April 28, 2016

Good morning, having fruiting mulberry trees could be considered a blessing or a real headache.

I guess if I were a really tidy kind of person, they would most certainly be considered a headache. I really like to think of them as a blessing. Especially in dry years and when we have not had any fruit killing freezes.

I so vividly remember the year 2011. It started off with a very chilly winter where we had two cold spells that were trying to push the mercury to zero and then after this freezing spell there were no more freezes until the next fall. The year brought a whopping 4.5 inches of precipitation for the year.  Everything was brown except for some of the trees that were feeding off the previous year’s rainfall. There was NOTHING growing or blooming except for some various trees our mulberries included. This coupled with all the huge fires that year, there was NOTHING for the wildlife to feed on.

During normal years a pair of kingbirds would set up housekeeping in our mulberry trees. They would effectively chase any other bird from “their” nest territory.

This changed during 2011 and has remained to this day. Because there was no food our mulberry tree became the “feedbag” for the duration of the mulberry harvest. I think we counted a couple dozen different birds feeding on the mulberries and also several mammals feeding on the fallen fruit.

I have always heard of the truce around watering holes among species and this was so prevalent at our mulberry trees.

This has really changed my attitude toward these trees.

Most years freezes nuke the fruit and there is not the feeding frenzy. This year is not one of those years.

Recently while looking out the kitchen window, I noticed the chickens jumping like jack rabbits under the mulberry tree behind the house. This was before it became all apparent that the fruit were ripening. I was thinking, “There must be some real good bugs under that tree”. Clueless me!!!

Well it became all apparent that PURPLE season was upon us! The trees are loaded and the chickens are gorging. Funny how when I open the coups in the morning there is the beeline to the mulberry trees. “Don’t need none of those pellets or water WE got mulberries”.

I have found scratch trumps everything. It is so funny to shake the scratch bucket and to see several 8 pound birds “launch” to beat everyone else over to the scratch. Once that is done it is back to gorging. I am surprised they find time to lay eggs.

Oh yes purple season will be over soon enough but it does provide some chuckles while it happens.

Funny how I began writing this column on Monday and on Tuesday as I was harvesting veggies, Deb hollers out to me about Cedar Wax Wings feeding in the tree. From her view she didn’t have a great perspective of the tree and thought there might be 25. From my perspective in the garden this was a decent sized flock. I singled out a quarter of one tree and there were easily 50 birds! And they were evenly distributed throughout both trees. What a treat. I would not expect wax wings to be here this late. One other interesting note: I have mentioned that we have harvester ant colonies spaced every 60 feet across our property. I do not think that they intermingle. So the colonies nearest to the trees are the only ones to get to harvest the seeds from these trees. That is until the chickens scarf down tons of these fruit seeds and all, and then redeposit the seeds well dispersed among many other colonies.

This so fascinates me as to how two trees can be such a dominating presence with such connectivity!!!

Sweet potato sets arrived and they are planted. Once they begin to grow I will take cuttings and finish planting the rest of my sweet potato beds. Several tomatoes are the size of a small tennis balls and expect any day to see the first toms ripen (of course I will HAVE to quality control them). Most likely the harvest will not start in earnest until mid-May +/-. Summer squash are cruising. Last week there was nearly15 pounds, I should harvest more than that this week. Some of the beans are 1 ½ inches. The bean harvest should start with any luck this Sunday. The peas are still producing but I suspect with this warmer weather they will begin to decline rapidly, but I hope for at least another week or three. There are a number of crops that are finishing and having peas will help fill bags. Chilies are blooming and some of the okra is nearly 3 inches tall. Okra is easily another month out, hopefully by the first of June. It is such exciting times in the garden!!!

This week I expect to harvest chard, kale, green onions, lettuce, carrots, peas, and summer squash. Please email as for quantities.

April 25, 2016

Avalanche column

Recently the avalanche sold  and it seemed that this column looked like it would end. it looks like there was enough interest in the community that the new owners decided to continue. YEA!

My reprints of that column ran out and I do not feel I should print something that has not been in the paper yet.

So I am reprinting an earlier column that talks about getting ready to plant. Seasonably appropriate and next week will be a new column. Thank you for your patience.   mark

4/2/2015

Recently I got asked a couple of questions. Is it too early to till up my garden and how close do I space my plants?

Till to your hearts content. If you did not spread fresh manure on the garden last fall DO NOT put it on now unless you do not plan to plant for a few weeks. Fresh manure will burn germinating seeds or cook new seedlings. Compost would be a better alternative and you can plant as soon as you till it in.

 I like to use dense plantings so that the mature plants shade the soil and help choke out weeds. A good book that discuses dense plantings and this also provides higher yields on less ground is by John Jeavons “How to Grow  More Vegetables” by ten speed press.

He suggests to use the sowing instructions on the seed packet and disregard the between the row spacing and use only the in the row spacing. 

An example would be New Mexico Chili. In row spacing is 12 to 18 inches and between the row spacing is 24 to 30 inches. Plants are spaced on an 18 by 18 inch grid. My beds are 4 feet wide and there are 2 rows. 

Special attention must be given to crops where the in row spacing is 2 inches and the between row is 18 inches. Beans are frequently sown to this spacing.  A grid of a2 inch X 2 inch spacing would be too close. Jeavons changes this to a 6 inch by 6 inch grid. I have found this to work well for me.

Another special attention crop is carrots. Tap rooted carrots are hard to transplant so I try for a 2 inch in the row and 4 inches between the rows. Thinning the carrot seedlings will achieve this spacing.

Seedlings grown for latter transplant are green onions and lettuce. The transplanted green onions are planted on a 2 inch by 4 inch spacing. The lettuce is transplanted to a 1 foot by 1 foot spacing and this makes for a wonderful lettuce bouquet. If you like you can just trim lettuce leaves in their seed bed and never transplant.

I do not plant two different maturity sized plants in close proximity; the shorter veggie will lose out. An example would be carrots and eggplants.

Here are a few spacing suggestions for beds that are 4.5 feet wide. Indeterminate tomatoes single row 36” apart. Determinate tomatoes, eggplants, and chili’s 18” X 18” with two rows.  Beets 4”X 8” with four or five rows.  Sweet potatoes 4 rows on a1’ X1’ spacing.  Cucumbers two rows on a 1’ by 1’ spacing .  Garlic, I have done a 4” by 4” but was not pleased with the product, so I went to a4”X 1’ spacing but I think I can easily go with a 4” X 8” and get some very nice sized garlic.

April 21, 2016

Good morning, this coming Saturday will be the Earth Day celebration on Murphy Street.  The Alpine Earth Day Celebration was started by the Conservation Biology Club on Sul Ross Campus. Originally it was held at Kokernott Lodge. Several years back it was moved to Murphy Street. This seemed to be the catalyst to make this event grow and it has every year since it has been held on Murphy Street! This year the Conservation Biology Club was not going to be able to organize the Earth Day event. It looked like it might not happen. Through the efforts of many people and the Keep Alpine Beautiful folks (Patsy McWilliams), there will be a show this year. With the advent of Keep Alpine Beautiful taking over the organizing of Earth Day, this celebration could very easily become a city wide event. How cool could that be? I so look forward to Earth Day and I hope everyone can come out for the festivities. Earth Day will start with the Farmers Market and continue into the Afternoon. A GRAND time is expected to be had by all!!!

Since the gentleman that would bring me compost material on a regular basis retired, I have been a little more creative on the fertility thing. I have tried some of the brewery leavings but neglected to do a really good job of fencing out the chickens. Even more so than with greens chickens think grain is mana from heaven. They put a lot of effort into making access. I still think this has great potential that I will explore in the future.

Down the road from me going towards the recycle yard a gentleman has piled some horse stall manure. It is not fresh but is for the most part pulverized and blends with my chicken poop quite well. The pile heats up but not as hot as I would like so I may have to use more chicken manure than the 50 /50 blend that I used. What I am a little concerned about is the amount of seed that might germinate from the horse manure. This will be interesting.

When I had an almost unlimited supply of compost I would be able to incorporate 2 to 3 inches into the bed when crops finished and then I could use a couple inches to mulch the succession plantings with. I do not mulch much in the winter because I want the soil to get as warm as it can. Mulch would prevent this from happening.  

On the other hand as we advance through spring towards the angry months of May and June, mulching becomes mandatory.  This time of year provides extremely low humidity and some of the year’s hottest temperatures. Without mulch even with the covers over the beds, evaporation and transpiration can really draw down the available moisture that plants can use. Given the option of adding compost to the soil or having surface mulch for the plants, the mulch wins hands down. Besides at a later date it is incorporated into the bed. In this way it does double duty.

Ever since I started the garden I have turned the beds with a shovel. Besides aerating and loosening the soil I can remove rocks too. I still do this if I am going to use transplants. I have begun to experiment with swivel hoeing the top 2 to 3 inches so that a very nice seed bed can be raked out. Since I use a shovel to turn my beds this is a fairly quick alternative and I have not seen any problems doing this.

Something very interesting is happening with my sun choke bed. When I first planted this bed the soil depth was maybe 8 to 12 inches and the chokes remained in the top 4 to 6 inches. It remained this depth for the time that I hose end watered. I suspect this this is the depth that my watering penetrated. Since I started using the drip system the hard pan is being chipped away and chokes are now down to 18 inches. When I dug the sun chokes this year there were countless numbers that looked like they had been flattened by a freight train. What was happening is the tuber root sprouts would find a crack. As the tuber expanded the rook would be pried apart. If it wasn’t for the fact that I would be hard pressed to remove ALL of the sun chokes tubers, this would be such a great way to get more soil depth in my garden. There are areas in the garden that is shallower than 6 inches. Who knows someday I might be able to rip the beds. Cleaning all the rock out may be an appropriate use for enhanced vocabulary usage. Having the added soil depth would be real nice. I wonder what that would do for crop production. Last year these inadequacies were demonstrated when I planted okra in one of my beds. On one end there was 18 inches of soil and at the other end maybe 6. At the deep end the okra was 12 feet tall and at the shallow end maybe 5 feet. When I pulled the plants last fall the roots at the shallow end took on two forms: an “L” shape where the root followed the hard pan or an inverted mushroom look. The sun choke could help with this but I do not think I want that can of worms!!

I mentioned awhile back that my early plantings will make it to maturity as long as I do not do something stupid. I should know by now that the morning after a cold front clears can be a very cold morning.  I should also know about convection freezes when the night is clear and it is dead calm.

The precipitation from this past storm was extremely light so I uncovered some beds to take advantage of this moisture. Light rains wick off to the sides of the fabric and thus do not penetrate the fabric. The wind picked up in the evening. So I left them uncovered, after all the predicted temp was to be in the 40’s. I should have expected a chilling with clearing skies. The first thing I do when I get up is to check the temp. This can wake me up better than a cup of coffee. It was 39 and a perfect convection freeze zone! When I did get out in the garden, the flat on the ground fabric was covered with a light frost. I did not feel any ice on the leaves, but my plants were immediately covered. This was at 3 AM and it seemed like an eternity to sunrise. The damage will be quickly apparent as soon as the sun rises and the air warms so the covers can be removed.

Deb thinks I am a worry wort, she might be right. Who knows I may have covered everything just in time or maybe nothing would have happened. I still think it was prudent to cover. ALL is well!

It is so exciting in the garden: the tomatoes are sizing up (a couple 2 to 3 inchers)  and maybe the harvest will start the first of May, Beans are blooming crazy with some small beans, blossoms forming on the eggplants and chili’s, and last but not least the summer squash harvest has begun!!!! We are still a month or better for okra and cucumbers. The Garlic is bulbing so there will be some soon. Such a wonderful time in the garden!!! 

I anticipate harvesting: chard, kale, lettuce, green onions, carrots, beets, squash, and snow peas. Please email for availability.

April 18, 2016

Avalanche column

March 31, 2016

This week I would like to express my gratitude for a path taken.

The fork in the road that has led me to so many wonderful things was discovered back in 1976. The fork was to go to the University of Ky. to become a professional forester or take a seasonal forestry job on the Gila National Forest in New Mexico.

Recently Debs Mom passed away and this has caused me to reflect on the path taken for the last 40 years. I chose to go work on the Gila. This was the first and most likely the most important choice I have ever made.

This choice set me on a collision course two years later with my soon unbeknownst to me the love of my life. Since meeting Deb in 1978 we have been inseparable for this time period of which 35 of them we have been married.

I think of all the things that would not have happened if I had chosen two more years of forestry school instead of a temporary tech job on the Gila National Forest.

The list is quite extensive and all of it was a refining of that path taken so long ago to lead me where I am today.

I may have met another lady but it surely would not have been Deb. I may not have been a sole proprietor with a landscape company. I may not have honed my gardening skills in many diverse climates. I may not have moved to Alpine and grow a decent sized garden.  I may not have got involved with the Alpine Farmers market. Nor would I have done the gardening presentations that led up to Deb writing a book of what we do. And surely Deb and I would not have become the managers of the Alpine Farmers Market. This has truly been an amazing life.

Yes I am very grateful for the path taken; it has been an amazing journey.

Questions? I can be contacted at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com. Or more garden notes at redwagonfarm.blogsot.com 

April 14, 2016

Good morning, I have been using fabric for a number of years now. I have used it in all of the different kinds of weather that can be found in West Texas. It continues to shine. Even during the cold, cloudy and wet winter of 2014-15 there was no adverse effects.

I have folks just baffled wondering how you could leave the fabric on and the plants still able to get enough light.

A friend loaned me his light meter a few years back because I was curious as to how accurate the fabric light rating was. Agribon comes in several thicknesses but I only use two. These are Agribon 19 and Agribon 70. These numbers designate the amount of light not penetrating the fabric.

When I used my friends light meter it was during the middle of winter. I picked a very sunny day. The reading in full sunlight was 10,000 lumins. I then crawled underneath a bed covered with Agribon 70. The meter reading was right at 3000 or roughly 70 percent less than full sun.

I had poked my head under the fabric before but I had never crawled underneath. The fabric was acting like a prism and would reflect the light all around underneath the cover including underneath the plants. I like to think of it being superior to our unbridled sun. As the light meter shows even in the winter we have a plentiful supply of sun.

I have grown broccoli to full term under 70 starting in August and harvesting side shoots all the way into April. There never has been any indication that the plants were suffering from light deprivation. In fact they thrived.

I also checked the meter readings under the 19 covers and this too checked out.

During most of our winters we seldom have extremely low temperature. Historically we have had very cold weather and some of these cold spells historicly have recorded into the minus digits. The coldest I have experienced has been 1.5 degrees. It is important to note that the vast majority of veggies start dropping like flies when temperatures reach 20 degrees. Parsnips and garlic are the exceptions to this rule. The important note is they need to be in a dormant state. This is one of the big problems with our climate. There are very large temperature swings. A very good example of this was during the first two months of 2011. The last few days of January the high temperatures were in the sixties with the highest temperature being near 70, then within the first couple of days of February we experienced a low of 1.5 then the following weekend we were well above freezing then the next week down to five degrees and then above freezing by that weekend. Then within the next three months we were hitting 100 degrees. West Texas has some very harsh conditions for us let alone plants that have to be outside.

I always follow weather forecasts very closely. Before the February freeze there was a week in advance notice. I spent that time preparing for it but I think the depth of the chill caught most folks by surprise including weather forecasters.

I am forever grateful for the fabric. Everything got covered with at least one layer of 19 but most had two layers and some were covered with the 70. If it were not for the fabric I would have needed to replant the garden after the freezes. The only 100 percent moralities were my cauliflower and radishes. After the freeze the lettuce looked like a casualty but after removing all the dead frozen outer leaves that had protected the center the lettuce made a full recovery within a month. Within two weeks of the freezes I was harvesting chard. This could not have been possible without the fabric. I then proceeded to garden through the next summer even as hot and dry as it was. Where a lot of folks either gave up or didn't even try to garden, the fabric leveled the playing field and I gardened through it. This success was due to the fabric but I also had well established plants before the onslaught of hot dry windy weather. Nothing magical just dumb luck and fabric.

If I had not been sold on fabric before this I surely was afterward. I have not found the fabric to over heat plants. In fact in the summer it cools because of the reflective qualities from being white. Any appearances of over heating is from hand watering and there is not enough water getting through the fabric to hydrate the plants. It is easy to water through the fabric, but it is imperative to make sure it is well watered (with a visual check).

There are some disadvantages of the fabric, from my experience two are the worst. They are: it makes a great habitat for aphids and during the spring when we have dust devils I have had fabric get launched. Usually the dust devils will just pull the fabric off the bed but on occasion I have had the fabric fly up a couple hundred feet and just fly away. This worries me and for spring I beef up the rocks holding down the fabric.

Yes I could garden without fabric but it sure levels the playing field. Like with all tools you do need to learn how to use it.

This week I anticipate harvesting: chard, kale, carrots, green onions, Asian greens, lettuce, beets and snow peas. Please email me as to availability.

April 11, 2016

un published Avalanche column

April 14, 2016

Powdery mildew will slowly but surely suffocate a plant. Most years it is only cucurbits (squash, cucumbers, melon…) that it affects.  I have seen in more humid summers it will also infect chilies and tomatoes.

For most of the growing year from March until November powdery mildew is not a problem. Around the middle of August while the humidity is 20 to 30 percent, the nights are cooling but the days are still hot, the conditions are perfect for powdery mildew.

It peeks behind the door with a few little moldy blotches that are on the top of the leaves. Then slowly it colonizes the whole leaf and then the stems. I have found once it starts colonizing the leaf stems the battle is lost.

Combating powdery mildew is more like hospice care than really prevailing. Slowing the growth is the best you can do.

Oh but how to do this. A spray with 40 percent milk and 60 percent water has shown to be as effective sulfur sprays.  One tablespoon of baking soda with ½ tsp of liquid soap per gallon of water does control Powdery mildew. Combining the baking soda with a 2 percent solution of clarified hydrophobic neem oil is even more effective.  I have also had reasonable luck with a natural fungicide called Activinate.

One thing that MUST be done is to start treatment early and continue to the end of the season or the expiration of the plant. It is even more effective if the program is started before any mildew is seen but the conditions are right for powdery mildews growth.

When I work my summer squash bed I will remove and collect all infected leaves as I harvest the squash daily.  It is imperative to remove these “harvested” leaves from the garden so that the spores will not continue the infection of your crop.  I also start a bed of squash around the first of August so that I have a younger more vigorous crop. This also helps with the powdery mildew “thingy”.

Recently I have found a seed company (High Mowing seed) that has propagated open pollinated yellow and zucchini squash. I intend to get some of this seed and try it. Ah yes the makings of another future column!

 

Questions? I can be contacted at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com. Or more garden notes at redwagonfarm.blogsot.com 

 

April 7, 2016

Good morning, chickens are the funniest things. We have somewhere around 50 hens. This time of year the hens are very active scratching and eating until the egging alarm clock goes off. Then there is one thing and one thing alone that is on their minds “GOTTA LAY AN EGG”.

One would think that this could be done in any convenient nest like location. I am still studying as to what makes one location FAR superior to another. So far the only criteria that fits is “any place except where I want them to egg”.

One time when we first had chickens we thought that it would be cool to have them eat down the grass in front of the house. It was early morning, we had herded them to their foraging “station” and placed by all appearances (to me) to be a fine nest box that they could use and then get back to foraging. Well it got to be about 10 AM and it was just like some one in a movie theater screamed FIRE. The hens were leaving the front yard like so many rats jumping from a sinking ship. The race was on to get to the perfect nesting location before another hen got there first. They never even considered the nice nest box in the front yard that I so purposely located for their convenience.

Normally the hens that do not make it to the nesting location before some other hen starts to lay, really start to raise a fuss and soon the whole barnyard is in a scolding kind of rhythm. It can become quite vocal at times. 

Normally peak egging time is between 10 AM and 2 PM. But there always is an exception or two.

I usually collect eggs around 3:30 in the afternoon so that I don't disturb the ladies while they are doing their business.

I have a cold frame that I have placed a blanket on the side so that the hens can't get into the cold frame and “beautify” my seedlings. Well the blanket makes for a nifty egging cave and 12 to 15 hens use this location. I like single egging locations because it minimizes the Easter egg hunt. It was collecting time and at least 3 ladies were not done yet at this location. The Hen on the nest was taking FOR EVER. The funny thing was that all three of these hens were quiet. Very strange. The hen first in line would stand back then go up to the cave and look end to see what possibly could be the hold up. She was for sure sending daggers toward the nesting hen. While this is going on the second in line would pace in circles for a while then go catch a quick bite and then back to circles. And of course there is NOWHERE else to egg. Well eventually everyone was relieved of their payloads and it was all back to pecking and scratching.

We inherited a number of bantam hens. These hens are about 1/3 to a 1/4 in size of the full sized hens. They are relentlessly picked on by the full sized hens. They may not be big but they are FAST!!!!. When tossing out bread crumbs it is a bantam that usually gets a piece. This may tick off the full sized hens.

In the afternoon when I collect eggs I toss scratch to the hens. You think that they get silly over greens but goofy doesn't even come close to describe their reactions when I rattle the scratch cans. It is almost like a war zone with instead of artillery projectiles coming it is many of the full sized hens that have launched and I am ground zero. No place to duck or to take cover. It is usually during scratch time that the bantams get the most harassment from the big hens.

We have one bantam that we call Burnsides because she has protruding whiskers on either side of her head not to dissimilar from General Burnsides of Civil War fame. I call her “Deb's bird”or between the two of us “your bird”. Deb has gotten her trained to come up to the front door and Deb will let her in to feed her a little scratch that she can eat in private away from all the other hens. She has gotten real good at zipping into the house without being noticed.. But soon you see her demanding “the good stuff”. Her crop usually gets to be the size of a grapefruit by the time we scurry her outdoors before she explodes.

As I said bantams are fast and this particular day she made pretty good inroads with the front yard “feeding frenzy” and managed to fill her crop really quite full. Well sure enough after doing my egg and scratch duties there she was standing there after she slipped through my radar wondering where “the good stuff” was. I had seen her being lucky with the “feeding” so I picked her up and really could not see where she could fit anymore, but she was more than willing to give it a go. I laughed and put her out.

The chicken channel, never a dull moment.

With warmer weather I am seeing some male flowers starting to develop on the squash vines. In the meantime young squash could find their way into the weekly bags. Do not see any small beans yet but the beans are covered with flowers. I am keeping the peas well watered and maybe I can keep them going for most of April. Those extremely cold nights awhile back really zapped them pretty good. Those nights really caught me off guard. Maybe if I had had a couple of layers of 70 on them, this could have been prevented. Ah yess that learning curve. It does remind me of a couple years back when we had some late freezes. I diligently had everything all tucked in and did not give any thought to my garlic or bulb onions. After all they are cold hardy, right? Welll some of the older lower leaves really got zapped along with some of the newer growth. With onions each leaf is a ring ( a ring being 1/4 inch thick or 1/2 inch per bulb size) and in garlic each leaf is a clove. This freeze really impacted the harvest of these crops. Now when these crops are actively growing I have a single layer of 19 ready to cover. It is important to uncover as quickly as possible because just this one layer can cause these two crops to prematurely mature and thus not gain full size. I guess if all this was real easy everyone would be doing it. But I love a challenge. Soooo next year the 70 will be on stand by for the peas. It is exciting to see the toms starting to fill up with fruit.

This week I expect to harvest chard, kale, green onions, carrots, beets, peas, and lettuce. Please email for availibility.

April 4, 2016

avalanche column

March 17,2016

Wire worms look like the grubs that I remember feeding lizards when I was a kid. Meal worms we called them. Not sure if they are from the same insect family but wire worms are the larvae of click beetles. Interesting as it may be, I do not get the damage from these critters that I once did.

These guys are active two times a year and looking at the tubers it is very easy to determine the time frame that the damage was done. Wire worms are attracted to the CO2 that is given off by germinating seed. It has been noted that wire worms prefer grass and beans that are germinating. I have not noticed this in my garden. This could be so but I feel most of my seedling mortality is from cut worms, pill bugs, saw flies, and other members of the Lepidoptera family (moths and butterflies). This is not to say they don’t factor into this. Ah yes, troubleshooting.

Where I have noticed most of my wire worm damage is on tubers; sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes and to a lesser extent on sun chokes and beets.

The two times of the year that they attack crops: spring with soil temperatures between 60 and 85. Then again they attack in the fall from 85 to 60. The wire worms move deeper into the soil when the surface temperatures are too hot or too cold. Likewise the early damage is holes in the side of the tuber that have callused over and are much bigger than the diameter of a wire worm, up to ½ inch. Whereas the fall damage is equal to the diameter of the wire worm and there is no callusing.

I inherited these bugs when I converted range land into my garden area. Wire worms like to feed on native grasses. It can take up to several years for the larvae to develop into click beetles.

There is not a lot that can be done to control these critters. Trap crops of corn planted on the edge of a garden bed can lure the worms away from the crop. Like with all traps they need to be tended too. In the case of the corn it needs to be pulled up and the wire worms disposed of. Chickens go YUMMMMM!!!

Ground beetles and their larvae will attach and eat wire worms. I have turned a bed while a chicken is riding shot gun. Grubs have noooo!! chance. This is another reason I like to use a shovel to turn my beds. There are some amazing observations to be made that can’t be done when using a tiller.

I am not sure why this once very damaging pest has faded in its severity of predation. This lessening of damage is highlighted by the declining numbers of young wireworms I observe any more.

Good luck and happy gardening!!! Questions? I can be contacted at markdirtfarmer@gmail.com. Or more garden notes at redwagonfarm.blogsot.com