Photo Update: 5/5/13

So, we had to do some major overhaul recently...well...I should say Jim did most of it.

1. Godzilla totally did not like his net trellis, so Jim had to build him something more sturdy.  We figure he'll eat the house by next Thursday.

 Is this not awesome?  Jim is like a master of garden engineering. The coolest part about this thing is that it's adjustable, so if we want to change the angle so we can prune or harvest, those back legs are on a hinge.  Also, the whole thing detaches from the planter, so we could move it anywhere/reuse it anywhere.  I was so proud of him for building this! 

2. Once we stopped Godzilla from taking over the planter, we discovered our nice little spinach plants underneath.  Some of them are a little wilty from not enough sun.  Also, some of them got chomped by armyworms, those fuckers.

3. The tomatoes in the smaller planter also have a whole lot more room since Godzilla has been reigned in.

This is Oswald.  I'm a genius and threw out the little thing that tells you the breed of the tomato, so I don't know what Oswald is, but I seem to remember something about Cherokee Purple.  Either way, he's doing really well!  Three big tomatoes are growing and one just popped out.

4. Transplants and Goodbye to a Legend:  So of all things; of all the plants that could poop out in this whole endeavor; I am sad to say that we had to uproot and toss Mr. Stripey!  For some reason, he just never bloomed.  Never developed any flowers or fruit, so we tossed him in the woods.  But we got a new Mr. Stripey (Son of Stripey IV), and a friend for him...a Black Prince heirloom breed named Dracula!

Grow, Son of Stripey, grow!  Also pictured: Radley and the Radishes

In light of the monster that is Godzilla, we took Rocco (Cucumber #2) out of the small planter and put him in the large one, and also put a cage around him for to grow up (although if he goes mutant like Godzilla, that thing is not going to cut it.

 

More on pests and pesticides...

So we had an infestation of army worms and leaf miners.  In case you don't know, these are army worms:

Their job?  To fuck up your world.  Obviously.

And these are leaf miners...rather, this is the path of a leaf miner.  They are really tiny and actually live inside the leaf:

So if you see that kind of nonsense in your yard (they attack everything), now you know what it is.

I've mentioned this ad nauseum I'm sure, but we started this whole thing to get our stomachs away from pesticides.  So far, we've been trying really, really hard to only use things that are natural, but we've had to up the ante a bit.  We're still using organic-farm-approved pesticides, but we recently developed a fungus (mildew) from all the rain last week, so we had to take care of that as well.

Thinking about all this, it's almost a wonder that human civilization has persevered thus far through all the crap that can happen to crops.  Of course, there was the Potato Famine in Ireland which was a shit-show, and others as well, but for the most part, we've been doing agriculture pretty okay so far.

More next week!

 

Oh no... there goes Tokyo

And now for the weekly update...(4/27/13)

As you can see, one of our cucumbers has gone absolutely insane.  I'm calling it Godzilla.

We put up a net trellis for Godzilla and Godzilla Jr. to climb.  Apparently, cucumbers yield more fruit when they grow on a trellis.  I don't know how good we're doing getting it to climb though. 

The tomatoes are doing well, except something is chomping the lower leaves and I don't know what it is.  I'm not sure the organic soap is working so I'm going to get some neem oil this weekend. 

We had a minor mishap with the mesclun.  I feed the plants a plant food every month. The directions say to put it along the drip line... no.  If you put it along the drip line it will MOLD.  I sprayed the mold with a 1:20 vinegar solution and put the planter in the yard in full sunlight. I think it's getting better. 

The spinach plants are growing steadily.  Godzilla blocks some of them from full sunlight but they're still growing. 

All of the other plants are doing great except Mr. Stripey!  Yes it seems his "great adventure" is to grow leaves and jack shit else!  I think we're going to transplant him into the big planter and see if he does any better. 

A Pest I Would Totally Welcome

The Were-Rabbit

This post has nothing whatsoever to do with my garden and everything to do with the charm and British hilarity of Wallace and Gromit.

If you haven't seen this movie, do.  It's adorable.

 

Little Chompy Buggers

It's time for the weekly update!

I am astounded at the amount of growth that's happened in just one week...

The Mexican Heather appears to be doing well, and if you look closely, you can see on the Morning Glorys that the  peduncle has emerged!

Our little spinach plants look like they're thriving...some new leaves came up this week.

Oswald the tomato has three tomatoes growing.

Our cherry tomato plant is also fruiting like crazy!

We have two cucumber plants and this one is some kind of monster.  Those leaves are the size of my hand...and all of this in a week!  I'm a little worried there's not enough space in there for him...

Broccoli plants all the way to the left, then two rows of wildflowers, and the orange cosmos.

See that guy in the first row next to the screen?  That's my summer squash!  It finally germinated!  The rest are sunflowers, and that one tiny little guy right in the front might be garlic.  I dunno, I just shoved a clove that was going bad in the closet in some dirt and hoped for the best.

And the most exciting thing of all...this gorgeous 8'x4' cedar planter, handmade by Jim :)

I'm going to plant the broccoli, radishes, and summer squash in this planter once it's all filled in with rock, organic soil, peat, and mulch.

A word to the wise (or the totally ignorant) about broccoli...

So with the broccoli: you're really not supposed to plant this when I planted it.  What happened was that I found a packet of broccoli seeds that I've had for about a hundred years (ok; more like three) and in the zeal of planting everything else, I said, "Ah hell, let's just plant them and see what happens."

Well, it seems that broccoli needs a cool root temperature in order to keep it from bolting.  Bolting is what happens when the plant flowers, but no fruit results, and the plant goes to seed.  Which is a whole lot of jargon for "your plant will go to shit and it's a waste of time".

After some careful (read: 10 minutes worth, haha) research on the University of Florida website, I discovered that our chances of getting any broccoli this summer are slim to none, but here's a tip.

Tip:  If you don't pay attention like I don't pay attention, and you plant your broccoli at the wrong damn time of year, apparently if you put mulch in at the roots, it will keep them cooler and you might succeed!

And now, for the highlight of this post...

Chompy Little Buggers

The little bastard above is a cabbage looper, and the sole purpose of his existence is to eat your garden.  Jim found one on Mr. Stripey the other day (sadface).  

But it seems Florida, amid all of its other glorious, shit-tastic things that make me absolutely despise living here, is host to a myriad of little bugs who want to fuck up your horticultural world.  Here's a chart of them, so you can see what I mean.  Seriously, what is this, Australia?hare on facebook

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Refer to the "active ingredient" on product labels to determine which pesticide(s) the product contains.
Pest	Neeme	Spinosade	Btae	Carbaryl	Malathion	Pyrethroidsb	Soapce	Oilce	Imidaclopridd
Aphids	X				X	X	X	X	X
Armyworm		X	X	X		X
Bean leafroller		X	X	X		X
Cabbage looper		X	X		X	X
Col. potato beetle		X		X		X			X
Cucumber beetle	X			X	X	X
Diamondback moth		X	X
Corn earworm/fruitworm		X	X	X		X
Flea beetle				X	X	X			X
Hornworm, pinworm		X	X	X		X
Leafminers						X
Leafhoppers				X	X	X			X
Melon, pickleworm		X	X	X		X
Mexican bean beetle				X	X	X
Cowpea curculio				X
Spider mites					X			X
Squash vine borer		X	X			X
Stink bugs		X (nymphs)		X (nymphs)		X (adults)
Thrips		X			X		X	X
Whiteflies	X					X	X	X	X
aBacillus thuringiensis (several brands). bIncludes bifenthrin, lamda-cyhalothrin, esfenvalerate, and pyrethrins + PBO. cTest on a few plants first because of potentional leaf burn and do not use in hot weather. dThis pesticide requires a waiting period before harvesting of 7 to 45 days (depending on the crop). eLeast toxic products.

Now as you might recall, one of the main points of starting this garden was so we wouldn't be eating produce that had been drenched in chemicals that would doubtless give us cancer, or at the very least, endow our children with a third eye.  Or maybe just one really big eye instead of the standard two.

So when we found the caterpillar, and when I noticed earlier today, while pretending to be a wildlife photographer, that something appeared to be chomping at my veg, I wondered just what exactly we should do about it.

About a week ago, anticipating these chompy little buggers, I bought a natural pesticide at the local plant nursery.  Basically it's a soap that's safe to put on your veg and won't give your children extra organs.  I wonder about its efficacy though.  

A friend of ours who has quite a large kitchen garden (made out of pressure-treated/painted railroad ties) wryly told us to forget about those "good-for-the-earth" pesticides and go straight for the carcinogenic kill.  

But I thought to myself, much like I think about childbirth, "People had been doing this the natural way for a hundred or more years in this country...why the sudden need for all the harmful chemistry?"  In fact, I found out that it wasn't until after World War II that we started all this nonsense with the chemicals.

So right now, I am seeking ways to keep the bugs away--particularly the caterpillars and the ants.  God the ants down here are just vicious and innumerable.  It is a sad thing for me to live in a place where I can't walk barefoot in the grass without worrying about fire ants or just the sharp-as-hell grass cutting my feet.  

Refer to the "active ingredient" on product labels to determine which pesticide(s) the product contains.

Pest

Neem^e

Spinosad^e

Bt^ae

Carbaryl

Malathion

Pyrethroids^b

Soap^ce

Oil^ce

Imidacloprid^d

Aphids

X

 

 

 

X

X

X

X

X

Armyworm

 

X

X

X

 

X

 

 

 

Bean leafroller

 

X

X

X

 

X

 

 

 

Cabbage looper

 

X

X

 

X

X

 

 

 

Col. potato beetle

 

X

 

X

 

X

 

 

X

Cucumber beetle

X

 

 

X

X

X

 

 

 

Diamondback moth

 

X

X

 

 

 

 

 

 

Corn earworm/fruitworm

 

X

X

X

 

X

 

 

 

Flea beetle

 

 

 

X

X

X

 

 

X

Hornworm, pinworm

 

X

X

X

 

X

 

 

 

Leafminers

 

 

 

 

 

X

 

 

 

Leafhoppers

 

 

 

X

X

X

 

 

X

Melon, pickleworm

 

X

X

X

 

X

 

 

 

Mexican bean beetle

 

 

 

X

X

X

 

 

 

Cowpea curculio

 

 

 

X

 

 

 

 

 

Spider mites

 

 

 

 

X

 

 

X

 

Squash vine borer

 

X

X

 

 

X

 

 

 

Stink bugs

 

X (nymphs)

 

X (nymphs)

 

X (adults)

 

 

 

Thrips

 

X

 

 

X

 

X

X

 

Whiteflies

X

 

 

 

 

X

X

X

X

^aBacillus thuringiensis (several brands).

^bIncludes bifenthrin, lamda-cyhalothrin, esfenvalerate, and pyrethrins + PBO.

^cTest on a few plants first because of potentional leaf burn and do not use in hot weather.

^dThis pesticide requires a waiting period before harvesting of 7 to 45 days (depending on the crop).

^eLeast toxic products.

Suburban Farmers: The Quest for Goodness

THE SUBURBAN FARMER'S DISCLAIMER

Let me start by saying this: I am not a hippie or a hipster.

I say this because somehow growing your own food when you don't live on a farm became connected with that scarf-wearing, vinyl-snobbery, KONY 2012 sticker-sticking, Steve Jobs-worshipping, steampunk facial-hair-growing, microbrew-obsessed, tight-pants-wearing, ironic-glasses donning, vintage-colored cruiser bike-riding, puerile-Thoreau-quoting, pipe-smoking cardigan set.

Not that there's anything wrong with that...

But that's not me.  Not my husband (ah hell, we're getting married in a month, do I have to have discontinuity and call him my fiance?) either.  He's got a beard, but there's nothing steampunk about it. It's very Bob Vila by nature.

And it's weird that anyone would associate gardening and small-farming with some kind of counterculture, weirdo liberal agenda, anyway.  People used to do this all the time.  It's how a lot of people got through the Great Depression and World War II.  But I guess that's the trend: when you had a garden in World War II, you were a good American patriot.  Now you're a pinko commie.

ANYWAY.

We decided to start our own kitchen garden, or potager as the French say, because we both had this wacky idea that we 1) didn't want to eat vegetables that had been shipped three hundred miles from Mexico, 2) didn't want to eat vegetables that had been sprayed with carcinogenic pesticides, and 3) we just all around wanted to know where the stuff we were eating came from.  Because my paranoid schizophrenia tells me that all these organic vegetables at Publix might not be organic at all.

I'm onto you.  Also, I'm not schizophrenic, really.

THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND

We're not vegetarians.  We also don't have enough land to own edible animals.  We're working on that.

You heard me: edible animals.  

I told you we weren't vegetarians.

Anyway, I've never been that much of a gardener.  I grew up in the country and we had two acres.  I vaguely remember trying to grow bell peppers and beans, but there was that whole part about it where I was like, twelve years old and most certainly did not have the attention span for remembering to water plants every day.  Not to mention, we lived in the middle of the damn woods, where meandering bandit rabbits and hooligan deer would nibble at anything they found like a plague of locusts.

Point being, I don't know shit about farming or gardening except that I like the idea of it.  Jim doesn't either.  We have now embarked on a journey toward fresh yum-yums.  We're gonna hope for the best and learn as we go along, because I'm sure our ancient agriculture-discovering ancestors didn't really know what the hell they were doing either.  So come along with me on this path to noms...let's see what happens.

SOWING THE SEEDS OF BLAH BLAH BLAH

So what was it, I guess last weekend?  The week before last?  Whatever.

Point is, we planted some stuff over the last couple of weeks...and I think they're doing well.  I went out and sang Tears for Fears to them all.  

Here are some pictures:

Most of this isn't veg at all actually.  Our yard has looked like Chernobyl: The Aftermath since forever, so I decided it was high time to get some prettiness in there.  From left to right: Morning Glory, two rows of butterfly-attracting wildflowers, Black-Eyed Susans, Orange Cosmos, and finally...broccoli!  My broccoli just sprouted today and I was more excited than could possibly be normal.

From bottom right to top: In the grey IKEA pot, we have Senor Garlic.  This consisted of me throwing a garlic clove in a pot and now I'm going to hope for the best.  To Senor Garlic's left are two biodegradable pots of Summer Squash.  They have not germinated.  The seeds are fifty thousand years old.  To the left and all the way up are sunflowers and marigolds.

 Marigolds, as it turns out, are natural pesticides!

My lavender plant.  Again, not a vegetable, but it is an herb.  You can tiny little sprouts coming up.
 I was surprised...lavender is supposed to take a long time to germinate.

A whole planter of mesclun, which is doing really well!

The star:  My favorite heirloom tomato, Mr. Stripey.

This is our phenomenal basil plant.  It was looking really awesome until we had an ant problem...but it's coming back.

The mint plant.  It was also devastated by ants and it got root-bound, but we saved it.  It's coming back.

Three rows of spinach on the left, cucumbers to the right.

George the Lemon Tree (who yielded 10 or 12 lemons over the winter and is eking out a couple more...he needs to be fertilized

Two more tomato plants!
The one in the back is another heirloom breed  whose name I can't remember.  BUT I was compelled to name this one "Oswald" for my friend's daughter.
 Below Oswald is the  Mr. Stripey Imposter Hybrid breed, Early Girl.
Seriously, the thing was sitting behind a sign that said Mr. Stripey and it turned out to be a hybrid.  But it's blooming AND fruiting...

Tiny tomatoes!