Zone 3-5: what are you up to in the garden? - Page 4

[kathymuggle]

Well, after raining for 2 week straight in May, it has now decided not to rain.  I hate watering the garden.  My carrots and lettuce are suffering from lack of water and it being too warm, but my tomatoes and herbs look awesome.  I actually have flowers on my tomatoes, which seems very early to me.

Everything is in, and framing the bed in mulch has kept the grass and weeds from infiltrating from the sides.  

Edited by kathymuggle - 6/22/11 at 5:09pm

[HeatherAtHome]

Wow, flowers on your tomatoes already?! Mine are too tiny for that. 

I'm too embarrassed to post this on the Food growing thread, but it fits right in here. ;) My new, little, just beginning to grow, garden. Happy to have most of the hard work done. Now I can sit back and watch it grow. Ok, I'll weed occasionally and still have a couple trellises to build but you know what I mean. 

[kathymuggle]

I actually miss the hard work of earlier in the season.

Right now I just have to wait as everything grows and I want to be doing something!

I can always weed, but in some areas I do not want to weed until the plants are fully up for fear I will weed a plant.

[HeatherAtHome]

Originally Posted by kathymuggle 

I actually miss the hard work of earlier in the season.

Right now I just have to wait as everything grows and I want to be doing something!

I can always weed, but in some areas I do not want to weed until the plants are fully up for fear I will weed a plant.

So true! I think that's why none of my parsnips grew last year. 

[Owen'nZoe]

I'm also getting flowers on tiny little tomato plants this year. It must be the strange weather! I've been picking them off for the time being, since the poor little plants really aren't much bigger than they were when I first planted them a month ago. I need them to grow, grow, grow, and they just aren't. We've just had too much cool weather, I think.

[Daffodil]

Six of my 12 tomato plants have small fruits already.  A couple of others might have had fruit if they hadn't been damaged by a big storm with wind and hail soon after they were set out.  They're recovering nicely, but it set them back.  Not all the tomatoes are looking as healthy as I'd like.  I'm thinking maybe the soil has just been too wet for them.  I have clayey, poorly drained soil, and we've had a lot of rain. 

I don't usually have much trouble with potato beetles, but this year I've been finding a lot of them, and finding a lot of their eggs on my potato plants (and even on some tomato plants.)  I think I've been doing a pretty good job of spotting all the eggs and scraping them off, so hopefully I won't have a big problem with the larvae.

So far all we have ready to use is strawberries, greens, and radishes, but in general, things are looking pretty good. 

[Mama Ana]

Originally Posted by Owen'nZoe 

 Definitely post updates! I kind of suspect that the little loofa plants are just super tasty. My friend's garden is fenced, but mine is not. I don't lose a lot to the bunnies, but I do lose a few things every year. I think they might be getting the little loofa plants before I even see them.

How do you prepare the loofah leaves? Do you eat them in a salad or do you have to prepare them in a special way? 

[Mama Ana]

Originally Posted by Daffodil 

I don't usually have much trouble with potato beetles, but this year I've been finding a lot of them, and finding a lot of their eggs on my potato plants (and even on some tomato plants.)  I think I've been doing a pretty good job of spotting all the eggs and scraping them off, so hopefully I won't have a big problem with the larvae.

Our garden has an infestation of a potato beetle I have NEVER seen before. I am used to the smaller red ones 
but this year we have these semi-large, black and white striped beetles. My husband went through and killed all the ones he could find and we haven't seen any since but since I haven't seen them before I'm unsure of how to deal with them. They are kind of cool looking and I wish I got some macro shots of them before my mass murdering husband killed em all. Are these like your potato beetles? What do you do to deal with this little buggers?

[Daffodil]

These are the potato beetles I have.  Are the larvae shown on that page the same as the smaller red beetles you're thinking of?  The adults aren't a problem themselves, but they lay their eggs on the undersides of potato leaves and then those little reddish larvae hatch out and start growing and eating potato leaves like crazy.  You should look carefully at your plants and see if you find clusters of yellowish-orange eggs on the undersides of any of the leaves.  If you do, scrape them off.  I try to check my plants regularly and get rid of most of the eggs before they hatch, and then pick off any larvae while they're still little, and that's enough to take care of them.  But I don't usually see that many of them here.

[Owen'nZoe]

Originally Posted by Mama Ana 

How do you prepare the loofah leaves? Do you eat them in a salad or do you have to prepare them in a special way? 

 

 Sorry for any confusion - I was speculating that the bunnies find them very tasty, because I never see any plants when I try to grow them.

[Mama Ana]

Originally Posted by Owen'nZoe 

 Sorry for any confusion - I was speculating that the bunnies find them very tasty, because I never see any plants when I try to grow them.

OOOOH gotcha okay! lol Well then I wonder if it's good enough for the bunnies if it'd be good enough for human consumption then?

[Mama Ana]

Originally Posted by Daffodil 

These are the potato beetles I have.  Are the larvae shown on that page the same as the smaller red beetles you're thinking of?  The adults aren't a problem themselves, but they lay their eggs on the undersides of potato leaves and then those little reddish larvae hatch out and start growing and eating potato leaves like crazy.  You should look carefully at your plants and see if you find clusters of yellowish-orange eggs on the undersides of any of the leaves.  If you do, scrape them off.  I try to check my plants regularly and get rid of most of the eggs before they hatch, and then pick off any larvae while they're still little, and that's enough to take care of them.  But I don't usually see that many of them here.

YES those are the ones! I have never seen them before. The larvae are not something I am familiar with I don't think. This is my first garden since 07 and the red beetles I am thinking of may be the larvae but I still have never seen a Colorado potato beetle before this year. I will have to share this info with my hubby make sure he got the larvae. He works in agriculture and has a fairly familiar mind set on dealing with pests so he may have already dealt with the eggs...not sure. Thanks for the help!

[Owen'nZoe]

Originally Posted by Mama Ana 

OOOOH gotcha okay! lol Well then I wonder if it's good enough for the bunnies if it'd be good enough for human consumption then?

Haha! Maybe, maybe - you never know! Really, the ones my friend grows smell just like chocolate. If they taste anything like they smell, they must be delish! She gets her seeds in Vietnam, though, so I'm not sure whether the variety she grows is different than the ones available here.

[Owen'nZoe]

Originally Posted by Owen'nZoe 

Haha! Maybe, maybe - you never know! Really, the ones my friend grows smell just like chocolate. If they taste anything like they smell, they must be delish! She gets her seeds in Vietnam, though, so I'm not sure whether the variety she grows is different than the ones available here.

Hey MamaAna - when I answered back, I was totally focused on whether or not the plants and the lovely chocolate leaves are edible - forgot to mention that the loofa fruits are if you pick them young. My friend uses them in stir fry.

[Mama Ana]

Originally Posted by Owen'nZoe 

Hey MamaAna - when I answered back, I was totally focused on whether or not the plants and the lovely chocolate leaves are edible - forgot to mention that the loofa fruits are if you pick them young. My friend uses them in stir fry.

OH good to know! I have been making up a recipe for shrimp stir fry that I can freeze so once baby gets here it'll be a breeze to cook. I am definitely gonna add some baby loofah fruit now!