Cabbage and Bugs

My cabbage in the potager are suffering from a triple whammy of bugs.

I have eight plants and they look horrible!  The slugs, earwigs and cabbage worms have hit hard and the leaves look like they have been blasted with buck shot.  The green cabbage are the worst offenders.  They are starting to head, but I'm wondering if I should just discard them and chalk it up to a failure for the year.

That being said, there are a few bright spots.  The red cabbage in pool bed #1 look great.  No cabbage worms and the slugs and earwigs have left them alone.  I also have observed that I have a nice colony of predatory wasps.  I constantly see them around the cabbage munching on fat green cabbage worms. 

Spraying is not an option.  I have a huge bird population and there are several nests that surround the area.  Also, with all the predatory bugs that have arrives this year, I don't want to harm them either.  Ditto the earthworms that love this area.

What would you do?

Would you remove them and replace them with something more else or suck it up and see how they turn out?

Harvest Monday- June 11, 2012

This week adds shelling peas to the harvest.

I had very poor pea germination so this year the yield is way down.  The first picking was enough for one meal.  The oldest pods were left in order to save seed for next year.

'Pretty' purple podded peas and green 'Garden Sweet' peas.

Then there was the lettuce.  I harvested and pulled all of the lettuce in the potager.  The lettuce in the pool beds is going to be coming out soon.  With three days in the 90's it is going to be bolting soon.  I'll leave two plants of 'Ruby' and the speckled crisp head to go to seed.  All the rest will be coming out very soon. 

The last of the 'Fordhook Favorites Mixed' lettuce.

A good sampling of the lettuce that is still remaining the flower beds.

Harvest Monday is hosted by Daphne's Dandelions.  Stop by and see what everyone is harvesting.



Bush Beans Have Germinated!

Last Sunday I planted my bush beans.  It may appear rather late, but the bush bean planting times here are traditionally June 1 and July 1.  Despite the Mountain being south of the Mason- Dixon line, night temps are not reliably above 50 degrees until June.

Given all of the bug problems in the potager I decided I would plant older seed and see what happens. I planted a 4 foot row each of the following: 'Cherokee Wax', 'Purple Queen', 'Greencrop' and 'Velour'.  Of course I still fretted over them all week.  As of yesterday there was no indication that they were going to sprout.  This morning went I went on my morning stroll through the garden I noticed the little green bumps in the soil.  Not just a few, but lots of them!  Now the trick is going to be keeping the slugs and the earwigs away from them.

I did get a lot more planted yesterday.  The 'Quadrato D'Asti Giallo' and 'Tennessee Spice' peppers finally went in.  I sowed more pole beans; 'Lazy Wife Greasy', 'Cranberry', 'Blue Coco', 'Blush Potomoc' and a runner bean 'Inuk's Wang Kong', in pots this time.  The rest of the planting was annual flowers.  I would have liked to get more things planted, but the afternoon was just too hot, it got up into the low 90's.

The daylily seedling I wrote about yesterday opened.  As expected the bloom was nothing special.  When it comes to seedlings, you can't judge their merits from the first bloom.  You can get an ides of their traits.  This bloom has a near white coloring, wire gold edge and a nice green throat.  It's a volunteer so I don't know it's pedigree.

The bloom also opened flat, judging from the rest of the developing buds the petals should be rounder and hopefully the sepals too,

I will be making a few crosses to test it's fertility.  'Spectral Elegance' will be today's partner.

'Spectral Elegance',  the trick will be to combine the bloom characteristics of SE with the growth characteristics of the seedling!

This and That

Aside from the battle of the bugs everything seems to be doing good.

These are just some random shots around the garden.

'Grandpa Ott' morning glory has been blooming for two weeks.

'Grandpa Ott' the vines are now 4 feet long and heading for the upper deck.

A violet alyssum volunteer popped up among the 'Carpet of Snow' volunteers.  This is first time I've had 'Carpet of Snow' change color.

Showing the two colors.

Pool bed #2 and the gardens around the concrete pad in the background.

The entrance to pad.  Potager is on the right,

Daylily seedling showing the branching that I'm looking for in my hybridizing.  This seedling went from one fan to seven this spring.  It has 4 way branching.  #1 is the terminal Y.  #2 and #3 are the side branches.  Hopefully it will bloom tomorrow.  The bud count looks to be aver 20.  This is it's first scape ever.

The daylily seedling has me very excited.  This is my second seedling with great branching.  The flower looks like it will be rather plain, but that can easily be remedied with the appropriate crosses.  The vigor, branching and bud count are what I'm striving for.

Remember, any photo can be made larger by right clicking and opening the image in a new tab.

The Cavalry Arrives!

I should have expected it.  With the population explosion of bad bugs this year it had to arrive sooner or later.  The alyssum have clouds of syrphid flies around the blossoms.  Last year there were only a few, but they seem to have called in reinforcements.

I have also seen a few assassin bugs.  Hopefully they are all busy garroting the earwigs.

And finally the praying mantis are here!  Last night I went to water and the watering can had about 30 hatchlings running all over it.  I would have loved to get a picture but the can is green so it was very hard to see them in the picture.  I'm hoping that they grow big and fat very soon on all the earwigs.

The only defender I'm on the fence about is a pair of Brown Thrashers.  They are the messiest birds I have ever seen.  They root through the wood chips and throw them everywhere.  I'm constantly cleaning up the paved areas.

The earwigs are totally out of control on the potager.  They have decided that they are going to dine on the cabbage as well as the Swiss chard.  The pole beans that have just germinated are being attacked as well.  I'm seriously thinking of abandoning most of this garden for vegetables for the remainder of the year.  The only thing they are not attacking are the tomatoes and peppers.  I'll see what happens in the next few weeks.  At the end of the month I'm on vacation and will be dividing over 100 daylilies and could use a temporary bed to house them while I rejuvenate the old beds.

One positive note about the earwigs, I have seen only a couple of aphids this year.

Harvest Monday- June 4, 2012

Harvest Monday is hosted by Daphne's Dandelions.  Stop by and see what everyone else is harvesting.

This weeks harvest was much the same as last weeks. Lettuce, escarole and snow peas.  I was unable to get outside after work for most of the week due to violent thunderstorms almost everyday.  There were even two flash floods that came through the yard.  Some beds were under a few inches of water.

Lettuce.

Escarole.

More lettuce.

Snow peas.

The snow pea plants were pulled after this harvest. I only had about 18 plants and the total harvest was 1.5 pounds.  Not bad for so few plants.

I was able to get outside yesterday and get some much needed planting done.  I'm hoping for a lot less rain this week!

Lettuce Update

The lettuce in pool bed #2 is growing like crazy.  With all the rain we have been having it seems to be doubling in size daily.  This bed has been under water twice during two flash floods that have raced through the yard.  I'm surprised at the minimal bug damage from this bed.  I'm hoping that the slugs and earwigs have all drowned!

'Ruby' lettuce.

From 'Wild Garden Mixed', probably 'Hyper Red Rumpled'

From 'Wild Garden Mixed', probably 'Flashy Green Butter Oak'.

From 'Wild Garden Mixed'.

From 'Wild Garden Mixed'.

From 'Wild Garden Mixed', this is the speckled iceberg type.

'Gentilina' and one from 'Wild Garden Mixed' probably 'Hyper Red Rumpled'.

The escarole in the opposite pool bed are growing just as fast.  I never realized how attractive the pattern is of the open plant.

I just love the pattern of the leaves.