starting show signs of stress a few days ago, and Innoticed it had begun to yellow yesterday. But I'm out of Chickety Doo Doo I used for the SFH corn, so I decided to try laying a thick layer of 1/2 finished compost -- about 3 inches worth -- in the swale•path between the corn and the pallet-sided high raised bed. I'm going to continue to pile greens (pulled weeds) on top and cover with cardboard.



If the local earthworms and night crawlers don't gather on their own, I might get some of the red wigglers from the vermicomposter working in here.

[applestar]

Subject: Sweet Potato Questions

Well you could have put it back. Sweet potato is pretty sturdy. ABSOLUTE KEY to growing is heat, Heat, HEAT. 85°F or above. 90°F would be better. Once it gets hot enough during the day, direct sun will provide the kind of heat you need. No A/C -- set up outside or garage or attic... Maybe your car parked in the blazing sun.

For me growing the slips is not the problem, it's the typical lovely cool night air in the 60's and threats of early killing frost and accompanying drops in temp starting around late September -- I can't count on heat-loving crops beyond then even if the subsequent days are frost-free until late October or November.

This year, late lingering cold spring delayed everything so I'm not very optimistic about sweet potatoes, but I put this extra late Hawaiian sweet potato in last year's eggplant SIP after the big broccoli were done.



...if this works, I might have to concede that I have to grow sweet potato under black plastic mulch when planted in the ground, and plant the slips earlier by setting up a low poly tunnel over the black-plastic mulched raised mound.

[applestar]

NOT-Kakai -- since the first blossom didn't set, I made sure to pollinate with males from same vine.

Bottom two are yellow zukes 'Butta' -- first female blossoms may open day after tomorrow?

SFH corn -- a couple of Mirai359bc have started to shed pollen but no silks yet

_- I think they are looking good

Today's garlic harvest -- they were drying in the shade on patio table and were brought inside just in the nick of time before severe thunderstorm swept through

That one in the bottom left close up is supposed to be Russian Giant Marble Purple Striped, I think. The cloves are starting to separate, right?

[applestar]

Espalier Fence Row is looking good -- Prok persimmons, Arkansas Black apples, Magness pears, Seckel pears.... Now to protect them all summer until they are ready to harvest in the fall

[applestar]

This morning, I was childishly excited to notice that the satellite map of my area has been updated on the iPad native Maps app and I could see my Spiral Garden!

… yep, that's all I could see, but hey, it's there Only trouble is that the mask for the current location blurs the image a bit. I'll have to take another screenshot when I'm out and away from the house

Google updated only a few years ago, so I suppose it will be a while before they update again....m

[applestar]

[Lindsaylew82]

Ah it's so pretty!

What's the frosty white thing near the center of the spiral?

[applestar]

That's a cabbage

[Lindsaylew82]

Wow! It's so bright!