What Did You Do In The Garden?

digitS' said:
Neighbor's cat visited. Ya know, it's nice to have a large enuf veggie garden that a visit by a cat isn't cause for horrible thoughts & panic :). She's a nice kitty.
Click to expand...
You are fortunate to have a cat on patrol in the garden - especially if you are growing soybeans. Contrary to what you might expect, my soybeans are less at risk in the rural garden than they are at home, due to the property owner's semi-feral cats keeping the mice under control. Although I still grow soybeans at home, I plan for the taller varieties there, which for the most part are high enough to keep the mouse damage minimal. I plant the shorter varieties in the rural garden... last year, they were untouched.
 
I have been getting things done. DS and I put fence back up and I planted pole beans. My peas did not look good, so I turned them under and planted beans. My Kong sunflowers disappeared. I am not sure if the quail or the crows did it, but I replanted some. I will probably get the last of the tomatoes and peppers in tomorrow and the last of the beans. I stared some squash and cucumbers in the greenhouse. I did not think I would get any seeds planted for awhile, but I think I will be get the ground in good shape soon. I started Shasta Daisy, lupines, hollyhocks, coneflowers in the greenhouse and they are, looking good and I am getting my flower bed read to plant them in later and they should bloom next year and I will have a lot of flowers. I rounded up some metal cans and took the labels off and I am putting holes in the bottom and going to paint them. I bought spray paint of pink, blue and yellow and then put dirt in and some flowers and they will be nailed to a post I will put in the ground in the garden. I will post a picture of one I saw on Pinterest where I got the idea and a picture of a coon on my patio. I have lived here for 13 years and never would imagine I would have this show up. I thought they lived closed to water. It was drinking out of a plant tray full of rain water and when I knocked on the glass to scare it away, it came up the steps and looked at
TIN CAN POST.jpg
IMG_9859.JPG
me through the door like it wanted in. DS and I went out to chase it off and it went up a tree, so we went in the house and watched and it came down and we chased it off. At first I was worried about rabies, but also my old cat Mister, kind of worried if he tried to mess with it, but it has been a couple of days and I have not see it again.
 
Planted my sweet corn today, emptied the potting mix of some old flowerpots with nothing in them on top of my potatoes. Did a little weeding, stuck a few beet seeds in the ground between the cabbages, think I can get one round of them before the cabbages shade them out. Also planted some sunflowers and bright red zinnias, and chop and dropped some weeds as mulch on a bed that is going to get covered in plastic next week. Am racing the clock now to get everything in the ground in the next two weeks for summer crops. The late frosts really put me behind!
 
I think that the neighbor to the big veggie garden has racoons in his corn every year. The reason - he has a lot of corn and is quite selective harvesting. The passed cover, mature (or, overly-mature) ears attract something! Whatever it is, strips husks, chews all the way around the ear and breaks a stem or two. Dad said that coyotes eat sweet corn. I don't know. Whatever is eating it comes at night and much, much prefers those old ears and leaves my corn almost entirely alone. If it's in his garden, it's in mine but I don't have much damage from any mammal, putting the skids on marmots and aside from easily attributed rabbit problems.

The only garden that had a for-sure raccoon visitor was the place where I could have fished from the edge of the garden. It was that close to the river and I saw the masked visitor one day ;).

At home, I've had 2 neighbors tell me that raccoons have visited my yard. No problems on either of those occasions. @Gardening with Rabbits , I live more than a mile from any body of water.

Too hot to do much outdoors. Ran mower yesterday but put off weed wacking until this morning. Chasing the yard sprinklers around right now.

Steve
 
DW & I were out in the rural garden today, and direct-seeded all remaining beans, soybeans, and sweet corn. We also put out some transplants for cucumbers, gherkins, bitter melon, grass pea, garbanzo, and a few sunflowers. One more round of transplants to go, and planting will be done.
 
Set up a trellis for the peas. Wasn't very prompt in sowing seed this year. The tractor guy caught us off-guard by showing up earlier than ever. It was a couple of weeks before awareness that tilling had been done before we learned of it and showed up with seed potatoes and pea seed. (Problem with having a distant garden)

It looks like there has been a fair amount of damage from flea beetles to the seedlings. That's my guess. It would probably take laying on the ground to identify them. The plants are beginning to grow well but the beetles will follow them right on up to the blossoms, where they become easy to notice. This is good pea country but this spring's arid conditions are probably putting some strain on the peas. Do not remember ever feeling that a spraying of Spinosad was needed on peas but we are committing so few square feet to them this year, I'd hate to have the bugs damaging the crop.

Ran the tiller for about 2 hours - that should be some kind of limit for this olde fellow ;). Came away from the work feeling pretty much okay.

:) Steve
 
digitS' said:
Set up a trellis for the peas. Wasn't very prompt in sowing seed this year. The tractor guy caught us off-guard by showing up earlier than ever. It was a couple of weeks before awareness that tilling had been done before we learned of it and showed up with seed potatoes and pea seed. (Problem with having a distant garden)

It looks like there has been a fair amount of damage from flea beetles to the seedlings. That's my guess. It would probably take laying on the ground to identify them. The plants are beginning to grow well but the beetles will follow them right on up to the blossoms, where they become easy to notice. This is good pea country but this spring's arid conditions are probably putting some strain on the peas. Do not remember ever feeling that a spraying of Spinosad was needed on peas but we are committing so few square feet to them this year, I'd hate to have the bugs damaging the crop.

Ran the tiller for about 2 hours - that should be some kind of limit for this olde fellow ;). Came away from the work feeling pretty much okay.

:) Steve
Click to expand...

that's really interesting that you have flea beetle problem on your peas and i don't but we do have flea beetles here and i did plant peas... hmm... they also don't seem to damage the plants later on that i notice. perhaps we don't really have the same kind of flea beetle or it is something else... hmm...

glad you got through that ok, 2hrs of tilling... ouch. my body would go into revolt (if it's not already revolting enough :) ). the past few days planting have been fun here as i sneezed the other day and at times it can put my back out of whack right in the middle part where i have an old injury. the worst part of it is that it causes random muscle spasms.

still i got eight rows of beans planted this morning and everything got watered. it's too hot out there now and i'm taking a break. :)
 
Marie2020 said:
@digitS' @flowerbug or anyone

Would you know what I can use to stop bugs eating my cucumber plants.
I'm desperate so going to try bicarb and garlic water until I can find the answer
Click to expand...

it would really help to know what bugs. :) if possible it would likely also help to get a bigger start from the greenhouse and plant that out instead of starting from seeds directly sown into the ground.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Sister Sites

BackYardChickens.com
BackYardHerds.com
SufficientSelf.com
Back
Top