November 29, 2018

Good morning, luckily last September when I sprained my ankle that there was a consistent amount of moisture. This allowed me to not to have to make trips to the garden to run the drip tape. The down side was that the weeds and grasses took over the garden. This caused a problem that I did not expect.

My garden was carved out of the natural grassland on my property. This is the home for any number of "would be" garden pests. Thrips and click beetles are a couple of them.

Thrips is only a problem when we experience a very dry spring and when the only green around is in the garden. This year I battled them all year. At best this was a draw. When it is warm, the egg to adult time is very short and it is measured in days not weeks. Row covers and a regular spray program will control them. For me it was the click beetles that will be the worst problem.

Click beetles are those guys that if you place them on their backs will “click” and this movement will right themselves. Like with butterflies and moths the adults are very benign, it is their larval stages that the problems develop. 

There are several different “varieties” of click beetles. With each of them there are different maturity time lines. This means it can take from one to seven years for them to mature.

When I experienced wire worms aka click beetle larvae, I could not figure out what was putting holes in all of my root crops. It wasn’t until I harvested a sweet potato with a wire worm diligently eating a hole in the side of the sweet. A google search enlightened me as to what the critter was. Besides the above-mentioned maturity time line, I discovered that they are active at two different times of the year. In the spring and in the fall when the soil cools below 85. It is very easy on the spuds to determine as to when the damage was done. Early spring attacks are callused large monstrosities up to ½ inch in diameter. Where as the late attacks are maybe a 1/16 in diameter.

I had “matured out” my wire worm population and have not had any for several years. But this fall as I was harvesting sweets I noticed the tiny holes and several small cream colored “soon to be dead” wire worms.

Luckily, I only noticed them in a small portion of the last bed that I harvested.

There are various traps that can be used to lure them. I found, by accident, that if I keep grass in the garden area under control, that there are not adequate breeding grounds for these guys. Grassland is these guys “home turf” so to speak.

This is only an observation and speculation about the wire worms “maturing out” and not continuing to propagate. It is not something that I was hoping to test my theory but with a sprained ankle and abundant moister to get a fine stand of grass that has put me in this position.

My game plan is to not plant any root crops or cover crops in this particular bed for at least a year or two. This should not be a problem with the number of different veggies I grow. With luck they will be starved or matured out.

This could take up to 7 years to play out. Such is life and if agriculture was easy everyone would be doing it.

Last week I did get my greens cleaned up from the freeze damage. The boc choi, spinach, and Asian greens are making a very nice comeback. With luck they will soon be up to full production. The older chard bed will be making its next rising from the ashes. Last time it was caterpillars (darn ankle). Maybe start harvesting next week. My new replacement bed of chard/kale was not totally frozen out and will provide some harvest in the near future. I usually do not sow seeds in late November, but I had the seeds and thought "what the hey". The beds can't get any barer than what they already are. The jury is out on the cabbage and it looks like there could be some what of a harvest for the kohlrabi. Peas, carrots and green onions are doing fine. I am about ready to sow my second pea bed Next weekend. Long range forecasts have cool and most weather the last of December and first of January. It would be nice to have them up before this  happens.

Who knows, I might get lucky. As for my  ginger and turmeric, I did get some to grow for me this year.  I plan to give it a whirl again next year and use the tubers from this year. Funny how they were doing "well" until our kitten really took a liking to that foliage. It looks sad now. He had a blast.

It has been a challenging year and it is nearly over. Ah yes there is next year!!!!!

Please place your orders and I will fill and only bill for what I do fill. Thank you for your patience.

November 22, 2018

Good morning, yesterday I did manage to get into the garden and start cleaning the carnage. I mentioned that the broccoli and cauliflower are toast. No change there but as for the cabbage and kohlrabi, I have more hope for the kohlrabi than the cabbage. The cabbage has no size to it after the freeze. No need to pull them so we can take a wait and see posture. The snow peas are looking good. The chard looks pathetic but I expect a recovery, it is a tough green.  As for all of the surviving greens they have been cleaned up and there also was a light harvest. There are small amounts of boc choi, Asian greens and spinach.

One thing for sure everything is hardened off now. As long as it does not get really cold these greens harvests will get better.

I do plan to fill bag orders and with luck I will fill them but if I don’t I will only bill for that portion I do.

Due to Thanksgiving, there will be no Friday deliveries. Orders can be picked up at the market Saturday..

I wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving !

November 19, 2018

Sunday was not a good day to venture out into the garden. A bit of a cool start today. Had to let the rocks break loose of the fabric.

As noted it was a extra hard first freeze Monday a week ago. Once the dust settled the thermometer was setting at 17. Uncovered plants at that temp do not survive. I had a bed of chard / kale that fit this category and it is dead 100%

Everything else was covered. There were well established seedlings and not so established. In the not so established, most of these guys are has beens too. With the well established seedlings everything got leaf burn. It does not look like any of these will die but they are set back or even possibly stunted. If we do not get any more mornings in the teens for awhile all of these may come out of it.

It does look like the broccoli and cauliflower is a total crop failure. The jury is out on the cabbage and kohlrabi. We will have to take a wait and see posture. My older bed of chard had developed stalks and even though it was covered there does seem to be some mortality in this bed too. Once again that time thingy. My sugar pod peas look to have come through fine. The strawberries are unscathed in fact they look the best of everything. The older carrots were uncovered and the foliage is fried but I suspect the roots are fine. They are mature. The young carrots were covered and look quite happy. The Brussels sprouts, boc choi, spinach, Asian greens and the lettuce trans plants look good. Leaf burn but will all comeback nicely.

I had gotten the cabbage, kohlrabi and Brussels sprouts all in what I consider late and with them all getting older leaves burned I am not sure if these crops will make. I have nothing for a long time to go into these beds so we can just see what happens.

Save for sowing peas in the next couple of weeks I find any other sown veggie (sown between Nov and Feb 15) just sits and I feel they get stunted. Seed sown after February 15 out performs all of these winter sown veggies except the peas.

I think  these real strong temperature swings has become the new normal. It is because I use floating row covers that I still have a garden. It is taking a little bit for me to get used to the fact that the fabric instead of preventing a growth slow down that it is now preventing plants from being frozen to death. With out fabric the garden would be finished.

November 15, 2018

Good morning, sometimes I can be so brain dead, especially when you know a cold front is coming my way. My focus was to harvest all the summer veggies and root crops, because I knew they would not make it through. The fall and winter veggies, once they have hardened can take cold, but not the first real hard freeze. I have noted that for most veggie that are not covered 20 degrees is the death temp. We had a low of 17 at 4.5 feet (I need to lower the thermometer for winter position). It is likely that my Kale, carrots and green onions will survive, but they sure look bleak today. No big deal with the carrots, they are mature and are quite safe in the ground, as for the green onions time will tell if the tops need to grow back for harvest. Now the kale may be a different story, the growing tips look good for now but all the harvestable foliage is chicken food. If the tips have survived, there could be kale in the near future just not this week. My chard and lettuce seedlings were covered, didn’t check, but experience says they are fine. On the bright side, if this cold did not kill the veggies they are hardened off now.

Welllll after looking under the covers on Wednesday, This first real heavy freeze took its toll. It  has set me back. A person can try and be prepared but Mother Nature gets the last call. Sunday will be clean up day. Like last year, the covers are the difference of plants being dead or able to have new growth.  This year has been a real challenge.

There have been a number of distractions this year and man have I dropped the ball. Ah but this year is nearly done and next year will soon be knocking at the front door. I believe I am ready to greet.

For anyone interested I do have sweet potatoes for $4.00 per pound,, butternuts for $3.00 per pound and garlic for  fifty cents per bulb in storage

 With luck and a little warmer weather the harvests will continue.

November 8, 2018

Good morning, fall plantings by and large are doing well. The stocking in the pea bed  is not full cover but it does look to be about 50%. This should still make for decent harvest, especially since the coverage is well spread out across the bed. Next week it looks like there will be Asian greens, some spinach, and boc choy. There is lettuce to be transplanted, most of the older lettuce has bolted. I am optimistic about harvests for Brussel sprouts, cabbage and kohlrabi. Not sure when they will be ready but they are doing well. As for the broccoli and cauliflower, it looks like a cut worm or more have been having a bit of a party. I had enough replacements but this is a set back for them. With luck the cauliflower will head up after any severe cold this winter but before it starts to get warm. Time will tell. I have only about 15 feet of sweets to harvest. This bodes well for sweets being around for quite a while yet.

Bulb onion seeds have been sown and garlic will be planted this coming weekend.

As for the jungle of weeds in the garden, once the sweet harvest is done, I can work on them. I am thinking of getting a burn nozzle and fry seedlings at a young age. It is with hope by not disturbing the surface that maybe I can prevent some of the seeds germinating. Sounds good on paper.

It has been a bit of an interesting garden year and I am ready for this one to end. With luck next year I can be a bit more focused.

Follows is an updated list of what I am growing, please email as to availability and prices. Chard, kale, green onions, carrots, lettuce, butternut squash, garlic, beets, sweet potatoes, and beans.

November 1, 2018

Good morning, it is nice for the rains to continue. The garden is just about sitting on average rainfall for the year. We are close to 16 inches. This is nice.

Most of the summer veggies are gone except for beans and poblano peppers. Sadly, the beans are slowing way down on their blooming. With luck there will be beans for a couple more weeks. I expect a hard freeze soon.

With luck as the last summer veggies go the fall and winter greens will come on line. It looks like there will be Asian greens, boc choi and spinach soon. My old chard bed has recuperated from the grasshoppers and caterpillars. My new chard and kale bed have a few weeks before harvest can begin. I am curious to see what kind of emergence there is in the snow pea bed. The 2 weeks of clouds and rain cooled the soil nicely so I am optimistic. I have more pea seeds to do a late planting of peas. With luck March will bring bountiful harvests. This weekend I plan to sow my bulb onions and next week garlic. I am not going to make the same mistake as last year with the onion seeds. This year they will be covered with the edges buried. This seed bed will be several feet away from any known harvester ant nest. One curious observation, what with my ankle thingy this past fall, I was not able to keep weeds from going to seed (this will be a problem next rainy season), this seed is being stashed by the harvester ants. I wonder if they may be overwhelmed with seeds and would leave garden seeds alone. Or does the CO2 given off by germinating seeds act like magnets to the ants. With burred covers I hope not to find out.

Any way it is all good, and I am sure that next years gardening experiences will be totally different from this year. One thing for sure there will be new lessons to be learned.

Follows is a list of what I am growing, please email as to availability and prices. Chard, kale, green onion, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, butternut squash, garlic, beets, sweet potatoes, and beans.