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.

     Wilting spaghetti squash vine


The heat and lack of rain continue to be the big story.  Cooler nights arrive this week.  With this drop in overnight temperatures will come increased garden production and harvest.  Be ready to eat or put up the produce.  Until then, keep things well-watered and think about learning to do a proper rain dance.

Spaghetti Squash / Squash Vine Borer Update:

We stopped by to check on the spaghetti squash vines and the pest insects have found them.  When we say found, we mean savaged.  Squash vine borer?  Check.  Squash bugs?  Check.  Bacterial wilt carrying cucumber beetles?  Striped AND Spotted.  Check.  Aphids?  Check.  We went on a squash bug, cucumber beetle, aphid, squash vine borer killing spree.  Our shorts, hands, arms, and even cheeks were splatted with insects guts.  We must have killed over 150 squash bugs alone and our thumbs and forefingers are still stained yellow from their innards.  It was bad.  So bad that we are stepping up to pyrethrin spray.  Pyrethrin is a natural compound extracted from chrysanthemums and is approved for use in organic gardens.  Beware that pyrethrum and permethrin are not approved for organic gardens.  We will be mixing neem oil and pyrethrin into one spray.  The pyrethrin provides immediate kill and the neem provides some residual protection.  This can be bought as a premix under the trade name NeemII.  We will keep you updated.

Things to be on the lookout for:

     Adult squash vine borer (SVB) moth

Apparently these are still active.  This picture was taken late last week and the spaghetti squash vines are showing signs of SVB activity.  Sigh...

     Squash bug nymphs on spaghetti squash vine

     Frass (aka bug poop) on a watermelon

This is a sure sign of insect activity.  If found, take a closer look.  Hint:  Look above the deposits.  See the leaffooted bugs?

     Leaffooted bug nymph on a pepper plant

     Spotted cucumber beetle on a spaghetti squash vine

     Two striped cucumber beetles breeding

     Aphids and ants on a spaghetti squash vine

If your plants are inexplicably covered in ants, take a closer look.  Some ants, such as these odoriferous house ants (aka sugar ants), will "farm" aphids.  Aphids suck juices from your plants and produce a sugary substance called honeydew from their anuses.  The ants eat this and in exchange, protect the aphids.  Aphids are not very mobile and a sharp stream of water will blast them off of the plants and out of your hair.

Weather outlook:
-Mid 80s to low 90s all week, with a very slight chance of rain
-Ten day forecast

What's being harvested:
-Peppers

-Chard 

-Tomatoes
-Cucumbers
-Celeriac leaves, basil, mint, and other herbs

-Apples

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

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.

The tide has turned in the war to protect the pole beans from Japanese beetles.  After two treatments with neem oil in one week, the beetles are nowhere to be seen.  The pole beans lost maybe 25% of their foliage, but these hardy vines are still producing and will recover just fine.  If you're using neem for the first time, be aware that it takes 5-7 days to work. It doesn't kill on contact like some chemical poisons.

        

We've been having an issue with leaf spot on some of our potted blue berry bushes.  We came across an organic anti-fungal product called Serenade and after a short period of time using it, we are pleased.  Since using it, the bushes have been able to put on uninfected new growth.  Serenade treatments combined with manually removing the affected leaves (seen in the bottom of the picture) should limit future fungal disease issues.  It is also effective against early blight in tomatoes, powdery mildew in cucurbits (cucumbers, squash, melons, pumpkins, etc.), and any other fungal disease.  Next year, we will periodically pretreat susceptible garden plants  as a preventative measure.

What is it and how does it work?  It contains a probiotic (Bacillus subtilus) that infects and destroys fungal spores.  No spores, no disease.  Also, by colonizing the plant's surface, it will reduce bacterial disease problems through increased site competition.  As mentioned earlier, it is approved for organic gardens and will not harm beneficial insects, pets, or children.

This is not from our garden and it's not a pumpkin.  We bought this unusual watermelon for a reasonable price ($6.50) from a local grower at the Fayetteville farmer's market.  The grower says it came from their local family farm and that her father developed this variety over the course of 25 years of experimentation.  Very cool.  We couldn't pass it up.  It has a firm, juicy flesh with good flavor.  It's much too large a melon to grow on trellises in our current garden, but we've saved the seeds and will give them a go after we move to a larger, more rural property.

Things to be on the lookout for:

Meet the harlequin bug.  At about 5/8" long and with its bright colors it is hard to miss if it's in your garden.  The key to identifying it is the deep V shape on its back.  It prefers to feed on turnips, broccoli, kale, collards, and radishes, but will attack other crops like tomatoes, eggplants, and potatoes if their numbers get high enough.  The harlequin bug sucks fluids from plants and, if there are enough of them, can kill the plants.  The first line of defense in controlling them is to search the underside of leaves and stems for the black and white eggs seen here and to pick off and destroy any adults found.  They aren't particularly fast, so this is fairly effective.  If the numbers have gotten too high, use a quality insecticidal soap.

Weather outlook:
-Low 90's (Keep your gardens well watered during these dog days of summer)
-Chance of scattered showers early in the week
-Ten day forecast

What's being harvested:
-Green beans (Japanese beetles have slowed production a little, but not much)

-Peppers (Really loaded down with new peppers)

-Watermelons

-Chard and kale

-Onions (Just a few left in the ground)
-Tomatoes (Picking several pounds a day)
-Cucumbers (Getting several a day)
-Squash and zucchini (Squash vine borer has hurt the harvest, one strong vine remaining and several young vines starting to grow)
-Squash blossoms
-Celeriac leaves, basil, mint, and other herbs (all going strong)

Quick Watermelon Update

The watermelons are going great and we just wanted to let you in on a tip that we read about and have found to work well.  The ideal way to determine when to harvest watermelon is to record when its bloom flowered and then count the days depending on the variety being grown.  The vines don't produce all of the blooms at one time and few people are going to do this.  A tried and true method when growing watermelon on the ground is to harvest when the underside turns yellow.  Unfortunately this can't be done when the vines are growing on a trellis, because the fruits are hanging in midair!  Many also claim to be able to thump the fruit and know by the pitch when it is ripe, but this isn't 100%.

     Dead tendril indicating time to harvest

For the tone deaf people that don't record every blossom, we have a solution.  Keep an eye on the tendril that comes out of the vine where the melon's stem joins.  When this tendril dies, harvest the melon.  This has worked like a charm for us.  This tendril can die back overnight, so keep an eye on it when the melons are starting to ripen.  

Here's the link to where we got this tip.  It is a phenomenal resource for those wanting to grow melons.

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.

    Newly planted spaghetti squash vine emerging


Our spaghetti squash have been slaughtered by the squash vine borer (1 vine left).  Ever the optimists, we have replanted.  We should have just enough time to get a crop in before the first frost of the year.  It's our thought that this planting will be too late in the season for the squash vine borers to invade.  We'll keep you updated.  

Things to be on the lookout for:

    Adult cucumber beetle

If you have cucumbers, melons, or squash, be on the lookout for these small yellow beetles.  They can be spotted as shown above or striped as seen here.  The adults can damage leaves and fruits, while the larvae can damage the plant's roots.  These aren't really a huge problem except in very young plants or if you let the adult population get very high.  The real problem with these beetles is that they transmit a disease called bacterial wilt.  We have had every cucumber vine (8 in total) wiped out at a customer's garden this year due to this disease.  We just replanted.    

     Newly planted cucumbers emerging

So what can be done about it?  Once infected with the bacteria, nothing can be done for the vine.  The best strategy is so reduce the cucumber beetle population.  A regular coating of diatomaceous earth on the young seedlings will keep the beetles at bay.  Once the seedlings get up a little, our old standby neem oil will discourage feeding and reduce the population of cucumber beetles.  It has the added benefit of reducing any problems with mildew.

Weather outlook:
-Mid 80's early in the week; warming to low 90's late in the week
-Chance of rain today and tomorrow
-Ten day forecast

What's being harvested:
-Green beans

-Peppers

-Watermelons

-Chard and kale

-Onions
-Tomatoes
-Cucumbers (MANY cucumbers!)
-Kohlrabi (almost all gone)
-Squash and zucchini
-Squash blossoms
-Celeriac leaves, basil, mint, and other herbs

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.

      First watermelon of the year

I hope you all had a great 4th of July holiday!  We harvested our first watermelon of the season this weekend.  It was very sweet, but still needed a few days on the vine.

      Salvaged spaghetti squash from dying vines

About 70% of our spaghetti vines succumbed to the ravages of the squash vine borer (SVB) despite our best efforts at cutting the buggers out of the vines.  We harvested 4 squash from the dying vines, but they may or may not turn out to be mature enough to eat.  It appears that the remaining vines are going to pull through.  The adult SVB moths are nearing the end of their mating cycle (i.e. egg laying).  Our plan B is to replant the destroyed vines now with the idea that they should escape the SVB and still have enough time to produce for us before our first killing frost arrives in mid-October.  That's the plan; we will keep you posted.

Things to be on the lookout for:

We are still finding and smashing squash bug eggs and nymphs here and there.  Check your squash leaves for eggs once a week.

      Mexican bean beetle nymph


We found an adult Mexican bean beetle and several of its nymphs on watermelon vines, squash plants, and sweet potato leaves.  We didn't get a picture of the adult because it was mistaken for a lady beetle, which is a very beneficial insect for the garden.  The Mexican bean beetles are in fact in the same family as the lady beetle.  They are larger than a typical lady beetle, orangish brown, with black spots.  Images of the adults can be seen here.  The nymph (pictured above) is small at only a half inch long, yellow with black spikes protruding from the body.  They defoliate garden plants relatively quickly, so visiting your garden daily is imperative.  Hand picking nymphs has kept us from experiencing damage from them this year.  If you get a heavy infestation, neem oil is effective against them.

Weather outlook:
-Low to upper 80's
-Chance of rain every day
-Ten day forecast

What's being harvested:
-Watermelons
-Chard and kale
-Spaghetti squash (much too early)
-Onions
-Hearing reports of red tomato harvests (ours are STILL green)
-Green tomatoes
-Cucumbers (MANY cucumbers!)
-Kohlrabi (almost all gone)
-Squash and zucchini
-Squash blossoms
-Celeriac leaves, basil, mint, and other herbs
-Radishes

What's coming soon:
-Red tomatoes
-Peppers

Leaffooted Bugs

While visiting the garden of one of our customers yesterday, we observed these little nasties on a young watermelon.  These are adults and nymphs of the leaffooted bug.  They are distinguished by the leaf-like projections on the hindlegs of the adult, which can be clearly seen on the adult in the lower left part of the picture to the right (click on the picture to zoom in).  They suck juices from the vines with their piercing mouth parts.  This particular species seems to be watermelon specific, but other members of the family attack a wide variety of food crops (especially squash and tomatoes).  The best method of control is to physically remove them early in the season when the nymphs cluster together as seen below.  They are quick and hard to hand pick and they emit a noxious odor when startled.  Because of this we recommend removing them with a vacuum.  The best tool is an insect vacuum, but a small handheld dustbuster or shop vac will work as well.  Once you are done, stuff a rag in the end of the intake and put the vacuum in the freezer over night to kill the insects.  Diatomaceous earth should also be effective and will be used if this problem persists.  We try not to use nonspecific treatments like diatomaceous earth when possible to avoid killing bees and other beneficial insects.

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.

Sorry for the intermittent posting. We just returned last night from vacation and wifi was, shall we say... spotty.

What a difference a week makes! We returned to full grown cucumbers, 10 foot long and flowering pole bean vines, baby watermelons, spaghetti squash running wild, tomato plants twice as tall, and Bermuda grass... ahh the Bermuda grass. It is a truly obnoxious weed. The only problem that we really had with the garden while we were gone is that most of the broccoli (pictured above) flowered. We got a little bit, but it was a shame most of it went for naught.

young spaghetti squash  

young watermelon

Things to be on the lookout for:

Japanese beetles have arrived. They are on our apple trees, but have not eaten any plants in our beds. It seems the onions are doing their job.

The Japanese beetle's defense mechanism when disturbed is to let go of the plant and fall into the grass. We use that to our advantage by keeping a jar of soapy water in the garden and when we see the beetles, we hold the jar under them. Then we brush a hand over them and they fall right in and die. They tend to cluster up, so it doesn't take much time and if done every day will keep them from causing serious damage.

We advise not putting those pheromone traps (the kind with the bag) in your garden because they will actually attract beetles to your garden. If you have a large piece of property, place these traps in remote areas away from your garden.

Weather outlook:
-Warm, lower 90's
-Chance of rain Wednesday; dry later in the week
-Ten day forecast

What's being harvested:

-Cucumbers

-Kohlrabi
-Broccoli
-Squash and zucchini
-Squash blossoms
-Celeriac leaves
-Basil, mint, and other herbs
-Radishes
-Strawberries

What's coming soon:
-Green tomatoes
-Peppers

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.

The garden is growing extremely rapidly right now.  We check our plants daily to ensure that they are staying within their cages (tomatoes) or growing up their trellises like we want them to.  It takes just a day for a cucumber or squash vine to lean over and grab onto a neighboring plant or trellis.  If this happens we unwrap the tendril and guide the vine back to where it needs to be.


Watermelons climbing cattle panels

Spaghetti squash climbing cattle panels

Things to be on the lookout for:

The imported cabbageworm is doing its damage in Northwest Arkansas.  You can see the damage done to some of our broccoli below.  A round of Bacillus thuringiensis has the infestation under control.  See our other post about this pest.


Damage done by the imported cabbageworm

Adult stage of the imported cabbageworm known as the Small White

Weather outlook:
-Warm, upper 80's
-Chance of sporadic rain throughout the week
-Ten day forecast


What's being harvested:

-Broccoli
-Squash and zucchini

-Squash blossoms
-Celeriac leaves
-Basil, mint, and other herbs
-Turnips
-Radishes
-Strawberries
-Green onions


What's coming soon:

-Green tomatoes
-Peppers
-Kohlrabi is almost ready

Trellising, Caging, and Staking

One of the biggest advantages of the raised bed design that we use is the ability to grow a lot of food in a relatively small space.  So how can we grow space hogs like watermelons, cantaloupe, tomatoes, spaghetti squash, cucumbers, and the like with such a small ground footprint?  As I am sure you have guessed, the answer is we support them and grow them vertically into the air.

Cattle Panels:

The most useful trellis material that we have found are 16' x 50" cattle panels.  They are strong and flexible, have holes large enough to put your hands through for harvesting and guiding the vines, and at $15 each are CHEAP for the value they bring to the garden.  They can be bought at your local Tractor Supply, Lowes, etc.  With a pair of bolt cutters they can be cut into custom sizes and shapes in minutes.  If you don't have bolt cutters, ask the people where you buy them from and they will probably cut them for you.


In the picture above you can see three trellises.  The rainbow shaped trellis on the left will support the spaghetti squash that you see in the wooden bed.  If you have the space to do it, a curved design works better than a strictly vertical trellis as it gives the vine more solar exposure and more support for heavy fruits.  If the vine is well supported by the trellis, it will usually be strong enough to support even heavy fruits.  If the fruits do become too heavy, they can be supported with a sling made from breathable fabric such as old pantyhose.  


Coming from a cinder block bed on the right of the picture, watermelon vines (personal sized variety) will grow up this arched trellis which connects to the spaghetti squash trellis.  Spaghetti squash and watermelon vines grow particularly long (15-20 feet!!!) so full length 16' panels were used.  

Between the two wooden beds we created an arbor by bending a full length panel to fit.  Green beans (pole beans) are planted in each bed and will climb up both sides of the arch.  These vines and fruit weigh very little and just the stiffness of the bent panel will support them.


Due to space constraints in our garden area, our cucumbers are growing vertically on a half a cattle panel (8' tall) secured to two 8' tall t posts.  

Green beans ready to grow up the trellis

Connecting the panels:

The spaghetti squash trellis is connected to the wooden bed with fencing staples at the bottom and at the top it is connected to the top of two t posts with electric fence wire.  The watermelon trellis is up against the cinder block bed at the bottom and is secured to a t post with the electric fencing wire to keep it in place.  At the top it it connected to the spaghetti squash trellis with electric fencing wire.  While we are on the subject, electric fencing wire is marvelous stuff to have around the garden and home.  It doesn't rust and is useful for a ton of things.


Tomato Cages:

The soil in our raised beds is so loose and friable that taller plants need support or they can fall over.  Tomato cages aren't just for tomatoes.  These cages completely surround the plants and provide good support for crops such as eggplants and peppers.  There are many styles available, but we prefer the conical, premade type because they stack inside one another for easy storage through the winter.  Hint: wire the cages together at the top with electric fencing wire to provide more stability.  Many people have good luck with welded wire fencing rolled and wired together to form a cylinder.  One method that we are thinking about experimenting with next year is the Florida weave.  If anyone has any experience with this, let us know in the comments section.


Staking:


Almost anything can be used as a stake. Bamboo, premade plastic covered stakes, and wooden stakes are common.  Put the stake in before planting to avoid damaging the plant's root system.  As the plant grows tie it LOOSELY with a soft material to the stake.  Strips of old pantyhose work great for this.  Ensure that the stake is tall enough for the plant's final height and that it is in the ground deep enough to avoid toppling over during a wind storm.