Aug 072010
I haven’t posted a garden update vid in a while. We’ve been getting almost non stop rain. So some things like our new potato patch rotted, other things like the cucumbers are doing well.
Don’t mind the weeds. With all the rain the ground is so soft you can’t till it and the hoe just gum’s up with mud. I’ve been hand weeding when I can between rainy patches. But most of my time is held up canning right now.
Kim,
)
Sorry you too are suffering weird weather patterns, we too have been unseasonably cool and wet and suffered ping pong sized hail about 2 wks ago. Thankfully it only seems it causes cosmetic damamge
Have your tried liquid soap and water with cayanne pepper added for the squash bugs. Although we haven’t been blessed with them( PTL, we have plenty of other bugs and grasshoppers to contend with) I’m not sure if they have a waxy coating, if so the liquid soap will remove this coating and untimately they will dy. We use this on Boxelder bugs, because they are such a nuisence bug, getting indoors and all over everything.
Our potatoes have thrived this season, I was worried until I dug a hill two days ago and got 7 LARGE spuds and three small to medium spuds and this was just one hill
) Our sandy soil evidently helped them to drain off instead of rotting.
Everything is about a month behind and as you know we don’t have the time to be so far behind and it’s all due to our weird weather. This is the reason we take full advantage of our crops, because you just never know what the next gardening season will be like.
Take care and have you and Dh seen the info about the gulf stream being off and possibly creating really HARD cold winter for us northerners? If not I can email it to you and let you decide for yourself. Personally we’ve been gathering more and more firewood, just because we feel led that we NEED to.
Blessings,
Kelle
@ Kelle:
I’ve tried neam oil as well and that doesn’t work.
Hi Kelle, I’ve tried the soap as that’s what I normally use for most bugs. I’ll try adding some hot pepper to it and see if that helps. But these are strong little critters!
No I hadn’t heard about the gulf stream thing. Could you please send me the link? We have had a feeling that this winter would be hard…
So glad to hear your potatoes are yielding well!! Dh dug up a few plants in the other garden today. And we were surprised they are doing much better then a few weeks ago.
Blessings,
Kim
HI GUYS!
One way to apply diatomaceous earth is to use a thick bristled 4 inch paint brush. Stuff it into the D.E., shake a little of the excess off, then hold it bristle side up and run your fingers lengthwise across the bristles “flipping” the D.E. off the brush. Makes a nice, fine dusting pattern.
Also, one year my wife used the shop vac to get squash beetles!! LOL! Little too strong, but a dustbuster worked pretty well. Allows you to collect a buncha bugs in a short time. Empty into a bucket of soapy water.
About a month behind in Oregon too, though the cool, long, wet spring worked well for us as we usually run out of water by August 1st. Still running off the well at this point, though.
Look up for your redemption draweth nigh.
Jeff and Joni
Yeah,this year’s been crazy for everyone with all the heat and rain.A lot of people are having different mold problems.I had some ideas for the pests,that might hopefully help out.1)can you make a spot off to the side of the garden for a pile of field stones?If so,maybe catch a few gardener snakes or toads and let them nest in the rock pile.2)Have you guys thought about praying mantises?I know there’s a lot of sites out now where you can buy them a bunch at a time.Maybe they’d go after the beetles.If ya don’t wanna buy them,the kids could have fun goin on a hunt for the mantis egg pods!
Once they’ve gone through thier cold cycle and hatch, you’ll get between 200-500 mantises per egg pod!hehe take THAT squash beetles! ;D oh!p.s.can you plant some kind of pyrethrid/chrysanthimums around the gardens?They’re supposed to be a killer replents for most garden pests.(mites,slugs,moths,flys,ect)Hope this helps guys!Good luck n God bless!
just keep them in a vented contaner in a barn/tool shed over winter,LOL,unless ya don’t mind having a contaner of them in the fridge.
The rain is really irritating! Actually, what weather we have here is really irritating! Rain now, super hot weather later and then same routine happens again! Why wouldn’t crops be dead with that kind of weather! All of my tomatoes and watermelons went dying because of the weather.
I totally agree on you! All the weather sickness makes my plants sick too. I just hope that all of my tomatoes and other plants can survive the heat-rain-heat weather.
tobacco plants will keep out your bug problem and no one will know it tobacco they are a very pretty plant and a natural insect repellant if you soak the leafs at the end of the season you can put the water in spray bottles and spray you plants heard you can do this with a couple cigarettes and soak and stain and spray plants with it
hope this helps. keep up the great page love it and i ment strain it
I totally agree that tobacco plant is really an insect repellant. I have also been spraying this in my plants and this is effective to avoid insects grow in my plants or stay in my plants. Changing weather patterns are really irritating!