PESTS!!!

 

aphid damage on Tuscan kale

AYE, YAI, YAI!! The garden is under attack!  The insect attack alone is truly the stuff of nightmares.  We have stink bugs, hornworms, squash bugs, aphids, black widows (not bad but horrifying nonetheless), and slugs as well as lizards, finches, squirrels, moles, and more all attacking our crops!

The aphids have decimated the kale plants.  After blasting them with water, then spraying with Neem oil and insecticidal soap (both organic) we still needed to cut the plants way  back.  Fortunately, the chickens got lots of kale and aphids (both treats which they seem to enjoy) and kale is really resilient.

good news............bad news

The good news is that our blackberries are starting to produce.  We can harvest a good sized bowl of berries every 3-5 days right now.  the bad news is that if we don't harvest them every few days, the birds beat us to it and eat them all.  The other bad news is the stink bugs.  We have both green and brown stink bugs on our blackberry and raspberry plants.  These aptly named bugs are incredibly pungent and can even affect the taste of some of the berries.  Speaking of stink bugs....  We have another variety of stink bugs, aka squash bugs, on our summer squash, winter squash, and pumpkins.

make them stop!!!!!!

The squash bugs this year are like something out of a Hitchcock film!  There are eggs and juvenile squash bugs in the hundreds.  Adults are copulating left and right (see image above) ensuring the perpetuation of this cycle of destruction.  The adults can suck the life out of a zucchini plant in days.  

squash bug eggs on a zucchini leaf

young squash bugs (grey at this stage) on zucchini leaves top and bottom

horrifying invasion of young on a pumpkin plant

These pests are so hard to control... nothing organic that we have found can tackle the adult bugs.  Adults are found in pairs (copulating) as often as not!  You must hand pluck adults (if you can catch them) and drop them in soapy dishwater to die.  They scuttle away really quickly when disturbed and vanish under the plants. I have heard of folks using shop vacs to tackle these but we have not yet tried it. The smaller, younger ones seem to succumb to being sprayed with dish soap and we suspect the very tiny ones may be susceptible to a combination of Neem and insecticidal soap but this is not yet verified. The eggs, which look like clusters of tiny reddish poppy seeds on the upper or underside of leaves can be scraped off (but you need to catch them) or better yet, the leaves containing them removed completely.  The chickens will not even eat these bugs, most likely due to their stench.

Talk about the stuff of nightmares!!!!

Hornworms continue to be a problem. The other day I pulled 12 hornworms off our tomatoes and eggplants in a matter of minutes.  10 of these came out of one tomato bed!  And I know there are many more which I could not find!  

10 hornworms from one raised bed!  

hornworm in action on eggplant

Hornworms are also attacking our habanero and devil's tongue pepper plants!  All plants in the nightshade family can fall victim to these wretched things.  They are simply eating machines and can denude a plant in short order.  The only good thing about hornworms is the chickens love them and we love watching the girls turn them into eggs!

tomato plant with top stripped by hornworms

chickens enjoying hornworms

Slugs for the first time ever have become a problem and have totally denuded our previously thriving tomatillo plants. Once again, I am totally amazed that they can survive and procreate in our incredibly dry climate.

tomatillo plants after the attack of the slugs

This was the first year all of our tomatillo plants were doing really well and they had a bumper crop of fruit.  I was having visions of canning and gifting roasted tomatillo salsa this fall.  but alas..... the plants are stripped and the fruit has fallen off the vine.  Two of the three plants seem to be coming back so I will cut them way back and hope for the best.

how do you imagine this tomato ended up behind the blackberries over 30 feet from the nearest tomato plant??? note the tooth marks

The squirrels keep getting into the garden and stealing tomatoes and nibbling on zucchini.  the moles are tunneling their way under the fence but luckily had not yet breached the raised beds (all of which are lined with 1/2 inch hard cloth). The birds are eating the blackberries and nibbling on some of the tomaotes. I think the lizards are eating the strawberries.  Something larger, raccoon perhaps has eaten all the grapes and has been breaking branches on raspberry and blackberry plants.

Then there are the "good" insects......

preying mantis in action

We LOVE our preying mantises.  They are getting bigger every day.  I can't even imagine how bad things would be if we did not have such an abundance of these fierce hunters

monster sized black widow

This black widow is enormous.  It was at our neighbors house but we have plenty to rival this one at our own place.  I know spiders are a good thing but these are also fodder for sleepless nights!

After quitting my job in April (YAY), I spent a lot of time in the garden throughout the spring... Once summer hit, I learned to play more and have been remiss in my daily garden duties.... This negligence is manifesting in the story you see above.

 MORAL OF THIS STORY?  STAY ON TOP OF THE GARDEN!!!

RAIN!

a damp harvest

We got a lovely downpour today.  Jim and I were watching it rain and being so grateful for the water.  While we were laughing at the dogs, who declined to go out in the rain, we suddenly remembered we needed to check the swale!  The swale is designed to channel the abundant runoff which comes from the road above our house, onto our property.  If the swale is blocked or breached, the runoff floods the driveway, orchard, and properties below us.  The swale is easily blocked with leaves and weeds.  While we've been keeping the weeds at bay, many leaves fell while we were gone and we had not caught up on those.  We ran outside with shovels and rakes to begin clear the swale before it overflowed and were almost in time!

views of the swale post rain

damage to the road from previous runoff from the upper road

raining and raining and raining

Hoping for more rain in the coming weeks!

HARVESTING

early summer harvest

The garden seems to be a bit late this year as a result of the super late hard freezes and delayed planting of some of our crops.  Things are finally coming along and this is one of our first real tomato harvests!  Also we are beginning to get blackberries ripening and zucchini season has begun!

pesky hornworms!

Of course the  hornworms are also growing and eating and growing and eating....  Fortunately, once we find them it is super easy to turn them into eggs!  Thanks, girls!

I was beginning to think we were overly optimistic building this tall trellis for our beans and cucumbers.  They are finally making some progress and it looks like it might not be too tall after all.

beans are finally making progress on our new trellis

 

HARVESTING GARLIC AND POST VACATION ASSESSMENT

sunflowers growing and growing....

We returned home from an unprecedented two-week vacation to find a few surprises.  While our house-sitter took excellent care of things, it was obvious we have much work ahead of us.  One of the most fun suprises was how much the sunflowers had grown and bloomed.  This one is approaching 15 feet in height!

 

harvesting garlic

harvest ready to cure

Before leaving on vacation, we shut off the irrigation to the garlic in order to allow it to dry out prior to  harvesting.  It was in good shape for harvesting and is now laid out on racks in the garage to cure for a couple of weeks before cleaning and storing.  We have been planting hard neck garlic so  will store the individual heads rather than braiding them into a bundle as you might with soft neck garlic.

beans and cucumbers are finally climbing up the new trellis

Tomatoes, beans, basil, and squash are making good progress. We really notice the growth after being away for so long.  Unfortunately, the weeds are also making good progress.... as are the pests!

 

the pests have been busy while we were all gone - tomatoes (L) and grapes (R) have sufffered

This year the squirrel population (and audacity) is much greater than we have witnessed since living down here.  Not sure about the cause but the effect is clear.  While the dogs are here and we are all spending regular time in the garden, the squirrels don't seem to be quite as troublesome.  We all left for two weeks and came home to lots of broken branches, partially eaten tomatoes, chewed on zucchini and more.  It also seems the raccoons have worked their magic on our grape harvest.

Vacation was wonderful but it is good to be home and back in the garden!

overview is disappearing behind the super tall blackberries

sunflowers everywhere!

HARVEST DAY - MORE PREPPING FOR VACATION

 

volunteer sunflowers

We love our volunteer sunflowers.  They are abundant and robust... and very, very, tall!  It is so much fun to see them pop up in the most unlikely spots and grow and grow and grow.  They definitely bring a smile to my face everytime I see them.

so far, so good

Remember those pesky irrigation leaks?  So far they are holding.  We walk the yard every day to stay on top of them and have been extra vigilant as we prepare to leave on vacation.  It is a bit difficult to leave this time of year but it has been a long time since we've taken a vacation and are really looking forward to the road trip to visit friends.

anticipation

First, we have to do a fair bit of harvesting and processing of vegetables.

 

Kale before...

 

...during...

...with a little help form Xena and Louie...

 

and after this week's harvest

YUM!

Chocolate cherry and sungold

assorted early tomatoes

We are so happy to have an early tomato harvest to bring with us to share and enjoy on our vacation.  We hope to come back to enough to think about canning soon.

slug invasion on tomatillo plants

 

organic pest control

 

Our tomatillo plants have recovered from their transplant, survived the late freeze and were looking the best I've ever seen them look.  They have an abundance of fruit set but..... what are all those dark spots?  SLUGS!  Who knew we could have slugs in the desert!?!?  They are covered with little 1/3 - 1/2 inch brown slugs which are devouring the plants.  After some online research, it seems the best slug eradication methods are picking them off by hand (pretty hard when they are so small and slimy) and the old tried and true beer swimming pools.  Fingers crossed this will help.

a few more zucchini

Zucchini are slowly coming along.  I foresee many zucchini pizza crusts in our future. 

Our beautiful onion harvest of a couple of weeks ago has been curing on wire racks in our garage.  They are finally ready to be cleaned, trimmed and stored.  Jim tackled this while I harvested kale. 

Onions are cured

Our garden chores are done and we hit the road tomorrow morning.  We will miss the garden but have a great house sitter lined up to take care of the chickens and garden and all in our absence.

see you in two weeks