March 31, 2016

Good morning, yes the garden is just about fully planted.. Once the sweet potato sets arrive the middle of April, I will be. There will be a few beds that are fallow, but these are for succession plantings or to be solarized. Last year I had planned to do some solarizing, but the dry sunny heat was delayed into July and by that time I had gotten over it. I plan to do some this year. It would nice to compare solarizing nematode control to the use of chemigating with Azaguard.

Azaguard uses the hormones that are extracted from cold pressed neem oil when clarified hydrophobic neem oil is manufactured.. I am using this to inject into my drip system because it does not have the oily film that is associated with cold pressed neem oil. Cold pressed neem oil would clog my drip system.

This will be very interesting.

Last year I did some chemigating in some of my more severely infected beds and did not see the severe detrimental effects of the nematodes until water was being withheld to ripen late season toms. This lack of visible nematode evidence during the growing season could have been due to the drip system providing deep regular water. Time will tell when this springs plants are removed in the fall and the roots can be examined. With the minimal amount that I did use Azaguard last year, I was quite surprised with the positive results that I got. I am anticipating to see what following the recommended applications will provide. It would be wonderful if the results are better than solarizing. Solarizing, at best conditions the top 6 to 8 inches of the soil horizon. Chemigation could potentially treat the whole root zone since it would be delivered during a water cycle. The solarizing process requires a trench to be dug around my 45 foot X 4.5 foot beds. It is a job to say the least. The bed needs to be as flat as possible so that the film is in contact with the soil. Then the bed needs to be deep watered and clear film stretched over the bed and the edges buried in the trench. Chemigating is a lot less exhausting.

I will always have root knot nematodes but it would be nice if their presence were to be just a little less so. Lucky for me my soil is a clay / loam instead of sand. The finer soil particles does inhibit their movement even though my soil holds water better than sand. I guess it is the larger voids between the sand particles that helps the nematodes with their mobility. Even so we are talking inches of travel each year unless they hitchhike on the back of shoes, tools, fowl.... or are flushed out after a heavy rain. So with any luck I can move these puppies into more of a footnote instead of a page long exclamation.

There are so many veggies that are “just about” . I anticipate that I will harvest chard, kale, spinach (the heat is taking a toll), lettuce, carrots, green onions, and snow peas. Also I have some sun chokes and some butternuts.

The anticipation for snow peas has been building for a couple of weeks now. With the warmer weather the harvest window will be a short one. Sadly when we had the real cold overnights a few weeks back, the first pea blossoms were frozen and it has taken a bit for them to regain this lost ground.

On another note there are the first green tomatoes enlarging, along with bean blossoms, and the summer squash should starting blooming any day.

It is that time of year where I may need to put duplicates in the bags so that orders can be filled. This should be short lived. Mother Nature does have the last word though.