Garlic & Shallot Bed
The garlic & shallots are plugging along and the garlic scapes
are just starting to appear. This is
about the same time as last year - funny but I thought we were about 2 weeks
behind because of the late start to spring.
I do recall, however, that last year we had a very cool & dreary
month of June, which probably slowed the garlic down a bit.
I have noticed a few spittle bugs here & there in the garden, but was surprised when I found a few in the garlic.
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Garlic Scapes On The Verge of Curling |
Strawberry Bed
The strawberry bed is doing fine – not amazing, but ok. As I mentioned before, this is the 1st
year of harvest for this bed so maybe I shouldn’t be expecting huge plants
& a ton of berries.
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Strawberry Bed The cups support the netting and prevent it from sliding down the rebar - This was a great tip I got from Marks Veg Plot |
The rapini is doing well – I will probably begin harvesting
by next week.
Spinach
The Galilee spinach that I direct sowed about 10 days ago is
doing ok although it hasn’t grown that much yet. Hopefully it’s just one of those crops that
takes a while to get going, but then puts on lots of growth.
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"Galilee" Rapini - 10 Days After Direct Sowing |
Swiss Chard
A couple of weeks ago, I started having issues with leaf
miners on my Swiss chard.
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Leaf Miner Damage |
I immediately removed all of the affected leaves. I then surveyed the underside of each leaf &
found numerous eggs, which I destroyed.
The next step was to prevent more damage, so I covered the
chard with netting. And that was that,
right? Wrong.
Only a day or so after I covered the chard, I noticed a number of small flies inside the netting. I opened up the netting, waved away the flies, then replaced the netting. Over the next couple of days, this happened a few more times. I couldn’t understand it – where were they coming from? I had made doubly sure that there were no gaps at the bottom of the netting, so I doubted that they were getting in that way. Then I read that when the miners leave the leaf, they drop onto the soil, pupate, then emerge around 12 days later as adults – so I'm guessing I had numerous pupa in the soil around my chard & these were emerging as adult flies.
Only a day or so after I covered the chard, I noticed a number of small flies inside the netting. I opened up the netting, waved away the flies, then replaced the netting. Over the next couple of days, this happened a few more times. I couldn’t understand it – where were they coming from? I had made doubly sure that there were no gaps at the bottom of the netting, so I doubted that they were getting in that way. Then I read that when the miners leave the leaf, they drop onto the soil, pupate, then emerge around 12 days later as adults – so I'm guessing I had numerous pupa in the soil around my chard & these were emerging as adult flies.
Then, when I was taking photos of the pepper plants, guess what I
saw?
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I didn't even realize that this was in the picture until after the fact, when I viewed the photo on my computer. |
Vegetable Leaf Miner Photo from the University of California Agriculture & Natural Resources |
Well, I decided to uncover the bed (and keep it uncovered) &
sprinkle the soil with diatomaceous earth.
Not sure if this will do anything – my hope is that it may impact on the
adults in some way as they emerge from the soil. You just never know what each year will bring
– last year I didn’t have any issues with leaf miners in the Swiss chard.
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Swiss Chard with a Sprinkling of Diatomaceous Earth |
Carrots
I sowed all my carrots using Granny’s
seed mat method. I had spaced them 1½”
apart & last week, I finally got around to thinning them to about 3” apart.
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Carrot Seedlings |
So far I haven’t put up the fence around the area where the beans
are & they are still doing ok (I know, I know - famous last words ;).
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Bush Beans in the Foreground & Pole Beans in the Back |
Peas
The Super Sugar Snap peas are starting to flower!! Yipee – we should be seeing our first sugar
snaps in less than 2 weeks!
I’m
actually quite surprised as I was expecting the bush snap peas, Cascadia, to
blossom first. These are supposed to be 48
days to harvest and it has been 46 days since I sowed them. They look healthy enough & nothing out of the ordinary has checked their growth, as far as I can tell – I guess they are
simply going to be late.
This bed does get a bit of shade in the afternoon, so maybe that has impacted Cascadia more than the climbers. My plan was to stagger the harvest by growing an earlier bush & then a later climbing sugar snap. So much for my plans.
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Super Sugar Snap Peas Flowering |
This bed does get a bit of shade in the afternoon, so maybe that has impacted Cascadia more than the climbers. My plan was to stagger the harvest by growing an earlier bush & then a later climbing sugar snap. So much for my plans.
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At the moment, the climbing sugar snaps on the right are only about 12" taller than the bush sugar snaps on the left |
The climbing sugar snaps are doing an adequate job of clinging to the jute string. However, I do find that they tend to lean out of the bed. Each time I see them bulging into the pathway, I run a length of jute in front of them to get them back to their proper spot. So far, I have only had to do this twice.
Squash
The squash is doing ok – they haven’t grown that much since I planted them out about a week ago.
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Bush Squash Underneath Tulle Netting |
That's about it for this post - tomorrow I will continue my mid-month tour through the vegetable garden.
Till next time...☺
Things are looking pretty good--especially those strawberries. Mine are "skimpy" this year. I'm trying to look at the bright side--maybe with less foliage , I won't have the rot problems I had last year.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't worry about that spinach--that stuff just EXPLODES all of a sudden. I had lousy (I thought) production until about a week ago, and now I can't keep up with it. Lucky I have lots of neighbors that love it as much as I do.
Have a great weekend
Thanks Sue - A couple of the strawberries that were touching the soil did actually start to rot; I'm trying to make sure the clusters are sitting on top of the straw, which I think really helps. Lucky you with your spinach! I have yet to have too much spinach. I am anxiously awaiting that explosion :). Have a wonderful weekend too!
DeleteI only weed the row covered beds occasionally. Maybe every three weeks, or a month. Usually two or three times before something crops. It is such a pain to get under. And I often get fly hatchings under my row covers. But not the flies that prey on the crops as I rotate the crops. I always figure it is something from the previous year and won't do them any harm. Though I do shoo them out as I hate the flies in there.
ReplyDeleteThat's so interesting you say that about the flies. I did notice some of the same flies that were in the chard netting also under the netting for the squash...there are so many different miner insects - maybe I jumped the gun when I assumed that those flies were some type of miner? Thanks Daphne, this is good to know especially if I decide to recover the chard.
Delete