Gloating

If you were at the pool tonight, you probably heard me gloating.  Here's a portion of tonight's harvest.  A few tomatoes were eaten and I gave away a few banana peppers.

Send pictures of your harvest and I'll post them.  Let's gloat together.

Curled Leaves on Tomato Plants

Hi Julie,
I may also have an answer as to why Jim Ault's tomato leaves are curling.  My friend in Judsonia had 60 tomato plants that had leaves that were curling.  She thought she had blight and took a sample to her extension office.  They ran some tests and it turns out her problem was that she had put down bagged manure and it was more than the plant could tolerate.  Now that the potency is getting less the plants are returning to normal.  I know Jim Ault put a bunch of bagged manure on his plants.  He added it not too long ago.  He was talking about how it smelled his car up before he could get it to the garden.

Charlotte


{Comment from Julie:  I'm so thankful for Charlotte's input.  Please feel free to email me with any thoughts or tips you have.  My address is luvmyhub AT gmail DOT com}

Attack of the Squash Borer

Julie,
I have found some squash borers. I noticed some of my squash that was looking limp looking and got to checking it and found a white worm in the stem. I didn't check everyones but the box that is labeled Want a Be Gardener has them really bad.  Jim Ault was down there and he has them also. Randy came by and we checked his and he also has them. You might want to notify everyone. Here is a link to some information I found. You might also have some information.
Charlotte 

The below pictures are from this site, which also has helpful information.

source

source

Veggie Thief?!

Last week my son picked our first purple pepper.  It was an exciting event.  There was another we left on the plant, to pick later.

When we came back a few days later - it was gone!  A friend of mine said a squirrel could have picked it, or maybe even a raccoon.

Charlotte and I discussed this traumatic turn of events and later she emailed me to say:

I went down to the garden this afternoon and I was missing a little small eggplant that had just started to form.  I forgot that I did have a squash go missing while I was gone to Natchez.  I had a patty pan squash that was pretty big and was expecting it to be almost big enough to pick when I got back.  However it was gone when I got back.  That's why I put the wire cages around them.  Don't know why something would choose a small undeveloped eggplant over several big peppers right in the same area.  Guess it's just one of those things we're going to have happen from time to time!  I may look for some more netting like I have over my strawberries.  I've had it for a long time but I'm thinking I probably bought it somewhere like Home Depot.


Anyone else had veggies missing?

More Pretties

I love watching the creativity and personality bloom in our garden!

 Rebecca Walker painted their family's sign, as well as the Veggie Tale character rocks.

 Jim Ault added a different airplane recently.

Very Hungry Caterpillars

Some of you may be endeared to Eric Carle's book The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  I'm in that stage of life where I probably have it memorized.

Nonetheless I do not think real caterpillars are cute.  I squish them at every chance.

For caterpillars will eat my veggies, herbs or flowers if given the chance.  I'd rather they eat a cupcake (like in the book and get a tummy ache.)

Recently I've squished two caterpillars in my garden.

The first one looked like the dreaded tomato horn worm in miniature form.  If you squint just right you can see it on the tip of my finger.  I picked it from my tomato plant and it appears to have a horn growing from its head.  However, I've never seen one quite this small.  I squished it anyway.  No caterpillar is a good caterpillar in my book.

source

FYI - tomato horn worms can do a LOT of damage to your tomatoes in a little bit of time.  A friend of mine suggests going to the garden at night with a flashlight to find and squish them.  They like to hide in the day and munch at night.

According to this site, the below caterpillar is a kind of moth (scroll to the bottom of the page.)  I found it on a pepper plant.

Decorations for the Garden

According to the Ripley's rain gauge, we got about 1/2 inch of rain on Saturday.   Wahoo!

Other additions for this weekend - garden flags. 

I cut triangles from an old sheet with pinking shears then let my children color the cloth with fabric crayons.  Idea came from The Artful Parent.

 I also found a tree monkey in the garden.

No Nonsense: Staking Tomatoes

Just when you thought the world could live without knee highs...I've got the perfect use for them...staking tomatoes!  I learned this trick from my grandmother: cut strips from pantyhose to use to tie up tomatoes.  This bag of knee highs came from a garage sale last summer.

Nylon is perfect for tying up your plants because it is stretchy and forgiving.  It won't harm your plants.

If you would like a pair of knee highs, I have extra.  Just promise you won't wear them!