Quote:
Originally Posted by cableguy
Have a new respect for people who garden.....it's no joke. I built these raised beds and filled them today....I am beat up...
this is my 1st garden, so this will be a work in progess....
have lettuce, carrots, cukes, bush beans, red peppers, green peppers, hot portugal peppers. 2 kinds of tomatoes, and a couple of herb pots....
this was a ton of work for some veges, but I'm hoping to enjoy the rewards...
|
One immediate benefit is that you build them once to last for years, so after this the bulk of the work will be weeding, planting and harvesting.
Keep an eye out for animals that might do damage to your crops, and check for any insect damage as well.
Every plant has its own insect marauder.
Tomato = horn worm/catapillar BIG and GREEN and can defoliate entire branches.
Pepper = earwigs and slugs
Squash = squash beetles and borer worms
beans = beetles
Corn = beetles and borer worms
(see a trend here?)
One suggestion that does work is to plant a variety of flowering plants to attract beneficial insects. (Marigolds are good at attracting parasitic wasps and spiders for example.)
You can use beer traps for slugs.
As for earwigs, you need to eliminate their hiding/nesting areas.
I have a concoction I make when the infestation starts to get real bad. I soak one package of chewing tobacco in a quart of water.
Strain the mixture and put the resulting fluid in a spray bottle with a teaspoon of dishwashing detergent. I also add a little epsom salt (as a foliar fertilizer) and spray away. The only warning is that since this is tobacco "juice" you don't want a lot of contact, since it is basically nicotene juice. The upside is that since all bugs preen themselves, when they ingest this fluid, it WILL kill them. Nicotene is indigestable, even to humans, which explains why if you had the misfortune to chew tobacco and accidentally swallowed the "juice" you were in for an automatic regurgitation in less than 30 minutes. (Anyone that has done this knows what I mean, and you NEVER forget that experience!)
With the spring we've had, all the critters are coming early and at around the same time.
My current battle is with the Asian Lily Leaf Beatle trying to defoliate all my tiger lillies. They come EVERT spring and will continue until either I give up or they succeed. They are a pretty looking red beetle that will eat the plant to the ground. The beetles themselve only eat the leaves. It's the young that do the worst. They cover themselves with their own feces, and since they are non-native they have no enemies.
We can thank some a-hole florist/horticulturalist in Cambridge for this scourge.