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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Weekly Gardening Outlook

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

The garden

Much of the garden is now fallow.  A pending freeze Thursday night will pretty much do away with the summer crops like tomatoes and peppers.

This tomato plant became too heavy for the wire cage to support

This plant was a volunteer Roma from the spot where our compost pile was last year.  We left it in the spot it sprouted in and put a wire cage around it and mulched the base with grass clippings to help keep the grass away from its roots.  This was our largest, healthiest, and most productive tomato plant.  Fusarium wilt affected all of our tomato plants except for this one.  This is a reminder to rotate crops.  Next year, we will not grow tomatoes in the same locations as this year.

Green tomatoes

We've harvested 10-12 reddish tomatoes over the last couple of days.  The pending freeze Thursday night will have us out collecting all tomatoes that we can.  Hopefully they are mature enough to ripen up inside.

The daily bounty from our molting flock

Our chickens have given us 1-2 eggs per day for the last week.  They have been eating a lot more feed over the last several weeks.  They require a lot of energy to replace their feathers.  Their consumption will remain somewhat elevated over the winter as wild forage availability will decrease with cooling temperatures.

Blueberry bush

 Our blueberry bushes had a severe case of leaf spot earlier in the year.  We lost two of the five to it.  The remaining three are flourishing after a few treatments with Serenade.  We've discussed this organic treatment before here and still highly recommend it.

Late season jalapeños 

Rocky Top lettuce

We practice the cut and come method with this lettuce.  We harvest it to 1-2" high and it regrows again quickly without replanting.

The first year apple trees

From leafless sticks to a 3 foot tall, multi-branched trees our two new apple trees have survived Japanese beetles and drought. We treated them with neem oil once a week while the Japanese beetles were arround and that kept them at bay.

Over summered kale

The kale absolutely did not regrow when cooler weather hit as we had hoped it would.  Next year we will pull it as soon as it bolts and plant something else in its spot.

Weather outlook:

-Highs in the mid to upper 60s with a chance of a freeze Thursday night.  Clear with no chance of rain through the week.

-Ten day forecast

What's being harvested:

-Green onions

-Lettuce

-Peppers (We will likely harvest everything on Thursday)

-Tomatoes (We will likely harvest everything on Thursday)

-Chard

-Basil, mint, and other herbs (We will likely harvest everything on Thursday)

A Tale of Two Gardens (Watermelons)

     A customer's watermelon patch a couple of weeks ago

     Our watermelon patch a couple of weeks ago

Our customer's watermelons are going gangbusters, producing a steady stream of 8" personal sized melons.  In our garden, we got an initial flush of melons and then some kind of fungal infection moved in.  We have not been able to determine what it is, but it is not powdery mildew, downy mildew, or gummy stem blight.  We started treating with Serenade and the vines have since started to make a recovery.

     Stunted melon (4-5" across) that predated the fungus

     New leaf growth and baby melons

Cucumbers

Cucumbers are a very space efficient crop, growing readily on a trellis and giving large numbers of fruits per plant.  Vines can reach 12-14' long. Four plants of a standard straight eight type cucumber will easily yield a fruit a day and even more in optimal conditions. 


Planting:

Sow seeds in a sunny location after all danger of frost has passed (early May in Northwest Arkansas).  In square foot gardening , we've found that one plant per square foot provides plenty of production and avoids overcrowding.  Seeds don't germinate 100% of the time.  To increase the odds of a seedling in each spot, sow two seeds in each hole.  Keep well watered until they come up (about a week).  Using scissors, thin the seedlings to one plant per hole by cutting the smallest plant off at its base.

Tips and Tricks:

• Save some money and buy cucumber seed rather than seedlings.  Save unused seeds in a ziptop bag and keep them in a cool, dark place until next year.
• If the soil in your garden is clay based and clumpy, create a pocket of finished compost or peat in which to plant the seeds.  This will hold moisture around the seed and give it a loose medium to push through as it emerges. 
• To reduce fungal disease and maximize space efficiency, provide the cucumbers with a trellis to grow on.  Half of a cattle panel cost $8.00 and gives a solid 8' tall trellis.  
• At the first sign of powdery mildew or downy mildew, treat with Serenade.
• The only other serious problem that we've run into is bacterial wilt.  Once a vine has this disease, there is no treatment.  It is transmitted by cucumber beetles.  Inspect the vines often and if these beetles are found, treat with neem oil.  
• It is normal for cucumbers to have small spines on them.  Run your hand up and down them under cold running water to remove.

Putting Up the Harvest:

• We prefer to eat these fresh.  They store best at room temperature.  We've found that they dehydrate somewhat after several days in the refrigerator.
• They can obviously be pickled.  We haven't yet made pickles, but we suggest following direct instructions from a good pickling book in your first attempt.  You will want to grow a variety of cucumber that is bred to have a size and texture especially for pickling.  An example is Snow's Fancy Pickling.
• Another option is chutney, which can be canned.  As always, we suggest following canning instructions from the ball blue book.