fall garden up date
Return to DiscussionsI'm with you on something eating the garden; I have a critter eating the leaves of my cabbage. They are nice smooth holes inside the leaf and also along the edges. So far, just attacking the plants on the shaded side. I tried the beer trap last night and caught one wasp & moth. I have tried both the BT spray & Sevin dust. They both have probably helped but not stopped the problem. I'm just before breaking out the Malathion. We'll see.
Remember that all those things are for after they have attacked the plants. They have to ingest pesticides to stop them. You might consider a physical barrier to prevent them from getting to the plant. Nylons are really good. Or window screen material. Preferably the cloth and not the metal. But then maybe the metal would work also if you formed it into a basket to cover the plant.
I wonder how the pioneers kept from starving? The bugs had to be more prevalent then & those folks had minimal prevention methods. I have asked this at several pioneer type re-enactments and dont ever remember getting a real answer. I had read in a article about medieval times farming that said the king & church got a third, the farmer got a third & the bugs got a third. Anyone have any answers?
I planted cucumbers and some radishes. Only one row of radishes came up out of 3. I got 3 cucumber plants and accidently sprayed another one. I just got a frost and it wiped out the cucumber. The radishes grew but were very woody tasting. Hardly any rain to help them, so pulled them up. Today I got garden tractor out to work up soil to plant some field radish and red clover as cover crop.
I have a couple of spare 4 ft garden squares ready for planting and just added Romaine lettuce to my collection. I picked up 6 plants from the corner produce stand Friday & got them planted today. I worked a little more organic matter in the dirt to hopefully help them grow. They are about a month behind my cabbages so well see how it compares.
As an update on the garden, everything is currently doing well. The cabbages are huge & just starting to form in the center, collards are growing nicely and the Romaine has recovered, also. The bugs appear to have subsided with my first application of pesticides yesterday in over two weeks. And, its 50F outside, so I drank my morning coffee while making a (nude) check of the garden. Its going to be a great day!