Green Veggie Pests

Hello again!

The month of July started out busy in both the garden and the kitchen.  There were some veggies that were bursting and ready to be harvested and enjoyed!

Garlic scapes pickled!

Fresh baby peas that the girls ate straight from the garden.

And enough green pepper and tomato to make fresh salsa!

Unfortunately though, spending time in the garden also indicated to us that we had a pest problem on our cabbage plants.  Cabbage loopers.  :(

These fat green inchworms were eating big holes in the outer leaves of our cabbages.  Thankfully they hadn't moved onto the nearby broccoli.  But what to do?  Reading various articles found online there were some suggestions such as flour and baking soda - which I tried as I had these items on hand; and next steps such as bacillus thuringiensis.   And of course manual collection of the worms.  So with Sammy helping, we scoured the backs and fronts of the large cabbage leaves and picked off all loopers we came across.

Into a bowl they went and soon became evening treat for the chickens!

They were very much enjoyed!

So now, daily we closely inspect our plants for loopers.  But what to do about the large outer leaves that are riddled with holes??  I can't find any information on whether or not to trim off the ugly leaves or leave them?  Should I be worried about the plants that have not yet formed a tightly wrapped cabbage head?

If you have any suggestions, please share them.  :)

Jeanette

Veggie patch dreams...

Howdy!

Two months back our little patch of paradise was looking like this:

Cold and icy.

But indoors, things were green... green with thoughts of a vegetable garden full of delicious food to eat!  The idea that we could have a veggie garden that you could walk through!  A veggie garden that you could feed your family meals from really were thoughts that brought us excitement!  Before our move we had a cucumber plant, a bean plant, a tomato plant a few pepper plants in our container gardens.  A great way to dip our toes in but also a taste of what we knew we really wanted on a larger scale!

Last autumn we had chosen a plot and covered it with manure.

As the snow blew outdoors we set to drawing up a garden plan and making a list of seeds to order.  How happy we were to see this box in our mailbox only days later!  (Thank you Vesey's seeds for the speedy delivery!)

As we are trying to use the idea of companion planting, designing a garden layout was an evening in itself.  Figuring in the furrows and walkways we decided we needed to make our plot just a little bit bigger.  :)

When we were happy with what we were seeing on paper we turned to the real life outdoor garden patch.  All of last fall's manure was pulled back; cardboard was set down and the manure laid back on top of the cardboard layer.  The cardboard will keep down any grass/weeds as well as retain moisture.. AND it will naturally decompose!  Layered on top of the manure was some clean fill - mostly sandy soil from the tree line that Derek has been clearing behind the barn.  The last bit to go before seeding will be some nice dark moist topsoil.

All hands on deck to help.  Our hens were great at turning over dirt in the garden as well as turning over the manure in the manure pile...

 What a place to dust bath??!!

Though it feels as though winter will never let go and the last frost may still be weeks away, we began our celery, peppers and tomatoes indoors.  Nothing happened for almost two weeks after we planted them!  Then a lucky trip to TSC found us in the clearance section where electric heat pads for seed starting were on sale.  Within days we had sprouts and now a few weeks in, our plants are well on their way to being ready to be planted outdoors after Jack Frost's departure!!

 Green thumbs up!  :)

Jeanette