What says fall is upon us more than the wonderful smell of chilies roasting. Martha and Mike Latta will be roasting chilies again at the market this Saturday.
Ah yes the summer is coming to a close and fall is zooming into view. It is also the time of year where I look back at the year to see how it went and how I can change anything. Mother Nature was ruthless with us this past June. It took some time but it did eventually shut the garden down from the heat. It really did surprise me how it took several weeks to get veggies back into a full bloom mode. When things do not work out I first like to evaluate what I can change.
This year I am trying a new soil treatment for root knot nematodes. By and large I am pleased as to how it has performed. After several plants were finished I pulled them so I could inspect the roots. There were some huge galls and these plants still pulled of harvests. This treatment worked well on most veggies but it does appear that okra is extremely susceptible to root knot nematodes.
I attempted an extra early planting of okra. Okra does not force. Okra likes to grow at the same soil temperatures that RKN are active. One of the ways I combat RKN is by early plantings so I get a harvest before they get real active. Something I will experiment with is the use of a cold pressed neem oil soil drench. Possibly only on a portion of a bed so that I can compare results. These drenching s would need to be done every other week for the term of the plants.
I do plan to do a modified solarization where I cover the plastics edges with soil as opposed to burying the edge. This would be much easier than than burying and I could include this in My RKN routine if it works.
Tomatoes seem to be another crop that RKN wreak havoc with. Tomatoes have other options that can be used to combat RKN. There are known RKN resistant toms (usually hybrids) and then there is root stock that is very resistant to RKN that has a very vigorous root systems. With the root stock I can graft my favorite toms on. They would become resistant to RKN and with a vigorous root system could also boost harvests. These root stock seeds are somewhat expensive. I have grafted fruit trees in the past with success. So I am going to give this a shot with the toms. I am growing some toms that I will cut the tops off of and then graft them back together to practice. This sounds like a lot of work but if it allows me to have tomatoes for the whole season It will be worth it.
Another means to attack RKN that I saw a few years back that I saw was the use of predatory nematodes that will attack RKN. With having a drip system and an injector this may be doable. More research is needed.
This is all interesting stuff and who knows what will work or won't.
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