Good morning, Just before this last cold front I was culling the very small turnips out of my turnip bed to feed to the chickens. It wasn't until later I made an observation.
My turnip bed had attracted a large infestation of Harlequin bugs.These are a close relative to squash bugs. They feed on plants the same way as squash bugs by sucking on the leaves, although I have not seen them sucking on the turnips like squash bugs do suck on squash fruit.
I had sprayed with some of my sprays to control them. Due to various reasons I was unable to conduct an effective spray routine and thus I never got control of them.
Since our first snow storm we have been getting some deep freezes on a regular basis.
There just might be a silver lining to these real "robust" temperature swings. I was curious what kind of swings we would get with the most recent cold front. Monday's high was 69 and Tuesday's low was 19. It stayed below freezing for over a day. This has been the pattern for all our cold fronts.
It was not too long ago that I did a google search on how cold it had to get to kill bugs. The depth of the cold seemed not to be as important as the duration. There is very likely something else that may contribute to bugs demise in far west Texas and that is the supersonic temperature swings.
Other places I have lived the cold kinda builds allowing bugs to seek shelter. In my book 69 degrees would be perfect feeding weather and the swiftness that these fronts come through along with the duration just might catch the bugs with" their pants to their knees" so to speak.
Anyway when it dawned on me several hours later It wasn't that I saw one Harlequin bug, I flat out did not see any.
I am very interested to see how buggy or not so buggy this coming year will be. With eyes and ears open there never is a dull moment.
Because of the recent freeze I have not been able to harvest. It is my intention to harvest today and then divide and put bags together tomorrow. Because of this there will not be any Friday deliveries, only Saturday at the Market. Please place your orders and if my plans go a astray I will let everyone know.
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