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.