Cool or Creepy (Part 3)

We have some snake wannabes. You see, we have worms, lots and lots of worms.  But they are approaching small snake size and I'm finding it hard to still like them.

And worm poop -- I had no idea. Do you know they leave these little mounds and that people actually collect and use to make (for lack of a better description) "poop-juice" to use as fertilizer? Or to be politically correct, Worm Casting Tea.

These piles are everywhere -- our garden, our yard, around the base of trees, under the bark of dead trees.  It's certainly not a bad thing.  I just wish there was a little less of it. So now if you see these piles you will know the dirty truth.

This one was close to 12" all stretched out.  Definitely more snake than worm!

Garden Update 2013

We are currently attempting our third year of vegetable gardening.  Year 2 was more successful than year 1 so we have hopes that this year will be even better.  We are learning what we can grow and what we can't, so hopefully we'll make better use of the space.

Back in April I planted two tomato plants in the tomato teepees.  These helped give us earlier tomatoes last year so it was worth trying them again even though I planted them later this year because of the cold, wet spring.

We also had some success with snow peas again this spring, but I grew a different variety that I didn't like as well as the Dwarf Gray.  Early attempts at brussel sprouts, garlic, and onions didn't do well this year.  I had some great leaks that wintered over but I didn't pick them soon enough and they went to seed.

We had some great lettuce.

And some rainbow chard and spinach.  The chard is still going strong but the spinach bolted early.

I've given up on growing bell peppers but have success with sweet banana peppers, jalapeno peppers, and the sweet orange peppers.

We also have success with cucumbers.

 

  

I have several different types of green beans that are doing well.

And even a few purple ones.  They don't stay purple when you cook them but they are still fun to grow.

This will only be our third oriental eggplant for the year.  One of my favorites.

The tomato plants look great but we haven't picked many tomatoes. All of the paths got a new layer of mulch that we got delivered with the pine bark mulch for the front yard.

A few early ones got eaten by birds or chipmunks. But we did eat this one with some fresh mozzarella and basil.

We have a ton of green tomatoes on the vine so hopefully we will get some more.

A Snake in the Grass (or Epic Fail)

This spring we had a rabbit make a nest and have baby bunnies in one of the raised beds INSIDE of our garden fence.  I was convinced that they were going to eat everything I planted since it was pretty clear that the mother rabbit was already doing some damage around the yard.  After a weekend at the shore re-plumbing the house Kyle and Andy came home and inspected the nest (luckily I wasn't home).  When Kyle inspected the nest they all jumped out and ran around the garden.  After attempts to capture them all and return them to the nest, one bunny squealed and they all jumped ship for a second time.  I think some of them many have stayed in the nest for a few more days but by the following weekend the nest was abandoned and we covered the small gap in the fence where they were getting in.  I figured plants inside the garden were safe but anything outside of the fence was going to be rabbit food. 

I am trying to maximize the veggies we grow that are protected inside the fence so I figured I would take a risk and plant an herb garden just outside the garden fence.

See the tiny green stem in the foreground?  This used to be one of three beautiful, yellow cosmos that the rabbits destroyed. My mom read in a garden magazine about a woman that put fake snakes in her garden to keep the rabbits away. A few days later we made a special trip to the fake snake store Dollar Tree a bought five plastic snakes. 

 

I managed to give Andy a good scare but the rabbits don't seem to be bothered.  They have now eaten all of my cosmos, most of my cilantro, and some of my parsley.  They seem to stay away from thyme, rosemary, and dill.  We will have to call the fake snake experiment of 2013 a failure.  But I'm leaving the snakes there!

End of Year Garden Update

We had a much larger harvest with most of our veggies this year.  Through August and September we got lots of tomatoes, basil, green beans, hot peppers, eggplant, cucumbers, and a few squash.  Our squash plants got mildew both years and the production was fairly low.

Even into late September and early October a lot of the veggies continued to do well like the parsley, eggplant, wax beans and a few fall snow peas.

In the beginning of October our tomatoes got hit with blight.  The fruit started to get spots and the plants died off from the inside out.  It seemed to happen overnight although I may be able to catch it earlier next year since I know what it looks like now.

We let the garden go the entire month of November because we couldn't think past or do much beside clean up from Hurricane Sandy.

Last weekend we removed all of the dead plants (and trashed the diseased one instead of the compost pile) and put leaf mulch on all of the beds for winter.  On the left side from front to back we still have oregano, flat leaf parsley, and leeks.  There is also some garlic on the right side but I planted it very late this year.

I would like to say that the parsley is still doing well but it is outside of the 8' garden fence and was discovered by the deer after the first hard frost.  After we installed the wood fence last summer I thought it was safe to try some veggies outside of the main garden plot.  I would have considered rabbits as the culprit except they also devoured 2.5' tall blueberry bushes and left some other evidence that Kodak discovered the next day.

Garden Pests

I hate slugs!  Not because they leave slimy trails on our sidewalk, not because they eat my marigolds, and not because we occasionally track one of them in the house on our shoes (GROSS! Kodak finds that extremely offensive.), but because they are destroying my garden and they especially love green beans and eggplant.  We try to keep the garden as organic as possible and I've learned that traditional slug bait can be very toxic.  I tried an organic type of bait but it's designed to make the slugs feel full instead of killing them so you have to re-apply regularly and it's expensive.  I read online to try beer traps and figured it was at least worth a shot.  

We saved some Chobani yogurt containers (apparently black cherry is popular around here)...

Dig a hole and bury the empty cup in the garden...

Fill with the finest type of beer available.  I won't reveal the source who donated the high-quality Pabst Blue Ribbon, but the slugs love it! We have since tried some Coors Light and it works but not nearly as well as the PBR.  At least it's good for something!

Fill as close to the top of the cup as possible and wait...

After a few days you have a cup full of scummy beer and dead slugs.  Emptying the cups is definitely one of the grossest garden tasks to date, but well worth it to get rid of the slugs.

The Release 2012 (or Cool or Creepy -- Part 3)

As the snow peas were nearing the end of their life this spring I started to notice some aphids.  They never got to the tomato plants (at least not that we saw) but I didn't want to risk an infestation like last summer.

I ordered another container of lady bugs from Amazon since we had such great luck with them last year.

You are supposed to release them at night so that they stay in the garden and do not fly away.

They wanted out -- BADLY!

And the next day we still had tons of lady bugs and haven't seen any more aphids since.

July and August Garden Update

At the beginning of July I pulled all of the garlic that we planted last October.  We let it dry outside for a few days before bringing it in to the basement.  I am relatively pleased with the harvest and will plant some more again this fall.  Some cloves are definitely bigger than others and the small ones are a pain to clean when you need them for cooking but over half of the bulbs were reasonable (grocery store) size heads of garlic.

We have definitely been harvesting more veggies this summer than last year.  Lots of tomatoes, green bean (or in this case purple ones), eggplant, cucumbers, hot peppers, and basil.  I liked the purple beans but they turn green when you cook them.  I had the best luck with a green variety called Provider and a wax variety called Gold Rush.

 

Provider green beans in blossom.

The zucchini and yellow squash both have mildew.  I planted a second planting and should be harvesting from the new plants soon.

We had some wonderful eggplant a few weeks ago before the slugs got to them.  It looks like they have some new blossoms now so we'll see if we get any more eggplant this season.

Garden Salsa pepper -- good and not as hot as a jalapeno.

Andy built this large tomato cage at the beginning of the season and it's been wonderful!  The tomatoes can grow taller than with traditional tomato cages and I haven't had as many branches break off this year during storms.

The cucumber plant has wilt but did well most of the season and produced some wonderful cucumbers.  I planted some faster growing cucumber plants about a month ago.  Hopefully we'll get some more cucumbers before the end of the season.

I know worms are good, but we have TONS of them.  And they are closer to snake size than worm size!!