Weekly Gardening Outlook: Dog Days

This will be a continuing series where we look ahead at the coming week in gardening for the Northwest Arkansas area.

Chloe and chicks

Might as well get the bad news out of the way first.  After two years without harming a bird, the dogs killed two of my young hens.  They haven't bothered the full grown hens, but the little ones darting about apparently stimulated their inner carnivore.  I looked out the window and saw them bouncing around having a great time with one of the hens in Crash's (our male) mouth.  They were harshly reprimanded, shown the dead bird, and then reprimanded again whenever they showed interest in it.  I've kept them chained up when I'm not in the backyard.  It's going to be hard to trust them around the birds again.

Confined dogs

Insect Report:

Flea beetles on an eggplant

Flea beetles attack my eggplants every year, making the small holes in the leaves that you can see in the picture above.  Unless the population really gets out of control, they don't really seem to hurt the plants much.  They are interesting beetles in that, when disturbed, they can hop very quickly like the fleas they are named after.  A dose of neem oil mixed with pyrethrin (aka NeemII) gets rid of them.  These are both organic treatments.

Japanese beetles eating an okra leaf

Japanese beetles minutes after an application of NeemII

The Japanese beetles are out and trying to eat my green bean vines, apple trees, blueberry bushes, okra, basil, etc.  Above, you can graphically see the effects of the aforementioned neem oil/pyrethrin mix.  The beetles are only out for 3 weeks or so a year, so two or three applications spread over that time will keep them off of my crops.

Japanese beetle on sweet basil

Pyrethrin kills a broad spectrum of insects, including beneficial insects.  The way to protect beneficial insects is to target the beetles by applying it in the late evening after most beneficial insects have quit flying.  Pyrethrin is biodegradable and breaks down quickly when exposed to oxygen.  Neem oil on the other hand lasts for up to a week, but only kills insects that eat plant leaves.  

Butterfly on flowering sweet basil

These basil plants were treated with NeemII less than 24 hours before this picture and video were taken.  They are covered in butterflies and literally hundreds of hoverflies.  The video doeesn't fully capture the swarm of activity, but it's the best I could do.  It's important to use a pest management system that doesn't harm these beneficial insects.  Both butterflies and hoverflies are excellent pollinators (meaning more fruit for you) and the larva of many hoverflies eat harmful insects like aphids.  If I had just dusted these in Sevin dust, I would have destroyed both.

Caterpillar hiding in damaged onion leaf

Closeup of caterpillar in the onion leaf

Looking at my onions, I noticed the ends of a few leaves were missing.  Upon closer inspection, I caught this guy red-handed inside one of the leaves.  I believe it's a leek moth larvae.  I could treat the onions with Bacillis thuringiensis (BT), but after inspecting them closely I only found a few and the onions are nearing the end of their growing season anyway.  I'll just keep an eye on it for now and smash any that I find.  Interestingly, they have not affected my two-year-old evergreen bunching onions.

Garden Report:

Okra

The okra is still in the vegetative growing phase and has not put on fruit yet.  This variety (Perkins Long Pod) will get up to 5-6 feet tall with trunks as big around as my wrist before they are done.  You can see a definite size difference between the plants on the south (left) end of the bed and those on the north (right).  The plants on the north end get less sunlight because they are shaded somewhat by the plants to the south.

Tomatoes

Cherry tomatoes

Roma tomatoes

The Roma tomato plants may not get tall (~2 feet), but they are loaded with fruit.  None of which are ripe yet.  The cherry tomato plant (Super Sweet 100) has just begun to give a few ripe fruit.  Like the Romas, it is loaded with green fruit and blossoms.  No evidence of blossom-end rot this year.  The crushed egg shells (calcium) and straw mulch (conserving soil moisture) seem to be working.

Jalapenos

Bell peppers

The peppers are also loaded with fruit.  The straw mulch has really improved the health of my plants.

Flowering eggplant

No fruit on the eggplants yet, but they are putting on plenty of purple flowers.

Onions with an eggplant in the background

The onions are ready to harvest.  This is indicated when the foliage begins to fall down as seen above.  Click HERE for a previous post on harvesting and drying onions.

Young butternut squash

Butternut squash vine on a trellis

I have had such problems with squash vine borer (SVB) in the past, that the only squash I'm growing this year is the butternut squash.  Butternut squash is said to be resistant to the SVB.  So far so good.  The vines are 3-5 feet long and are growing up my cattle panel trellises.  

Swiss chard

The chard is doing what chard does.  It's growing with little care or maintenance.  Such a great crop.

Purple-podded pole beans on a trellis

The pole beans are 3-4 feet long and have yet to flower.  The only problem I've had with this variety in the past is with Japanese beetles defoliating them.  I have the NeemII ready...

Turnip

The warm season growing of turnips has been a huge success.  No maintenance and they are ready to harvest.

New growth on the apple tree

The apple tree is putting on some new growth after being hit hard by cedar-apple rust.  I've treated it with Serenade and this is a promising sign.  I plan preventive treatments next spring starting in April.

Blueberry bush

The two blueberry bushes are growing gangbusters.  I mulched them with straw and that seems t have really helped keep the pots from drying out between waterings.

Dead strawberry plants

Speaking of drying out between waterings, the lack of rain combined with 100 degree temperatures and my neglect have killed about two-thirds of my strawberry plants.  The cinderblocks being porous and having one side exposed to air, dry out easily.  They are easily harvested because of the accesibility, but be aware of the drawback to planting inside the cinderblocks.  Being the low maintence gardener that I am, I am ok with this.  The strawberry plants that remain can obviously handle drought better than those that died off, so as the years go on, the genetics of my plants will exhibit drought tolerance.

Jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes)

Amongst those weeds is a stand of sunchokes about 4 feet tall.  They will put on a beautiful display of small yellow flowers in a month and after it freezes, I will harvest the potato-like tubers.


Chicken and Egg Report:

Juvenile laying hen next to a juvenile meat bird

Again, the size differential between these birds who were born the same day and fed the same feed is astounding.

2"x4" wire barrier

The white cornish/rock meat birds have become so heavy that they cannot haul themselves back up the ramp to get to the food and water.  I put a 2"x4" wire mesh across the end to keep them up top, while allowing the hens access to the nest boxes.  The hen's production has leveled off to about 4 eggs per day.

Out in the proverbial cold

When I put the wire in a week ago, more than half of the egg laying chicks were able to squeeze through the wire and come and go as they pleased.  Just a week later, they have grown such that only two of them can still fit through.  The ones that can't fit through, spend their days foraging in the yard for insects, worms, and vegetation.  We've mysteriously lost two more of them (down to 7).  I can't blame the dogs.  Since I found no feathers or other remains, my money is on hawks.  I'm going to let the dogs run free again as a deterrent to the hawks.  We'll see how that goes.

Weather Outlook:

-We finally got a break from the heat and got a little rain to boot!  Temperatures will remain in the mid to upper 90s this week with little further chance of rain.  Keep your gardens watered.

-Ten day forecast

What's Being Harvested:

-Cherry tomatoes
-Turnips
-Herbs

-Serrano, jalapeno, and bell peppers

-Green, yellow, and purple onions

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Tales from the Chicken House

The difference between meat breeds and egg laying breeds

The cornish/rock cross meat chicks are fast outgrowing the egg layers.  This is expected of course, but it's still amazing to watch.  These birds are the same age and have been raised in the same conditions with the same food.

Bloody tail, a result of pecking injury

Chickens naturally peck at things.  When they are cramped into too close of a proximity, they peck each other, sometimes to death.  As I reported earlier in the week, the chicks were getting too crowded in their half of the hen house and the telltale bloody spots on wings and the base of the tail began to appear on some chicks.  So I gave them free run of the entire upper portion of the hen house.  This solved the issue and the spots began to heal.  Unfortunately, it also cut the hens off from access to the nest boxes.

Temporary nest "boxes"

I set up these two temporary nest "boxes" in the bottom of the house for them.

Buckets strewn about

The hens inspected the new nesting "boxes" and promptly scratched out all of the straw and pushed them around.  The displeasure was obvious.

Mislaid egg

To further state their point, one of them laid an egg nearby.

Wired in place with a large rock placed in front

I removed one bucket and wired the remaining one in place.  I replaced the straw and placed a large, flat rock along the front to keep them from scratching the straw out.  As you can see, they emptied the bucket again.  They are laying the eggs somewhere else in the yard, but darned if I can find where.  I assume the dogs are probably eating them.  Something had to be done to give the hens access to the nest boxes again.

Dogs put up in the garden area

I penned the dogs into the garden area to allow the chicks and hens to meet and see how they interacted before introducing the dogs to the chicks.  The dogs have done great around the full sized hensfor the last two years, but I was concerned that the smaller, more active chicks would trigger the killing instinct in the dogs.  They had killed a few a couple of years ago when I first got these chickens, before they got the message that these were not to be eaten.  I wanted to take that introduction slowly.  It turned out that I had nothing to worry about.  I placed a couple of chicks in front of them and the dogs wanted nothing to do with them.  To enforce the point, I held one near each dog's face and growled deeply to let them know that I was protecting these chicks.  They turned their heads and wouldn't make eye contact with the chicks.  Mission accomplished.

Hen poking her head into the hen house

Soon after opening the top back up, one of the hens climbed the ramp and poked her head in.  When she saw the chicks, she retreated to the ground.  After a minute or two, she climbed back up and went into one of the nest boxes.

Two hens in the nest boxes

Within minutes, another hen joined her.

After one of the two emerged, she was pretty vocal about the whole thing.  That's about as noisy as the hens ever get.  The chicks still haven't ventured out of the top of the hen house.  The hens, in the short time they spent travelling to the nest boxes, ignored the chicks entirely.

Eggs

The hens rewarded me with three eggs by the end of the day.  No more Easter egg hunt!

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Identifying the pest in the garden

Defoliated tomato seedling

I didn't go into enough detail as to why I think the critter eating my tomato plants was a bird or a rat.  A reader emailed me yesterday morning suggesting that a tobacco or tomato hornworm might be the culprit.  He is right that they can defoliate a tomato plant seemingly overnight.  It definitely looks like the work of a tobacco hornworm (or a tomato hornworm) with the leaves gone and the stem remaining, but I had ruled them out for a couple of reasons.  The caterpillars themselves are large and you can usually find them pretty easily. I searched very closely and found nothing, not even the frass (poop) that's usually apparent when they are around. More importantly, it's too early in the season for them as they don't show up until midsummer when the plants are much larger.

Other possibilities I considered were deer, rabbits, and box turtles.  However, those are all physically excluded from my garden by a 6 foot wooden privacy fence, two 50 pound active dogs, and then another 4 foot 1"x2" meshed fence that surrounds the garden (to keep the chickens out).  Squirrels would have just dug the seedlings up and they are rarely seen in my yard because we are surrounded by fields.  It's a pretty far run over open ground for a squirrel to get here from the forest.  I've already discussed the cutworm.  I dismissed it because they don't defoliate, they cut off the stem.  Also, I thoroughly sifted through the soil around the plants where it would be hiding during the day and found nothing.

At this garden site, I've personally watched a hispid cotton rat go down a row of freshly sprouted green beans eating every one*.  One of those could easily have slipped through the fences and past my dogs.  A bird of course can just fly in.  If anyone else has any ideas, I'd love to get your insights.  It was pretty frustrating.

*I need to do a post about the usefulness of a good pellet gun around the garden :)

Weekly Gardening Outlook: Flowers everywhere!

This will be a continuing series where we look ahead at the coming week in gardening for the Northwest Arkansas area.

Dandelions

 It's one of my favorite times of the year.  The days are warm, the nights are cool, the sky is a deeper blue than any other time of year, and the first flowers of the year are popping out everywhere.  Shown above is one of the many dandelions popping up around my garden.  The entire plant, including the flowers, leaves, and roots is edible.  The flowers are awesome eaten fresh, with a sweet, honey suckle flavor.  They can also be battered and fried or used to make wine.  I'm not a big fan of the greens as I find them bitter, but many like them in salads or lightly boiled.  The roots can be used to make tea, but I've never done it.

When harvesting any wild edible, make sure you know what you're picking and only harvest it from areas that you know have not been treated with chemicals.

Further reading HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Strawberry flowers

Green onions sending up scapes

Nanking cherry blossom

While I love the greening up outside and all of the flowers, it is worrisome.  We are having an unseasonably warm spring having not had a freeze since late February.  To put that in perspective, our average last frost date is April 21st.  We still have a month of frost danger.  If a freeze comes in, it will zap all of the flowers and really damage the subsequent fruit production.

That said, if it holds off and doesn't freeze we are looking at a monster crop of strawberries this year.  Each of my 77 transplants is loaded with flowers as depicted above.  This is perfect growing weather for them.

The green onions have sent up scapes (leafless flower stalks), which is to be expected.  Onions are biennial plants in that they produce seed in their second year.  I started these plants from seed early last spring and am pretty excited to complete the process of gathering my own seeds from plants that I started from seed.

The Nanking cherry bushes are blossoming in their second year.  While it is usually recommended to remove blossoms for the first few years on fruiting perennials, Nanking bush cherries are so hardy though, that we expect get a small crop from them in their second season.

Sand plum tree blossoming out

Transplanted volunteer cilantro

The cilantro have tripled in size in the last week.  I wasn't so sure that they would handle the transplanting well, but they are doing great.  They really like a moist soil, so I've kept them well watered using water from the rain barrel.

Chickens finishing up their work in the garden

Our chickens dug up and ate every weed from the beds, then leveled the soil back out.  This is one of those win/win situations.  They apparently don't find the strawberry plants appetizing and being planted in the blocks protected them from being scratched up.  I put the upside down aquarium over the cilantro to protect them from the chickens while they were in there.

"Crash" and flowering daffodils

A good dog or two is a must in the backyard garden/ranch.  Our two Brittany spaniels keep predators away from our chickens and catch rodents that try to invade the garden.  It took a little doing to teach these bird dogs to not chase the chickens, but they got it eventually.

Chicken and Egg Report:

We are remaining at four eggs per day. In the next month or so, we will get new chicks to eventually replace our current flock.

Weather Outlook:

-Cooler. Highs near 60 every day. We may see a light frost Sunday evening. A chance of rain today and Saturday and then again on Tuesday.
-Ten day forecast

What's Being Harvested:

-Not much right now other than wild edibles.

Weekly Gardening Outlook

This will be a continuing series. Each Monday we will look ahead at the coming week in gardening for the Northwest Arkansas area.

HEAT ADVISORY until Thursday evening.  The weathermen are calling for temperatures at or above 100 degrees for the next three days.  During this time check your soil moisture every day and water as necessary.  Water deeply when the soil is dry 3" from the surface.  Depending on the amount of clay and organic matter in your soil, daily watering may be needed. 

Serenade / Blueberry Bush Update:

        

We continue to be impressed by the turn around our blueberry bushes are making after suffering from a pretty serious case of leaf spot.  Serenade is proving to be a very good organic fungicide.  

Things to be on the lookout for:

Insects aren't the only critters that want to eat the fruits of our labor.  This week we will look at how to control some of the larger garden pests.

Moles:  These pests will devour tender plant roots, causing promising young plants to wilt and die for no apparent reason.  If you are using raised beds like we are, putting a simple layer of 1/2" screen on the bottom of the beds during construction will eliminate the problem.  If not, use traps to thin the population.  This will not get rid of all of them, but it will reduce it.

Birds:  Whether it's cardinals chomping on just ripe strawberries or blue jays leaving tomatoes in tatters, these aerial bandits can make gardeners pull their hair out.  The most effective (and most expensive and troublesome) method of protecting your crops from birds is to cover them with bird netting.  Build some sort of a frame to keep the netting off of the plants.  Anchor the netting to the ground and ensure that there aren't any gaps.  Birds are very smart and will find any hole left in this netting.  Another option is hanging ball-shaped Christmas ornaments that are colored like the produce being protected.  An example is hanging red balls on a tomato plant.  They will peck the balls and learn that there isn't anything good to eat here.  Do this 2 weeks before the produce is ripe to give them time to learn.  Finally, and maybe the most fun option, is the motion-activated sprinkler.  Set this up in the garden and it will spray anything that moves.  No animal likes being hosed down and they will seek easier pickings.

Rats and Squirrels:  They will attack a garden from every angle.  From following along a row digging newly sprouted seeds to stealing corn right off of the stalk, they can do it all.  A midsized, active dog around the garden will keep them at bay.  Removing habitat such as brush (rats) or trees (squirrels) around the garden will help.  Trapping will reduce the population.  The motion-activated sprinkler is an option as well.

Rabbits:  A 18" tall fence surrounding the garden will exclude them from your garden.

Cats and Dogs:  Dogs can be excluded with a fence.  Cats are more difficult.  Like with squirrels, keeping a mid-sized, active dog around the perimeter will keep cats away.  If fencing isn't an option, try the motion-activated sprinkler.

Deer:  An 8' tall fence will absolutely keep them out.  A cheaper alternative is a 3 foot high electric fence around the garden.  A few shocks on the nose and they will look for a different food source.  This has worked well for us.  The motion-activated sprinkler may also be an option.

Weather outlook:
-Over 100 early in the week, cooling to the low 90's late in the week with a chance of rain
-Ten day forecast

What's being harvested:
-Green beans

-Peppers (Really loaded down with new peppers)

-Watermelons

-Chard (the kale's taste has gotten too sharp with this hot weather)

-Tomatoes (Picking several pounds a day)
-Cucumbers (Getting several a day)
-Celeriac leaves, basil, mint, and other herbs (all going strong)