July 6, 2017

Good morning,  It is a little early but so far so good with the fall pea crop. How funny was it to sow the germinated seeds in a brief cool down, only for this period to be  followed with a couple of 100+ degree days. 

When I looked under fabric to check on them this past Sunday they actually looked to be growing, the fabric was pulled back so that the fabric could be raised and It looked like there was a pretty good take. I thought for sure those real hot days would have done them in. 

The long term forecast seems to be cooler than June. it would not take too much  to be so.

I feel that this past June has been the hottest weather I have experienced as a gardener. It was very surprising to see some of my summer squash and cucumbers instead of just getting leaf wilt, the plants literally burned up. This really perplexed me because I was even covering them to help reduce some of the heat stress. As always I pull plants to check what kind of condition the roots are in. In most cases the roots were highly infected with RKN and the galls were very prevalent. Although there was a cucumber that had clean roots but died any way. For the most part the galling explains most of the plants that just burnt up.

In the cucumber bed there were a few plants that had died earlier from RKN. With the replacement plants I did a soil drench with cold pressed neem oil and then followed this with an application of Promax ( the new RKN soil treatment). These plants have matured and are producing. So far these plants appear to be growing in known RKN infected soil. I will be interested to look at these roots when the plants are pulled.

If it was not so labor intensive, I think solarizing the soil with greenhouse film gives the best relief from RKN. It is just a pain to dig a trench around the bed and bury the edge of the film so that the soil can cook. It would have done some magnificent cooking with this past June.

It really gets back to that serenity prayer thing. Although it does seem that the Promax does give me some relief. Maybe with the use of my other neem oil products there can be a little bit more control..RKN world wide is one of the biggest pests in farmed land. 

This week I harvested,chard, kale,green onions, beets, beans, chilies, and tomatoes. In storaage bulb onions, garlic and butternut squash. Please email for availability.