May 30, 2024 Gardening Journal

It's been just over a month since I posted about Trash Trailer Man's pigs tearing up my yard.  How time flies.

In that month, we've had a few rainy days.  Only twice were the rains were over 1" but I hope the cumulative total was enough to help rehydrate the ground after what I believe was a very dry winter.

In looking back on my post from April 9, "Do I even still have a garden?", I sounded pretty pitiful and sorry for myself.  I often find it hard to have a positive outlook on things, even when I want to see the best.  But I'm going to try my best to think back on some of the progress that happened in the garden in April and May.

Sunday, April 21 

Gambling that we'd had our last frost of the spring, I decided to go ahead and plant some okra and cantaloupes.  

I planted two rows of okra, one on either side of this 4' bed, then planted three hills of cantaloupe in the center.

The first planting didn't come up, so I tried again a week later, this time planting the seeds thick in the rows.  By the first of May it was coming up, and here's how it looked on Saturday, May 4.  I think it's possible that in some spots, every seed came up!

And here's how it looked as of May 26 (yellow wood sorrel and all!).  I'm afraid the cantaloupes are outgrowing the okra...some of them are already trying to climb up on the okra and it's not really big enough to support them yet.  But maybe it will be ok.

Saturday, April 27

I started the morning by planting three rows of Golden Bantam corn behind the cellar where last year I had a cover crop of buckwheat followed by sun hemp.

The seed was some I had saved from the corn I grew last summer.  I hope, hope, hope that it didn't get cross pollinated by some other variety of corn and grows true to type!

In less than a week, the corn was coming up.  Here's how it looked on Saturday, May 4.

And here's how the corn looked as of May 27.  I've thinned it once, but it may need to be thinned a bit more, especially since it's putting out lots of side shoots. 

After that, I decided a row of the cover crops had to go.  I knew the rye wasn't quite mature enough - it hadn't made it to milk stage - but the San Marzano tomatoes needed to be put in the ground ASAP or they were going to die (again, I started my tomatoes too early).

So I put on my gardening gloves, grabbed the new sickle I bought on Amazon, and got to work on the Hügelkulture row.

The sickle worked GREAT.  It cut through the tough rye stalks with very little effort, and was so much easier on my hands than using the grass trimmers, which is how I cut the rye last year.  I wish I had bought one years ago!

Because it cut so well, I was able to just crawl on my knees down the row, laying the rye over in place.  In 20 minutes, I had already made it about 1/3 of the way down the row.

I had started at 11:14 am, and by 12:17 pm, that row was finished.

And while crawling down the row cutting it by hand was a bit hard on my knees, and I maybe could have cut it with my string trimmer instead,  I really think it would have been much harder to cut with the trimmer.  And, I likely would have killed this little toad.  

Of course I could have killed it with the sickle too, but the odds of that happening were much less because it was literally "hands on" cutting.

Sunday, April 28

I had hoped that after I terminated the winter rye, I could let it dry for about a week before I planted anything into it.  But the San Marzano tomatoes were looking so bad, I decided the sooner they were put in the ground the better.

The tomatoes actually look better in this picture than they did in real life.  The leaves were all starting to turn very yellow and many of them were already blooming because they thought they were dying.

I had potted the plants on into bigger containers when they outgrew the smaller pots.  Turned out that while it did let me postpone planting them out a while longer, the creamer and juice containers I used were not a good choice for pots!

The tomatoes were badly pot-bound and because the containers had ridges on the inside that went around the container, I couldn't get the plants out!  I ended up having to cut them out with the utility knife!  Lesson learned...don't pot things in a container that has horizontal groves or ridges inside!

I had planned to lay them on their side so they'd root along the stem, but the stems were already so thick I was afraid they'd snap if I did that.  So I just dug the hole as deep as I could and plopped them in.

The plants seemed awfully spindly so I stuck a stick beside each one and used a stem of the winter rye to tie the plants to the stick.

I also hoped that would protect the stems from cutworms, because I didn't dig around to clear the area of cutworms as I planted.  

By May 4, the tomato plants were starting to recover from their over-long stay in the containers.

And here's how the tomatoes were looking on May 26.  Almost every single plant is loaded with big clusters of tomatoes, with the exception of the first one in the row.  It's a beautiful plant, but for some odd reason it doesn't have a single tomato on it...maybe not even a single bloom.  

I also "earthed up" the Russet potatoes with manure/straw that I had saved back just for that purpose.  Russets are an indeterminate potato (who knew there was such a thing!) so it is recommended that they be earthed up. The Kennebec potato is a determinate type, so earthing up is optional.  I decided not to do anything with them.

And here's what I'm found under one of the Kennebec potato plants this afternoon.  I didn't measure, but I'm estimating that potato is about 2 1/2" long, so  nice size. 

Saturday, May 4

I planted a few more things....

1) African runner peanuts

And here's how the peanuts looked as of May 26.

2) A summer cover crop/home-grown mulch of Sorghum Sudan Grass.

Here's how the Sorghum Sudan grass looked as of May 26.

3) Some Lilliput Zinnias from seed I saved.

And the Zinnias as of May 26.

I also started terminating more cover crops.   I cut down all of the crimson clover except a small section of one row that was just now reaching full bloom.  That piece of the row wasn't covered with wire over the winter, and the rabbits sure enjoyed it (which meant it was a bit later putting on growth).

I also got started on the big patch of winter rye out by the raspberry plants.  After I cut the first block, I set out three new raspberry plants, and threw down some purple hull peas into the cut rye as a summer cover crop.

Here's how the purple hull peas looked as of May 26.

Friday, May 10

I finished terminating the last two rows of winter rye.  These rows also had hairy vetch planted in them, and they were much harder to terminate than the winter rye alone.

But my, oh my, oh my...as I was cutting, I was absolutely amazed by the amount of biomass that those two rows made.  Both rows are now covered with a layer of mulch about 6" deep.  I'll be interested to see what it looks like come time to plant my winter cover crops.

Wednesday, May 15

Even though the jalapeno transplants weren't very big, I decided to just go ahead and get them out in the garden.

Because the aluminum foil trick worked for the broccoli, I did the same thing with the peppers.

The Cherokee Purple tomatoes were starting to get pretty big, and would soon be in danger of falling over.  So I put up a couple of t-posts and some sticks to make a support to tie them to.

And here's how the tomatoes looked as of May 26.

There are several nice clusters of tomatoes too!

I did mess up though (I think) when I cut some Johnsongrass from the mud hole area to use as mulch around them.  About a week later, I noticed the tips of some of the tomato branches were wilted, and on a closer look, there were holes in the side of the stems, some with frass deposited on the stem.

While I didn't find the culprit, I suspect it was a stalk borer of some type, possibly brought into the garden in the Johnsongrass.  From what I read the females lay their eggs on grasses in the fall.  They hatch out in the spring and bore into the stems of the grasses, but if something happens to the grass, they can migrate to a new plant, which in this case was probably my tomatoes.  Next time I'll know better...lay the cut grass out to dry before I put it on the garden!

But thankfully there doesn't seem to be too much damage, so I hope we'll still get some nice tomatoes by late June or early July!

Sunday, May 26

I finally got some Kentucky Wonder beans to come up on my second try.

And I finally got some yellow squash to come up and grow.  The largest plant had one female bloom on it, but no male blooms to be found.  Luckily the pitiful little plants that I had started in toilet paper tubes had a single male flower open up the next day, so I tried hand pollinating the flower on it's second day.  I hope it wasn't too late.

The patch of Bulls Blood beets are starting to make little beets now.  I never did get any beets to grow last year despite repeated attempts.  Not sure what was going on with them, but I wondered if they were being eaten by slugs or crickets.  Something had actually started in on these when they were smaller, but most of them have survived.  

Beets aren't something I'm a big fan of (to me they taste like dirt - or as I imagine dirt would taste if I ate it!).  But RAF likes the ones my mama makes - pickled beets - so I hope I can make him at least one jar this year using her recipe. 

There are also several nice Marketmore 70 cucumber plants, and they're starting to bloom.  Just like with the beets, I couldn't grow a cucumber to save my life last year, and while that didn't bother me too much (because I don't really care for raw cucumbers either), RAF and youngest daughter really love them, so I hope we can make some for them this year.

The raspberries are starting to ripen, and if I can beat the birds to them, there will be enough for a few nice little snacks.  I actually had a handful today...yummy!

The blackberries are turning slightly red, and the four older plants are absolutely LOADED with fruit. RAF doesn't care for the raspberries (he said, "You can have all of them.") but he's a big fan of these  blackberries.  So I know he's looking forward to having these!  I hope we'll start picking some by mid-June.

The little Gala apple tree was covered with blooms this year, and because there were only about four flower clusters on the Enterprise apple, I didn't figure any of those blooms would be pollinated.  

But boy were they pollinated!  I think almost every single bloom set a small apple! 

For a while, I was afraid I was going to have to do some serious thinning!  But Mother Nature took care of that herself, leaving about seven nice little apples on the tree.  I hope they go ahead and ripen because I really do like Gala apples!

After a very rough start, a few of the onions did manage to survive, and have made nice little bulbs, some of them about 2" in diameter.  I am wondering if they're ready to pull, or if something has just bent the tops over.

The Florence Fennel is looking like it might actually live.  If it can bulb up before the weather gets too hot and it bolts, I'm excited to give it a try.

The second planting of carrots...

The third attempt at celery, although the plants are still very tiny and may not make it...

The Globe Artichokes...

I think that will do for this post.  There are a few other things: snow peas (which are almost finished); early frosty peas (which have produced a few pods); Swiss chard (which I don't know what to do with); red sails lettuce (which is starting to bolt); Boston pickling cucumbers; a variety of slicing and cherry tomatoes; parsnips; and sunflowers galore!  

And while I was kind of in a down-in-the-dumps mood when I started writing this post, just looking at the pictures has cheered me up a bit.  

It will be interesting to see what comes out of the garden in June, and how much things change!

So much for no-till......

Well....not really.  But that's kind of how I felt when Mo and I walked into the back yard a couple of days ago and discovered this:

At some point between our morning walk around the yard and the one in the afternoon, Trash Trailer Man's pigs had been back.  Some of the trenches they dug were 6" deep!

Pigs apparently have a good memory.

Piglets eating pecans last fall.

Luckily, they weren't interested in the garden.  

But it's painfully obvious that Trash Trailer Man has no intention of building a fence to keep his animals in.  So that means that I just need to get my fence finished.  

"Good fences make good neighbors," I always heard.  I don't think there's any fence in the world that can make him a good neighbor.

WHY THEY DO THIS?

I had to laugh after my youngest daughter sent me a picture of her car with this commentary:

how and why does my car keep getting bird bombed like this UNDER THE CARPORT

WHY THEY DO THIS

Why laugh?  Because I've been struggling to understand something that's happened in the garden that has me feeling exactly the same way.

So here's what happened.

Earlier this spring, I had a bunch of nice little broccoli and cabbage transplants started.  I set them out in the 4' x 8' raised bed, being careful to put one or two little metal sticks beside each plant to protect them from cutworms.  I covered the bed with insect netting to protect it from the cabbage moths and cabbage white butterflies.  All should be good, yes?

Not exactly.

Brassica seedling after a nighttime cutworm attack.

When I checked the bed a day or two later, every plant - every - single - plant - was dead, decapitated by cutworms! 

I'm not sure why the metal stick trick didn't work unless it was because the plants were set out into compost that was very loose, and that allowed the sticks to move so that the cutworms could wedge themselves between the stick and the stem. 

I was so ticked off!

I had a few more plants that I had held back, and I decided I'd go ahead and grow them on in pots for a bit longer.  Those first ones were pretty small, after all.

One evening last week, I took the two biggest and nicest broccoli plants and put them in that same bed.  Again, sticks beside them, being very careful to get the sticks as close to the stems as possible.

The very next morning:

Poor little decapitated broccoli plant.  When I dug around the base, I found the culprit and relocated it to the platform bird feeder.  I hope a bird had a good meal out of it.

I was furious!  Why????  What did they gain by just cutting the top off the plant?  It's not like the plant  can keep growing and feed them for longer...it will die.  

I actually asked The Google, "Why do cutworms cut?" No one had an answer for that.  There were lots of articles saying things like, "They're called cutworms because they cut the stems of young seedlings."  Well, DUH.  But WHY?  What do they have to gain from that destructive and seemingly senseless behavior?

I still don't know.

But in an attempt to have some broccoli this year, I've resorted to a somewhat drastic approach.  Sticks by themselves?  Out.  Aluminum foil, or sticks with aluminum foil?  In.  Definitely worth a try anyway...anything to protect the little stems.

So the last of the broccoli plants have been put out in that same raised bed and wrapped in foil.

Wrapped in a blanket of aluminum foil.

After doing a bit of reading about cutworms, I think one of the reasons they may be worse this year is because I've switched to no-till.  Apparently, tilling is one method of controlling them. 

Tilling the garden in early spring and fall can help kill cutworms or pupae or expose them to the weather and to predators such as birds.

https://www.pesticide.org/cutworms#:~:text=Controlling%20weeds%2C%20grasses%20and%20plant,to%20predators%20such%20as%20birds.   Accessed 4/15/2024.

So as I work in the garden from now on, I'll be on the lookout for them any time I do any planting.  After I set out the new broccoli plants, in one little 2' section of a row that was about 1' wide - a spot where I intended to plant carrots - I found eight of those rascals! 

Cutworms from the carrot bed.

I kindly relocated them to the bird feeder (most probably escaped over the edge into the front flower bed).

So while I had thought I'd call this post, "Why do cutworms cut,"  I have decided that I like her question better.  

WHY THEY DO THIS?