June 25, 2015

Good morning, sometimes when I start to get assaulted by garden pest, I wonder if I am doing things wrong. I feel the numbers of pests I am seeing this year has nothing to do with my garden practices and everything to do with the weather we have had this year.

I feel that my soil is fertile enough to allow my veggies to sustain these pest attacks and for the most part grow out of the predation. The use of Neem products and Bt have been very beneficial to help control these pests.

I remember when Deb and I lived in Springerville Arizona and we had planted a garden. All the veggies were up and growing quite nicely. We both worked for the US Forest Service and were gone during the day. It was a huge surprise when we came home one evening to find that the garden was gone. Nothing left except for one zucchini plant.

Talking with the neighbors a swarm of grasshoppers had come through during the day and left destruction in their wake.

There is no way to prepare for this. This would be no different than sitting under a huge hail storm. Your luck of the draw.

With all the moisture we have had this year, insects have had no problem hatching. I do remember 2011 when we had less than 5 inches of rain, it was a bug free year. I suspect that like with weed seeds some insect eggs can remain dormant until hatching conditions are favorable.

Some desert weed seeds can remain dormant for decades. One only has to look at one of the driest places in the US, Death Valley. A few years back they received a decades in the waiting rainy period and the whole place was like someone had painted rainbows every where. Here in West Teas was an unprecedented moist winter and the wildflowers responded accordingly. Why would not insects do the same?

Wasn't it the Mormons who had a huge grasshopper plague in Utah only to be saved by Gulls coming to the rescue and devoured the pestilence?

I also remember 2012 was an extremely buggy year in the garden. Vegetation was sending out stress signals due to the drought and freeze damage from the previous year. Insects responded accordingly, especially since we got moisture.

It is very interesting to see that Mother Nature is also working at correcting this imbalance from one extreme to the other. Since there is an abundance of food for pests to feed on, this in turn gives the predators that feed on these pest the ability to expand and bring the pests back into balance. Some times this balancing act takes awhile to work. I have noticed an abundance of lady beetles and other less flamboyant pestilence predators, namely aphidius wasps. I think ladybugs get unwarranted great press on aphid control because they are so visual. Aphidius at 1/8 of an inch goes about doing aphid cleanup with much better precision than what lady bugs could ever achieve.

This winter it was a great surprise when I thought I was going to have to spray aphids on my spinach only to see ALL of the aphids turned into mummies by the next harvest day (a week later). This feat was accomplished during the winter when ladybugs are dormant. This handy work was accomplished by aphidius wasps.

It is examples like this that I am a reluctant sprayer. Sometimes, but not always these things can correct themselves. Then other times with some thoughtful assists with human intervention the balance can be achieved. This is an interesting ballet that I hope I get the steps right and do not cause more damage than good.

Yes it is a learning curve in and of its self to know when to act or not too. Who knows I may get it right yet!! I love it when a plan comes together. The okra and tomato crops are into good production quantities. I will be listing this week. Depending on the number of orders, it will be first come first served. Cukes are hitting their stride with close to 10#'s a day. We will be doing a canning special of 5 pounds for $10 and we will throw in dill flowers for free. The chard seems to be having some problems. They were first hit with caterpillars, then aphids, guineas after wind storm blew the covers off. I have inadvertently kept them bit too moist which is also causing some root issues. All this will be rectified or I may start a new bed. I would prefer to correct their health issues. The cutting of green onions as opposed to harvesting the whole plant seems to be working. I am working at increasing my green onions so that I will have enough every week. Patience!! But yes it is a good time of year and daily thunderstorms a beginning to make it into daily forecast and last but not least the garden is doing really quite well.

June 18, 2015

Good morning, Talk about a wild storm last Saturday. I always get very apprehensive when a wall of such intense weather hits the garden. Of course it really sets the tone when NOAA sends out a warning of intense wind and meat shredder hail. Luckily we got just a little bit of pea sized hail very briefly, but as for the wind it sure looked like the garden would get lift off for Mexico. Not that I can do anything about it but I do anxiously pace and watch the storm unfold. It still is firmly in my memory how Coyanosa had a huge hail storm this year and most if not all the onion crop was destroyed.

The sad thing onions are a one shot crop. Seedlings are started in the fall and then transplanted by March to mature in May or June. Bulbing is triggered by spring day length, without the trigger all you get are green onions (scallions). Lucky for us with a long growing season there are other crops that can be planted and still have them mature.

When Deb and I lived up in Oregon, there was a huge hailstone storm that went through Hermiston Oregon. Like Pecos this town is known for its melons. This storm went through and completely destroyed the crop. Because Hermiston is so far North, at the 45^th parallel (half way to the Arctic circle), they only had the one shot.

It is always sad to see the labors of so many destroyed in a blink of an eye. I feel fortunate to have been so lucky since starting my garden in 2003, I have had only a couple crops that have been pummeled by hail but no total annihilation. The fabric has helped me survive the worst storms that we have had, but if I were to have a Coyannosa or a Hermiston kind of storm, I am sure all that I would have left is white fabric mulch.

Wind storms and freezing make me antsy but hail causes me to tremble to my bones. All you can do is cross your fingers and hold your breath. Not a very affective defense, but then again what can you do?

Like they say if this was so easy everyone would be doing it.

The garden continues to mature. Harvest amounts are very nice, even with the assault of cucumber beetles, squash bugs, root knot nematodes, and aphids. I am keeping my head above water with the use of Cold pressed neem oil and Azagaurd ( a neem oil product). Having the drip system has also been useful towards crop production, by having well watered root zones. I do not think I would be fairing as well with hand watering.

A few more real warm days and the tomatoes will be in full production, I still have one bed of okra to mature to start harvesting from. My other two beds are coming on line a little more each day. Spring lettuce has bolted and I have transplant my summer varieties with this “cooler” weather.

The wind lifted some of the chard bed fabric and what the wind didn't bruise the guineas had a party with. There will be enough for bags.

Yes all is good in the garden even with the weather anxiety and all. It will be nice once we move beyond hail season!!!

June 11, 2015

Good morning, It was one of my plans this spring to solarize several of my nematode infested beds. The funny thing about solarizing you need daily intense sun for it to do its thing. As everyone knows we have had occasional sun but not days on end.

To correctly solarize the film needs to be buried around the edge of the bed. No little feat. I am not sure I want to do this what with the suns track record so far this year. I think I am just going to lay the film on the surface of the graded beds and call it good. I may just get the weeds seeds killed.

Four weeks is good but 8 weeks is even better. The long term weather forecast is for a moist summer. This would be great for growing but is not good to solarize. As they say the best laid plans of mice and men! There is next year.

Because of the moisture this winter the leaf hopper population was real bad this year. Leaf hoppers are the vector for Western Curling Disease. It makes the growing tips to be convoluted and causes the plant to have a slow death. This ended up being the demise of my tomato crop last year. I should have culled the infected plants to save the rest.

My First plantings of jalapenos got infected this year and with much trepidation I culled them. Luckily I had a few big plants for the replacements but it will take time for them to catch up to where the culled ones were. This may delay Jezebel jam. Oh well such is life.

The leaf hoppers seem to be active in the day, so I may have to plant my early solanaceae before sunrise to avoid this. I may not have gotten my covers on quick enough. This is the only control, exclusion, to prevent the leaf hoppers from chewing on the plants. You can spray them but if they have chewed, well at least the bug is dead. Funny thing the hoppers usually migrate out of the area by the first of May. This has been true this year too.

Ah yes so for the dilemma, is finding a way to plant early for well established plants to go through what is usually the angry months of May and June. Maybe some research is due with lots of trial and error. Then again next year it may not be a problem.

I am beginning to see some Root Knot Nematode (RKN) affects on some of my squash and cucumbers. I had installed an injector so I could chemigate with Azaguard, a neem oil extract, to help combat them. I did not get the injector installed in time to start the process from seed to mature plant. Ah but there is next year. I do plan on continue treatment every 2 weeks and see what the roots look like when the crops are finished. This will be interesting. Having the drip system does help with delivering much needed water to the infected roots and does slow the plants eventual demise, or at least more so than hose end watering.

The garden does continue to mature and the toms may be be up to full production within the next 2 weeks. I am beginning to get daily toms so they will soon be making it int bags and on to the table at market. Okra is starting to come on. I have two beds I am getting some from and a third that is not quite mature. Chili's are coming along and so are the eggplants. I hope to have a fully mature garde very soon.

I have started pickling cucumbers so I am not sure how many cukes I have for bags or market..

Patience!

June 4, 2015

Good morning, One of my favorite crops is sweet potatoes. Besides being tasty and prolific, they are incredibly easy to grow. I have had horn worms and grasshoppers eat the foliage, but they easily out grow this damage. I frequently find huge horn worms in the soil in the sweet beds getting ready to pupate. Last year I used the sweets to draw in the grasshoppers and then sprayed the foliage and I achieved hopper control with only having to spray the sweets. Cold pressed neem works exceptionally well. It really is interesting that sweet greens are not very well known as a food, but more studies are being performed on them. The two links below are for nutritional values for cooked and uncooked greens, then fallows an article about the health benefits of sweet greens. Sweet potatoes are an amazing veggie.

http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2946/2

http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/vegetables-and-vegetable-products/2664/2

Sweet Potato Leaf Slows Pancreatic Cancer by 42%: A peptide isolated from sweet potato leaves was discovered to slow the growth of pancreatic cancer cells by 42% in vitro, and also to kill over 25% of the cells outright. Other research has shown that these super-greens are also active against breast cancer, lung cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer and leukemia. And the health benefits of sweet potato greens are not just for the lab. One study out of Taiwan showed that eating at least 100 grams per week of this super vegetable decreased lung cancer risk by up to 57%. In other studies, sweet potato leaves boosted immunity (T lymphocytes and natural killer cells) in humans and lowered blood sugar in mice with type II diabetes. And if you need an energy boost, sweet potato leaf could be just the vegetable for you: a recent study showed it significantly relieved fatigue in mice, increased exercise capacity and even boosted muscle glycogen levels! Why are these greens so powerful? They are an excellent source of potent antioxidants called polyphenols, including the unique and powerful caffeoylquinic acids, as well as anticancer peptides. And alkaline diet fans take note: these greens are one of the most alkalizing vegetables out there, delivering 400% the alkalizing power of pure lemon juice, ounce for ounce.
My sweet crop is doing quite nicely. The first greens I cut will be rooted so that I can finish planting my 3^rd bed of sweets. This will be interesting with the staggered spacing in plantings. I hope to plant a fourth bed for the end of October harvest. With luck I will have sweets into January.

I have the remainder of my sweet cuttings rooting. This will truly be interesting with the spaced out plantings. I hope it will spread out he harvest window so that they are available much longer. Besides tomatoes this could very easily be my most popular crop.

I hope to be offering sweet greens soon.

I have a bit of an update on Peep. We had moved the Silky mom and babies to the front yard so that they could do chicken stuff in the soil as opposed to bedding in the coop. When we got our starter chickens a number of years back it came with a large cage. I leveled the ground so that the bottom would be secure and then placed Peep inside. I have always been apprehensive about raising her segregated from the other chicks.

One of my times to check on how all the babies including Peep were doing, I found peep just throwing a hissy fit when she heard the Silky doing he contact clucking for her babies. I decided to put her in the cage that I use to secure the hen and babies at night. I could see how they all reacted. There was no aggression and by mid afternoon I decided to see what would happen if she joined in with the others. I t really went quite well. Other than peep being a little timid and being noticeably smaller. The chilling and isolation may have stunted her. But the cool thing is she got to sleep under a mommy for the first time!

By this mailing Peep has lost her shyness and is eating just like the other chicks and I can no longer tell which one is her. This is a good thing!

The garden continues to mature: first tomato on Monday, cukes are coming on strong along with green beans (royal burgundy and turn green when cooked). The okra are starting to come on. I hope to offer sweet greens next week. Aphids are out of the chili's so should start to get some real soon. I am listing bulb onions, fresh garlic, beans and cukes along with squash and chard this week. Maybe kale, and okra next. Just love it when a plan comes together.

The fresh garlic is some that has sprouted. The outer wrappers can be pealed off and the whole clove and greens can be used. The very tops maybe dried so they may need to be trimed. The garlic is Spanish Roja and is pretty tasty stuff!