Join us for May on the Homestead...

The unusually cold Feb. here this year set a lot of stuff back and got every ones timing off. Not that mine has ever been right in the first place.

I think I have created a monster. We have flea beetles attacking only one set of bell peppers. Al has been spraying them like crazy with an organic spray to no avail. Anyway, he came in and looked them up online. Supposedly, they only attack plants with 5 or less leaves. These particular peppers have 5-7 leaves. They haven't found the cole crops yet. I planted some marigolds amongst them, so we'll see if that helps.

The second plantings of the 3 rows of different potatoes are all planted and about 200 onion sets in another row. Corn will be planted tomorrow....I know, I'm late getting it planted.

Cajun posted on another thread that DH was home from the hospital, but still on an IV.

Thanks for letting us know about Cajun and her beloved. They have been on my mind but I knew she just didn't have time to post. Here's hoping all will end well.

Interesting to read that the flea beetles lean toward juvenile pepper plants. If I had not tried it, I would not have believed the protection provided by elevated plants. Amazing!

I have dealt with marauding armadillos and an armadillo dog. They managed to upset some pots and break off some plants one night this week. I've not had a chance to assess the damage yet. Hoping for rain the next few days. We are under a burn ban as it is ever so dry. But I really want the rain to set up the bamboo trellises. The wind has been battering the tomatoes fiercely.

Glad to hear all the planting is going well for you and appreciate your keeping us posted. Hope you are feeling better too. Hang in there!

Guess I could've posted the link, too. It was pretty informative.
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/fleabeetle.html

How's your waterbed plants doing? The wind has been pretty strong here, too. We've got most of the tomatoes tied up and they whipped around quite a bit, but they are still growing and putting out blossoms.

That was an interesting link ~ thanks for sharing. Waterbeds are doing great. The pumpkins and squash are blooming and I have pan squash that are coffee cup diameter sized. With the drought here, anything in ground would be long ago deceased. These beds are so efficient putting water and nutrients where they are needed. I have lots of tomato blooms with only the slow germinators lagging behind. No weeding and I just check the beds morning and night to see if I need to add water. I find the beds that have more pots require less water. Odd but I believe it is due to evaporation. I've used up last years soil and need more as I have more to pot up. Hope to pick some up this weekend.

Guess we need to just consider the wind a necessary pollinator for the tomatoes. I wish I had taken photos of this but I watched the pan squash form a small squash while the bloom stayed open for quite a few days, all the while the squash was growing. One morning, I looked closely and saw it was a female and took a twig with the male blooms' pollen and applied it. That evening, the female bloom finally closed. I did not know it would develop the squash while waiting to be pollinated. Most strange. I had wondered how I would see blooms and all of a sudden there would be a decent sized squash. Need to check the eggplants tomorrow and if they have enough leaves, I'll move them back to the water beds.

Pretty cool about helping the polinating along. So far, we haven't had any problem with anything not getting pollinated. But something new I'll probably have to add to mix this summer, since the garden is so big and there's so many windbreaks now. I'll need to start bagging tomato blossoms before long too, so I can save some these heirloom seeds.

I think you're right about the evaporation being more when there's less pots. I still haven't got mine set up for the cherry tomatoes. I'll have Hubby pick up some boards for me when he heads back to the lumberyard.

Tell him to buy the cheapest. I got landscape timbers as they were cheap and won't rot.

I know many things will cross pollinate but for some reason I didn't think tomatoes were a problem? This year, I was thinking about saving tomato seed and now, I don't know if I want to fool with it.

I'm just going by what Dr. Carolyn says on the tomato forum. The way I understand, cross polination doesn't (or rarely) show up in the current year, but will when the saved seeds are grown if they did cross polinate. I'm growing 18-20 different varieties, mostly heirlooms, so want to keep them pure. It's pretty simple, though. Using those organza gift bags with the drawbags (Walmart craft dept or in bridal supplies at other stores), just place over the first cluster of blossoms and TWIST TIE them to the stem. It was reported that if the draw strings on the bag are used, it's impossible to get it untied. Have to shake the branch or blow on the blossoms to insure polination. Once the tomatoes start forming, the bag can be removed, but tie a colored string or ribbon around that branch to mark which tomatoes that the seeds are good for saving.

Let another day get away from us without making a trip to the lumber yard. They close at noon on Saturdays. But I'll be sure to tell Al about the landscape timbers. I did however, get 4 of the six rows ready for corn. I'm not taking any chances on the weeds taking root again, so I am pulling out all of the clumps of grass and weeds.

Hurray!!!!!!!!!!!! We got rain. Not enough but I will take what ever Mother Nature deems I’m worth. Another 5 – 6 inches would be nice though. LOL. Still holding out hope for more of the wet stuff through Monday.

On the subject of “raising” plants to prevent insect damage, the common thought is the insect looks for its host plant where it expects to find it. If you move it out of its normal area the insect will miss it. If the preferred plant is commonly found on the ground under light shade, the bug won’t think to look two feet up on your covered deck. It just keeps looking on the ground in any lightly shaded areas.

Flea beetles originated in Hell and where sent here to torment poor gardeners/farmers for unknown reasons. That was a good article but it didn’t take into account an advanced assault like you describe. IMHO, at this stage your only hope is to nuke them before you have a catastrophic crop failure and then use the organic controls to help prevent their return. With that newly turned earth you may have even more insect problems before you get them all evicted.

To Cajuns DH, hang in there. Take heart from an old Estonian Proverb, "This too shall pass"

Did I just hear thunder? Hope so.

Has anyone heard from Jay?

DH came home from the hospital on Thursday. He is doing well and feels good but has to take it easy for 6 weeks. He has a PIC line and is taking IV antibiotics at home. Had to go back to the ER today. There was seepage around the line. Home Health nurse we called said it might be from infection. Doc at the ER said it was normal. Thank the Lord!!!

Excellent, just don’t work him so hard in the future. LOL.

Not hardly. LOL

WhooHoo! We got rain! 3/4" yesterday afternoon and 1/4" so far this morning.

Jay's okay.

Cajun, take care of yourself. Glad it wasn't anything serious with DH.

Good! Glad to hear Jay's still among us.

Glad to hear she is fine. i was worried about her but so wrapped up in what is going on here, I couldn't take the time to send her a Dmail.

Glad you got rain. We had a regualr TS last night for about an hour. We sure needed the rain.

It's still raining and it's kind of light, but we're up to about 1 1/2" total! Does a garden good!

Well it had to happen sooner or later. Found the first snake of the summer, a copper head, while cleaning up and mowing around the cabin today.

Wish we would have gotten more rain but I guess half an inch is better than nothing.

We sure don't see many snakes around here, but Al keeps it mowed. Only 3 or 4 black snakes in 8 years.

We ended up with a total of 2 1/2" including yesterday's rain. I'm doing a happy dance. I've got 4 bales of straw in the van, so now I can start mulching, starting with the potatoes which are standing 18" high. Hope it's not too late to get them producing in the straw.

I need to put more straw in my tater bags. I dug through the straw but I didn't seen any signs of taters.

We got 5 1/4" total. It was great! The snakes have been active here for several weeks - a little copperhead on the porch last night.

We have all kinds around here. The only two poisonous ones we see regular are copper heads and timber rattlers. Them I permanently remove but leave the rest alone. Especially the rat snakes, they’re the best mole catchers ever.

I only use straw on my taters to prevent sunburn since I’m too lazy to get out there and pull the dirt back over them. LOL.

Cajun, your taters haven’t had time to make yet have they? I think you were just talking about planting sometime after I already had mine in the ground.

I don't recall how long they have been there. I lose track of time and I am very impatient to boot. LOL

It's raining here. trying to feed between showers. Just a few critters left.

Picked my Chinese Cabbage yesterday. Didn't do too good. I'm going to have to move that bed closer to the house and lower down the hill. I can't take care of it there. The bugs hurt the cabbage.

I picked 4 strawberries yesterday. They were sooo good. Wish I had a flat of them. My winter onions are putting on sets. The other onions are doing ok but nothing to write home about. The garlic looks good but I don't know if any cloves are forming. I was hoping to get up to my friends and check my garden today. I need to get these maters in the ground. He said all my stuff is up. I'm dying to see it all.

This message was edited May 17, 2010 1:48 PM

Forgot to add a pic.

It’s hot, humid, and most miserable around here. But there are a few good things to report, like the plums are turning. We can’t walk by the trees without grabbing a few to munch on while we are doing what ever it is we’re doing. The Arapaho’s are turning black and that is another spot we can’t pass without picking a hand full to munch while on the way to where ever. I think the blackberries were set back by the cold in Feb. this year. There isn’t as many and the ones that have ripened don’t seem to be as sweet as last years either. But they are still good. Dug about half my taters today also. They could have stayed in the ground a while longer but the sun and heat was starting to kill the tops so I went a head and started getting them out of the ground. They did pretty well this year. All of them were about medium with a lot of large ones in the pile. In the morning we are going to start canning them up for later.

This message was edited May 26, 2010 4:48 AM

What is an Arapaho?

It's a thornless blackberry. They usually make a lot of big ol juicy berries but the cold set them back a little this year. A lot of the buds were just starting to emerge when the freeze hit and were killed off. That reduced the amount we usually get and they aren’t as sweet this year.

Speaking of Arapaho's, they just gave up about a gallon of berries and they are washed and in the fridge. Can't wait till they get good and cold. Add a dash of sugar for the kid in you and pig till they're gone.

How far away from Richmond are you?

Not sure. A 120 miles more or less northeast of Houston if that helps. Or 40 miles south of Lufkin. Why?

LOL, I thought I was the only one who missed the obvious!

Never mind, by the time I get there you will have eaten them all.

lol. You cought me before my nap. DW made a cobbler while i napped and it sure smells good. I will let know how it tastes later. May have to stay home from work to eat it.

So I'm not too late?...

I think there's a bit of Blue Bell left. Maybe. lol Now I know not to talk to you when I'm half asleep. =0)

I picked a ripe raspberry off my little red raspberry cane I planted from TSC. The gold ones didn't make it. The red ones I got from my friend are doing great and have quite a few berries on them. None are ripe yet.

Goodmorning! Can't believe we are at the end of the month already!

Cobbler sounds wonderful! I found out last spring that we have wild berries of some sort and grapes growing on the back side of our place, but never ventured over there later to see if they produced. Some of the grape vines were as big around as a half dollar coin.

Cajun, how is your husband doing?

Darius, how's your place looking? I imagine getting all those trees removed sure opened things up.

Robin

Hi folks... I see I only thought I posted a comment to Caj that I'm glad she made her mental/emotional health fun trip.

I met a couple at the market who have a newish fruit (but not grapes) winery business. They are going to come dig some of my extra red raspberries (all the local wild raspberries are black) and collect the concentrate I froze, in exchange for some of their wines. I think I'll choose cranberry and elderberry. I don't drink anymore but I can use both in cooking.

I discovered 2 small elderberries growing in the now tree-less area. I had to stand by them to keep the tractors with sickle bars who trim the grassy verges from reaching them to cut down. Also found 3-4 NOID's that Buster says is what the locals call water parsnip or water hemlock, and it's poisonous to cows. I looked it up, leaves aren't right. I need to take a photo for the ID forum so I know whether to cut it down before it seeds or not.

I have perhaps a couple of cords of black walnut now, just need a strong boy to bring the chunks up to the road so I can drive them across the bridge and split to season.

My trip was great and I really needed the break. Haven't laughed so much in ages and the hot tub was heavenly. Here is my favorite pic from the trip. It was taken in Cades Cove.

Cajun, so glad you had a great time! Cades Cove is awesome. We really enjoyed exploring all the buildings.

Darius, I am really disappointed in my red cherries bushes. There's lots of cherries, but they are tiny. Not much bigger than a large green pea.

Rats, Robin. What kind are they?