What Are Some Tips for Successful Gardening?

[Evo]

We had a couple of hours of (mostly filtered) Sun today - better than we have done in LONG stretch. I'm getting pretty depressed about the prospects of the garden. All the planning and the preparation doesn't count for much when mother Nature throws 2 months of cold and rain at you. I have replanted cucumbers and will replant squash later this week, if the rain holds off. Those are both staples, here, so not happy times. I have had to resort to spreading iron phosphate slug bait around my garden, since the slugs are chewing up everything in reach. I would prefer a plague of locusts at this point.

Really sad to hear that turbo, it's been a cold rainy season here too. Too cold for fruit to set, and so rainy. This is the second year of way too much cold. Tomatoes, eggplant and peppers need warmth, and we don't have it.

 

[turbo]

Here is our new mini-greenhouse. My organic-gardening neighbor and I share a lot of stuff, and I gave his granddaughters my older PC. He built this greenhouse for himself, and then decided to build a large greenhouse on the south wall of his barn, so we got this one. I hauled it up here in the bucket of my tractor, leveled it, insulated the north wall with foil-faced rigid foam and put black slate in the bottom for heat retention. Notice that the roof windows are louvered, and I have them cracked to vent excess heat. My wife has already planted dill, parsley, lettuce mixes, etc in there, and next spring we'll start all our own vegetables from seed - no more $$$ seedlings to buy.

 

[Moonbear]

I finally got more rocks moved and was able to get my tomatoes planted in their place today. I have one green pepper growing and a whole bunch of jalapeno peppers...jalapenos seem to do well growing on rocks. A few of the tomato plants were starting to flower in spite of being horridly neglected, so maybe I still have some chance of tomatoes this year. Since I'm going to be gone most of the second half of July into the first week of August, this might work to my advantage that I will actually get some tomatoes rather than my housesitter getting them all this year. I still have a LOT of rocks to move though, and am running out of creative ways to use them. I'm mostly down to just the gravel that was under the river rocks, so now I think I just need to find a good place to pile them up out of my way until I'm ready to build retaining walls to terrace the big hill I nearly kill myself on every time I mow the lawn (it's pretty steep in a couple spots and the grass gets very slickery and I've lost my footing a few times).

 

[Proton Soup]

despite playing catchup in the spring on the last two years' drought, the last month or so here has been pretty dry. but the cucumbers have been coming along OK thanks to hand watering. the tomatoes on the other hand have been something of a mixed bag. i bought some heirloom varieties for something different, and the pink ones seem to be late bloomers. problem is, the blooms won't pollinate and set fruit in this heat. otherwise, they are growing like weeds and i had to spend a bit of time today tying up stalks so that they don't fall over and break.

 

[baywax]

Evo and Turbo, what happened to your weather guys? Did you move to the ᓄᓇᕗᑦ ᒐᕙᒪᖓ territory?

http://www.gov.nu.ca/

 

[turbo]

New England is very cold and wet this year. May and June were continuations of April, with no warming trend. My garden is a swamp, full of expensive stunted plants that are going nowhere. We have planted and re-planted cukes, squash, lettuce, etc, with no real success. We need a few consecutive sunny days to begin to warm and dry the soil - no such luck, so far. The carrots failed to germinate, and we had to re-plant them, too - a month too late.

 

[Pythagorean]

Little beasties have been having feasts on my veg.The radishes have been eaten,the carrots and parsnips have disappeared and now the slugs and snails seem to have discovered my lettuces which are in raised pots.Its not all bad,the courgettes, leaf beet,chard,tomatoes, potatoes, runner beans, broad beans and soft fruit are coming on a treat.

We had a squirrel that kept digging up our potatoes, but now that they're vegging they've left them alone. Or maybe the cat ended their curiosity...

 

[baywax]

We had a squirrel that kept digging up our potatoes, but now that they're vegging they've left them alone. Or maybe the cat ended their curiosity...

My cat gets torn up by the squirrels around here. We've got coyotes after him too. Not far from here we've had 5 cougar encounters with people. One woman fought a cougar off of her little 8 year old and won! The kids ok now. The bears are all out and looking cuddly but are not. They like to hang out around the elementary schools due to discarded lunches. I've heard about european tourists canceling their trips out here after looking at the CDN news about the bears, cougars and wolverines. Buc buc buc.!

Turbo, what system is keeping things cool in your neck of the woods?

 

[Ouabache]

That maybe an adult version of this leafhopper.
http://www.pbase.com/jamato8/image/61078703

I think you may be onto something Astro.. That bug look's suspiciously similar to the one
Evo showed us.

 

[Evo]

I think you may be onto something Astro.. That bug look's suspiciously similar to the one
Evo showed us.

Possible except I've been watching them grow from tiny things when they first appeared.

 

[Ouabache]

Possible except I've been watching them grow from tiny things when they first appeared.

There is an angular (pyramidal) shaped insect that affects *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanaceae" .
Do they look something like that? Did yours happen to have small black spines when they were smaller (nymph stage)?

*Solanacae, common name is the Nightshade family and includes: tomato, eggplant, potato, pepper, chili pepper, tobacco... Their flowers are all similar in shape

 

[Evo]

There is an angular (pyramidal) shaped insect that affects *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanaceae" .
Do they look something like that? Did yours happen to have small black spines when they were smaller (nymph stage)?

*Solanacae, common name is the Nightshade family and includes: tomato, eggplant, potato, pepper, chili pepper, tobacco... Their flowers are all similar in shape

Nope. These bugs are covered from head to toe in sectioned, overlapping "plates", like an armadillo.

 

[Evo]

Those bugs are probably some sort of scale insect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale_insect). Plant sap is low in nitrogen, so the insect has to consume a lot of it before it can be used to make proteins. The excess is the sugary white fuzz you see, also known as honeydew.

No, I'm familiar with scales, they're not scales. They walk quickly on straight little legs, then take off flying, but have overlapping plates. It seems no one is able to identify this bug, which is odd. Unfortunatley, I think I have killed them all. :((

 

[Moonbear]

Turbo, what system is keeping things cool in your neck of the woods?

Apparently the same one keeping it cool where I am too. We just had a LOT of chill and rain this summer. It really doesn't even feel like summer yet. Earlier this week, I actually needed to wear a jacket in the morning because it was not just cool, but COLD...in the 50s! It's back to being a bit warmer again, and hopefully drier. It hasn't rained since the weekend. I will guarantee that we'll start having a drought in about two weeks, though, when I leave the country and have someone else responsible for watering my plants of course. Though, my newest house/cat sitter grew up on a farm, so hopefully she'll be able to judge better than the last one when to water or not water.

 

[Borek]

Pictures that probably best fit thread subject:

2002:

2009:

 

[turbo]

Until this year, I killed Japanese beetles whenever I saw them - actually not a real good idea. The trick is to look them over good before you kill them. If they have one or more white spots on their backs (usually up on the thorax), leave them alone. The white spots are the eggs of a parasitic fly. The adult flies visit flowers and eat nectar and pollen, but the maggots need a live host. This beetle has 6 eggs on it. Within a day, the maggots will hatch out and burrow into the beetle. The beetle, sensing the attack will drop to the ground and try to burrow in - that gives the maggots a nice safe place to develop. When they are ready to molt into the adult form, they will dig themselves out and starte eating and mating to produce the next generation of beetle-killing maggots. I'm a bit concerned about the maggots' viability in this case - I have never seen 6 eggs on one beetle, so I hope that's enough food for all of them.

 

[Borek]

If you will kill only those spotless, soon you may expect Japanese beetles in your garden to evolve white spots on their backs.

 

[turbo]

If you will kill only those spotless, soon you may expect Japanese beetles in your garden to evolve white spots on their backs.

I'm not THAT effective at killing beetles. Perhaps if everybody else adopts this approach...

 

[Evo]

Ok, I managed to get a better picture of the mystery bug that cannot be identified. Surely, someone can identify this thing?

It also has sheer wings and can fly. looking at it with a magnifying lens, it has overlapping "plates" like a shrimp, and it can easily bend it's body, it will raise it's rear end up into the air, I think it's excreting that white tail stuff when it does that.

http://img146.imageshack.us/img146/2645/unidentifiedbug9.jpg

Unlimited GOOBF cards for the first successful identification!

 

[Evo]

Kurdt has identified the bug, it's a planthopper nymph!

 

[Kurdt]

I think its a planthopper nymph Evo

 

[Evo]

Yes, you are awesome! I think oubache's friend had it the closest previously saying he thought it was in the leaf hopper family. http://bugguide.net/node/view/105/bgpage Astro also thought it might be an adult version of a leaf hopper nymph, turns out these are also nymphs, but a different family.

How on Earth did you find it?

 

[Kurdt]

Determination.

 

[Borek]

Wow, disruption of causality.

 

[Evo]

Now that the mystery bug has been identified, here is my cherry tomato plant, named Kurdt, and the local critters having breakfast outside my bedroom window. Also, my wild baby bunny, Herman, is getting big!

I'm still waiting to get peppers and eggplants.

 

[Evo]

Almost forgot. Here is my two tone California blonde squirrel, aka the MIH squirrel.

 

[turbo]

Now that the mystery bug has been identified, here is my cherry tomato plant, named Kurdt, and the local critters having breakfast outside my bedroom window. Also, my wild baby bunny, Herman, is getting big!

Now, where is that Holy Hand-Grenade?

 

[Borek]

Not yet pâté sized.

 

[Evo]

Not yet pâté sized.

 

[Evo]

I just saw a piece on tv about the disney hydropnic gardens. I want to work there! This isn't the tv piece, but will show you some of what they're doing.