Gardening Gardening

Found a bunch of black and yellow striped small beetles on my zucchini plants this morning. Come to find out they are indeed cucumber beetles. From what I read, they are most harmful when your plants are young but once matured and producing fruit they don't do much damage. Still a little nervous about them, they were hanging out in the flowers this morning. Anyone have any luck treating these? For what it's worth I have a couple small zucchinis growing and I see no evidence of them being chewed on.

 

This is the first time I’ve experienced growth under the fabric. Not sure if the run got a little thin on the operator or what. I could see through it in the midday sun. Hopefully the temps burn the weeds underneath.

Me too!



Not liking how some of these tomato plants look.


Cucs lookin fine. Had to build a rack for em.

And this pic you can see the weeds pushing up between the nearest row of peppers.

 

Natural soap?

 

I was wondering too...Could I get away with Dr Bronners soap?

 

Where do you get it.

 

I have had some luck using this concoction:
Garlic juice concentrate-

4tsp baking soda (anti fungal properties, also stops powdery mildew type problems)

1tsp vegetable oil (smothers) Neem oil would work well here. The amount could be doubled.

1tsp soap (emulsifier/sticker) Best to use a natural soap such as Dr. Bronner’s.

1 to 2 tbs garlic juice (kills)

1 medium onion

1 tbs. cayenne pepper

Juice: 1 med bulb (not clove) of garlic, 1 medium onion, cayenne pepper. blended with 2 cups of water. Let sit a minimum of 15 minutes and strain.

Add concentrate to a gallon of water and spray liberally. Repeat as often as needed to drive off or kill the squash bugs.

We will be trying this recipe to see how it works for us. Please let us know your experiences, or if you have a different approach that has proven to be effective, please let us know so we can share it!

Seems to work!

 

This heat we are having is making my plants grow like weeds. I mean there's weeds to pull too, but some of those tomatoes are massive. Just flowers so far, no fruit. I picked a handful of green beans yesterday. Those beans are growing well, same with the peppers, zucchini and the Italian parsley that I didn't think would make it.

 

Same here in New England. Plants are going nuts and hardly a day goes by without me being out there pulling weeds despite all the hay I put down to cover the soil. I usually cheat with my tomato plants. As soon as they start pushing out flowers I'll go out there and hand pollinate. I know people that hand pollinate everything they grow but I'm not that motivated.

 

Harvested the garlic yesterday. Left them out in the sun for an hour or so to dry off and then hung them in the basement

 

OOOOH nice looking garlic. I am going to try some again this fall. I think I found out all that I did wrong last time.

 

Oh nice.
I got to get to mine. Didn't pull them last year so who knows what they look like.
Some didn't make it thru the mild Winter (maybe something ate them) . Same with asparagus (very little came up this year) and both of my peach trees have very little leaves this year.
Always something.

 

The small pumpkin and gourd patch. No blooms as of yet but shouldn't be to long.

 

I am assuming the word small applies to the size of the pumpkins and gourds because if that is a small patch, a large patch must be huge.

 

Steve trains the vines up that cell tower.

 

Yes, small varieties but it is twice as big as last year's patch.

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I would but not sure who would climb up there to pick them. Not me!