garbage and garden gnomes

greenman's grotto

It's been a long and trying week.  As often is the case when days like these go by, I find myself more and more grateful for a garden to get my hands dirty in and see literal growth and progress from work, patience and care.  Today started with a trip to the city landfill here in San Diego.  For those of you in the area, and even for those of you in other places across the nation, the landfill can be one of your best resources as a home gardener.  Besides being a source of reusable raw materials like wood, glass, tires, concrete and brick,  the local dump is a great place for amended compost and mulch.  Here in San Diego, a square yard of natural chipped mulch to 2" granularity costs you an economical $12 and is chipped on site, guaranteed to contain no weeds or palm.  We loaded up 25 empty 5 gallon buckets over a tarp in the back of the truck, paid our $12, and had them dump a whole truckload for us to haul out.  Since it is already in buckets, unloading is a breeze.   Compare that to Home Depot, where a square foot can cost you nearly twice that and be full of chemicals to boot.  I highly recommend all home gardeners look into this often unknown resource for gardening.

the greenery at the miramar landfill

all the mulch that you can haul

happy mulched gardens lose less water to evaporation

Having the mulch will cut down on insects like slugs that aren't keen on crawling over splinters and fibers, is natural weed control for most invasive plants, and helps keep things moist during the hot summer sun by cutting down on evaporation from the soil.  All good things for the home garden.

Last night was the first night that insect control yielded absolute zero pests, which is a big deal.  It would seem that our vegetable weevil problem has passed.  Rest assured there will still be regular patrols but our numbers have been decreasing steadily with the bug raids and DE/neem treatments.  Our next big project should be getting that shambling mound of a hedgerow trimmed, yikes!  Company arrives in only four weeks!

Meanwhile, the tomatoes and tomatillo seem very happy!  Blossoms everywhere and even some new small fruit which will undoubtedly grow into enormous juicy heirloom tomatoes as the season grows warmer.  Volunteer nasturtiums are popping up everywhere along the fence line too.

tomatillo flowers

tomatoes, yay

nasturtiums will grow anywhere 

Finally, I wanted to do a little highlight on some of our garden critters that some of you have been noticing and commenting on.  In our home, we put these guardians out to look over the growing plants and in their own way, protect and help the plants to grow.  It is great fun to see one of the neighborhood kids find one of these guys buried among the raspberries and pumpkins too!

Enjoy your weekend folks.  Now that night has fallen, time to gear up and go pinch some bugs!

the bug hunter

weekend work...

The weekend started out great on Saturday with the Strawberry Jam at Suzie's Farm, one of our local community supported agriculture groups here in San Diego.  There, we learned how to make strawberry wine, strawberry kombucha, green strawberry pickles and of course, strawberry jam.

For those of you in the San Diego area, be sure to check out their schedule of events this summer!  Nearby Wild Willow Farm has a lot of great events too and you'll find us at one or the other about once every month if not more during the spring through fall.  We had a great time listening to music, learning, eating great food and touring the farm.  And of course, we couldn't leave without oh 10 pounds of strawberries or so.  More on that in a little bit.  But first, the garden is looking great.  The pest detail has really paid off and the new tomatoes, eggplant, tomatillos and sweet peppers are doing very well.

cherry tomatoes and strawberry basket on the patio

Garden looking good

microgreens, sweet potatoes and oat grass

cherry tomatoes on the patio

pumpkins on the way

summer squash

tomatillos about to bloom

Out back of the property, the buddha hand citron is putting out huge beautiful blossoms which will later be big fragrant fruit.

buddha hand citron blossoms

We also received a visit from our good friend Bethany at Wytchwood Farms with gifts for trade.  For a couple jars of fresh strawberry jam, we received raspberry and boysenberry canes and some beautiful glass gem popcorn (not yet on the cob but here's what it looks like)

blackberries doing well

raspberries a little sad but will perk up

glass gem popcorn

So excited for both of these new additions!  As for the bug control, the nightly bug quests are working.  Tonight I found only 3 weevils in the entire garden.  That is a major victory, and if the neem oil did its job correctly, there should be no new weevil larvae this year.

Remember that 10 pounds of strawberries I mentioned?  Well, we still have 3 pies and about 12 jars of strawberry jam if you'd like to come say hi and pay the garden a visit.  Better hurry though, they aren't going to last.

strawberry pie anyone?

jam and pie, berry delicious

let's try this again...

First, let's start with some happy!  Here's a bunch of heirloom radishes I pulled this weekend to use making an old fashioned macaroni salad and some garnish for some pozole!

Had an overcast and misty weekend, perfect for working in the dirt, so, after a week or so of fighting the pests, decided to go out, bite the bullet, and buy some replacements on the tomatoes, cukes, eggplant, peppers and tomatillos.  It cost around another $60 but now hopefully we have the situation under control on the bugs.  Sunshine Nursery of Escondido happened to have beautiful healthy heirloom tomatoes, so we picked 8 replacement varieties with a couple hybrids tossed in just in case.  Pulled the bird netting now that the sprouts on the one side of the garden are up and out of danger of becoming bird food.

the replacements

While we were at it, we found a really fun solution for the beans and peas.  An old rod iron bed frame which will serve as trellis.  Turned out looking really fun and will provide support for the plants to grow strong and tall.

beans in the background, melons in front

Peas in back, new eggplant, tomatillo, peppers, and squash

Last but not least, a little bit of garden fashion!  I love my new wellies!!!!





















As for tonight, bugs are still out, but pest patrol is working.  By getting about a dozen or so weevils a night, some headway is being made.  Once the weather dries out, more DE and neem oil to keep things under control.

A lot of work accomplished.   Ripped up a deck out front today as well, building on with some new materials since the old wood has all rotted out in places.  Felt good to get so much done this last two days, and still had time for quiet and being together at home tonight, and visits from friends and neighbors.  Life is good, and so is the farm.

pest update

The fight continues.  First of all, for all of you avid home gardeners, I want to be sure that you are armed with some of the most educational material I have found about garden pests and disease and how to treat.  UC Davis' Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program website is full of information that has proven very useful to me with my current challenges.  Thanks to the thorough information there, I have been able to identify all of the pests currently in the garden and come up with strategies to combat them while remaining true to an organic framework.  Turns out that three of the four pests I'm dealing with right now are fairly easy to fight off.

Cabbage aphid, Brevicoryne brassicae

Western yellowstripee armyworm, Spodoptera praefica

Variegated cutworm, Paridroma saucia

The 4th one you all know about by now...

Vegetable weevil, Listroderes costirostris obliquus

Went and consulted with a master gardener at Walter Anderson Nursery, one of our best in town in my opinion.  Turns out that the diatomaceous earth was a good call, so I picked up another two big bags.  Additionally, I picked up some neem oil, which is a broad spectrum insecticide that is a major irritant to mammals, but ultimately non toxic.  To the first three bugs however, it is fatal.  So, back out into the night I went with a flashlight to get a good look at all my uninvited party guests.  The worms made for some very satifying squashing during this time of frustration, picked off as many of the weevils as I could, and sprayed a 5 gallon mix of the neem oil for anything else remaining.  The oil will not kill the weevils, but does kill the eggs and render adults incapable of further breeding.  Cross your fingers.  In the meantime, I will be going out every night after dark to squash whatever remains: The Bug Hunter.  As for the neem, it gets applied every 7 to 14 days until pests disappear, and the DE every night after squashing rounds.  It will be a lot of work but if it gets rid of the pests, it will be worth it.

It now being April, I may be too late to get the heirloom tomatoes to grow back and fruit in time for the summer heat, but I will plant some up in the greenhouse window (aka laundry room) and see what we get.  In the meantime, I'm hoping my friends and neighbors from the seed swap will be generous in trade for what I am able to get to grow.  In the worst case scenario, I will consider replacing heirlooms with semi-organic non-GMO pest resistant hybrids ready to put in the ground at Walter Anderson.  Not as healthy, not as tasty, not as rewarding... but better than nothing at all.



On a happier side note, I received my pressure canner in the mail yesterday.  If you are thinking of canning your veggies, let me tell you that now is the time to be shopping for canning supplies.  I was able to get a 23-quart pressure canner for about half the regular price, being April instead of September.  Once Autumn rolls around, all of the supply costs get inflated because of demand.  If you're thinking of trying your hand at preserving what you grow, now is the time to be looking into it!

UPDATE 10:30pm: Got home from work and did the rounds.  No more worms!  It's a start!  As for the aphids, cut by about half.  And the weevils?  Caught and exterminated 12 tonight and that is all I found from the hundreds from nights past.  It seems to be working folks! 

sad day in the garden...

So, one of the worst possible infestations possible has taken over our entire set of ground and box plots in the garden.  We noticed about 3-4 days ago that the tomatoes and beans were beginning to literally get eaten from the ground up pretty much overnight.  From strong healthy plants only a week ago, we began seeing dead leafless stems start to replace our early spring growth on all but the squash, corn and pumpkins, but couldn't find any pests on the plants during the day.  So I did a little research and learned that some pests are only active after sundown.  So, like a late night detective once again, out I went with flashlight, crocs and gloves, and here is what I found hiding out in literally every plant we have...

Vegetable weevils.  We have hundreds on everything from the tomatoes to the beans and peas to eggplant, peppers, tomatillos and literally every root crop but the onions.  They are even in the potato barrels.

Unfortunately, these little shit balls (pardon my dutch) are immune to pretty much every organic treatment available.  For safe measure I sprayed 5 gallons of organic bacterial and neem oil pest control over the entire crop.  An hour later, not phased in the slightest.  Looking up information in the California Master Gardener website, one finds that only two other organic methods are remotely effective.  Hand picking each insect off of the plants at night for 2 weeks, or application of diatomaceous earth.

I happen to have a bottle of the stuff that I have used for flea control on the cat.  Diatomaceous earth is basically fossilized algae ground into a powder with particles so small (averaging 10 micrometers) that they invade the scaly body of arthropods and pierce the body of insects like glass shards.  So, as effective as the treatment is against vegetable weevils, it is also effective in killing nearly everything else as well... from mites and aphids to ladybugs, mantis, wasps and bees... all of which provide more benefit than harm in the organic garden.  My only hope is that broad local application at night followed by our morning dew, will affect only the pests that come out at night... namely this stupid little bugger eating the garden while we sleep.

The only other solution is either chemical grade pesticide (only two are effective against weevils... pyrethrin and azadirachtin) or pulling the garden, starving the pests, and black tarping the soil to suffocate any eggs or larvae through the summer.  

I'm totally against the idea of chemical pesticides as the reason I planted a garden in the first place was to avoid these toxins in our food, allow the natural flora and fauna to thrive without broad range chemical insect control that kills off already shrinking populations of bees and other beneficial pollinators,  and of course allow the cat to roam the back yard without fear of poisoning.  So, cross your fingers on the diatomaceous earth for us.  If I'm going to eat pesticide tainted veggies, I might as well buy them from the grocery store and give this year a rest.

Here's what the poor babies look like tonight... nuclear winter in San Diego.  Tomorrow, I will run out to buy another bottle to use in the raised bed and we'll see what we will see.

For more information on controlling this particularly nasty pest... http://homeguides.sfgate.com/weevil-control-vegetables-22775.html