November 17, 2016

 Good morning, for the folks who have Friday veggie orders, I will be in a red Ford pickup instead of the white Aztec.

Yes the garden is responding to my presence quite nicely. I have brought most of the caterpillars under control. Instead of fattening caterpillars, the plants are growing. I have had some flea beetles munching on the Asian greens. They were looking rather Swiss cheese like and most all of these predations compound upon themselves when they are “growing” slowly in cloudy and cool weather. A lot of the time veggies can outgrow the predations when it is more favorable for them to grow. I am hoping to be at the very bottom of my greens production. This week is warmer and sunnier than what it has been of late. I am very grateful for this cloudy and cool weather when my pump went out. If it had happened in July, the garden would have been toast!!! I think it may have been slowly going out because seeing how quickly the pressure comes up with the new pump.

The broccoli and cauliflower are about 12 to 15 inches tall, what kohlrabi I have are starting to bulb, the cabbage are looking nice (these were hit real hard with the cutworms so there are only a few).

I wanted to reseed both the kohlrabi and cabbage but I have found that when these fall planted plants are not harvested within a short time after the winter solstice they begin to bolt. In the case of cabbage they are very loose open heads and with kohlrabi the bulbs become woody. Parsnips can also become woody if they resume growth once winter passes.

I have completed the first application of my new nematode control potion. It is interesting that thyme oil is the biggest part of this solution. So I need to wait a couple weeks and then reapply followed with a soil micro fauna /flora booster. This is supposed to kill 70 percent of the eggs and juvenile root knot nematodes. This has the potential to really boost the gardens production.

Some of my beds are heavily infected but most have some infection.  This is exciting!!! I hope it works.

It is nice that the distractions have quieted down and the garden is getting a little TLC and it appears to like it!!