Pests and Problems

Work work work.

I had begun noticing strangely bare branches poking up all over my tomato plants earlier this week. It looked like something had gotten into the yard and was helping themselves to the leaves!






















I really had no idea what was going on until... I saw this guy.  
I pulled 14 of them out of my tomatoes. All but two were on a single plant!

 I will be Dusting my tomato plants pronto, as soon as the breeze dies down. We're having regular afternoon thunderstorms right now, which means the Dust will get washed away, but frankly... after finding 14 of them, I'll Dust every afternoon if I need to, til the infestation is curbed.

Further problems include strange white marks on the leaves of my tomatoes, peas, and squash, all in about the same area of the garden: right smack in the middle. I have no idea what's causing the burn-like spots... Any ideas?

I'll be going armed this weekend: fertilizer, bug spray, Seven Dust, rose spray, and clippers. I'd enjoy having some idea what I'm up against with these strange white scald marks. Hmmm.

Garden Update for the End of June

Growing Strong like the Tyrells.

Beefsteak tomatoes on the vine.

Squash and Zucchini plants, getting huge!

Crowder pea vines. Some pods have as many as 20 peas.

I've picked about 6.0 lbs of squash and zucchini from my four plants, and I've almost gathered a pound of cherry tomatoes from a single cherry tomato plant.

It seems like the more bounty I gather in from the garden, the more problems I encounter. I've gotten the mildew under control in the squash/zucs, but now half my yellow pear tomato decided to die. I've got black spot on the roses, and my strawberry plants, which have been under a net and really haven't been getting close attention, are full of ants and aphids.

I cut out the dead parts of the yellow pear and gathered the green tomatoes for frying. And while I haven't sprayed the roses yet, I did get the strawberries uncovered, watered, cleaned for dead leaves and branches, and sprayed for bugs. 

Work work work.

Discoveries after the Rain

Some good, some bad.

Oriental Lily starting to open!

First bloom visible on Bell Pepper.

First strawberry runner reaching out.

Yellow pear tomato stem broken from wind.

Rearranging the Garden

After ruminating on one of the problems that came to light recently (namely, being unable to reach the peas with water), I decided to do some emergency rearranging in the garden.

 As you can see above, the peas are in two rows to the left of my two bins of squash. The idea was to put the shorter items to the right side of the garden and the tall items to the left, so that as the sun rises and sets each side will get plenty of sun and not block the shorter things.

Good idea right?

Well, until the peas got big and the tomatoes (not pictured, but to the left) got big and I cant reach anything. Hm. Plus the squash are branching through the fence and gate, and they're getting stepped on.

 

 It took some work since the peas were vining everywhere already, but I hauled them and the squash out into the yard. Then I set the peas in a row along the side of the house and positioned the squash in front. Now, nothing is being blocked and the squash have twice the room to spread.

On the left, the yellow crookneck is looking terribly pitiful. I had to cut out some branches showing bad signs of powdery mildew (more leaves have it, but I could only remove so much) and I had to cut a huge branch that had grown through the fence and wouldn't come out again. 

And I thought I had done well. 

Until I tried to water the next day. Hm. I still couldn't get to the peas for the squash. My main concern right now is watering. But then I remembered I have a long arm sprayer thing dad bought last year, and I think that will just about do the trick. 

Don't ask me how I'm actually going to pick. I haven't figured that out yet.

Reflections, Realizations, and Bad Ideas

I returned last night from a 4 day vacation to the coast. Although I had someone very nice who was willing to water things for me, I came back and stood at my garden's gate, and I feel as if just that quickly I have lost the battle that is my garden.

Haul out the white flag.

Now that I've slept on it, I still feel like there is a lot of work to catch back up, and after time away I see some problems that I failed to identify until now.

In no particular order.

Problems:

- What in the world was I thinking with the peas? I set the pots up in rows just like you'd plant rows of peas. The tomato cage idea on the peas is working, although not as well as I had anticipated. My peas still don't seem to have enough room to 'go' anywhere. But the main problem is the row placement. I cannot reach the pots in the back! It's almost impossible to get enough water back there because of the tomatoes on one side and the squash on the other.

- Speaking of squash: those monsters are taking over my garden! The storage box idea is working great, but... give an inch, they take a mile. Instead of growing along the soil in the pot, they're... they're growing through the gate. And into the flower bench. And although I had pollinated 2 zucs before leaving on vacation, none set, and since I wasn't here to pollinate all this time, I can see half a dozen squash and zucs that probably didn't get pollinated by the bugs. Lazy bugs. So now I'll have an extended period of time without squash and zucchinis while the plants reset. Ultimately, however, I don't have enough room. Not in this arrangement. Maybe I need to back off to one plant each?

- The lavender needs a bigger pot. The more I look at it, the more I realize that poor thing is slowly dying from lack of water due to constriction in its current pot. I don't have one bigger on hand, which means a trip to the store if I want to keep it a live. Which I do.

- I have *got* to think of a better solution than those wimpy cages from the store for my tomatoes. While I was gone on vacation, they decided they'd grown vertically for long enough, and they tipped over into each other. So when I came back, I couldn't tell where one tomato began and another ended. I got outside and drove some stakes into the ground to hold the cages up, and I sorted the branches, so that will hold them for a little while.

- ... I may not be planting another Bell Pepper. That thing is just sitting there. It *is* getting visibly larger but good LORD could it grow any slower?

- My Roma tomato is still suffering blossom end rot. Ngh. 

- Back to squash. I think they're getting mold.

Ideas:

- Maybe I can do some emergency rearranging to save the hassle and confinement of the peas and squash. If I straightened the peas out to run along the wall of the house and set the squash in front. Sure, I'd be reaching over the squash to water the peas, but both would have ample sun and I could definitely reach them with the hose rather than with a hand pail.

Successes:

- The tubs for the squash: working great.
- The cages on the peas: not so bad.
- The bird netting on the strawberries: excellent! Sister brought in a huge handful of strawberries just yesterday, and they were delicious.
- My gnat solution is perfection personified.
- The barrel lilies are getting huge!
- I actually grew carrots!

Tis all for now.

First Harvests and First Problems

First Squash and Zucchini 

 Look look! Behold, the first yellow crookneck (without much of a crook neck) and zucchini. The zuc was about 13 oz, and the squash was about 5. I could have left the squash out in the garden for a while longer, but... I wanted to eat it. So there.

I've got two more zuc's and three more squash on the vine, just waiting.

Since I'll be going on vacation on Wednesday, I'll probably pick anything that looks big enough to eat and take it along. I would rather enjoy it small than come back to find the bugs had gotten it.

The squash and zuc's aren't *officially* my first harvests - I've gotten several handfuls of strawberries so far, but they ARE the first produce from the stuff I planted from seed this year.

But along with the first harvest comes the first set of problems.



Before you, you see the bane of every garden - Blossom End Rot. I have it.

Blossom End Rot on Roma tomatoes.

 Of all my tomatoes, the Roma was the smallest and was showing the most flowers. I suppose it's decided to be the first with this year's set of problems. I went ahead and cut off three branches of young fruit. My thinking was - why let it stay on the plant when it's not going to turn out good anyway? I cut them up, tossed 'em in flour, and had fried green tomato bits. They didn't qualify as bites, but they were good!

I see some more starting on my yellow tomatoes, but all of my other bushes remain BER free. I will design a program of retaliation and prevention and see if I can't head it off at the pass, so to speak.

And I'll make lemonade from lemons and enjoy the green tomatoes.

Other news in the garden concerns mutant squash and zuc plants. Check out the below:

I've ended up with male flowers fused together (as many as three) and now I've got a male flower with two stamens, and on the right you can see two female flowers fused together. Neither was successfully pollinated, so I'll not have the amusing experience of getting to eat any mutant vegetables, but it was still cool to find.