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
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.
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.
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