Late Summer Gardening

There's not much to be done right now but simple maintenance.  And, compared to June and July, August has been balmy and comfortable, so it's possible to pull weeds and cut back dying and overgrown plant material without melting.  Crazy weather.

Blooms are just recently appearing on the lima beans and the ornamental hyacinth bean.

I'm still collecting Japanese beetles off a group of shrub roses at the edge of the wildflower garden, but the carbaryl sprays seem to have eliminated them from the ferned-out asparagus, and there's only ever one or two on the tea roses in pots at the house, so Julia Child (the butter yellow rose) is coming out again.  

Early morning dew shows up spider webs.

I'm a big spider fan.  To clarify:  a big fan of spiders.  But, also a fan of big spiders.  Not so much of big caterpillars.  I found this baby tomato hornworm a couple of days ago on the volunteer tomato.  You can see that they are aptly named.  The hornworms, not the tomatoes.  Although tomatoes may be aptly named, too.  

These suckers (well, they're chewers) can get bigger than my thumb.  Which would you say is the head end?

If you said the end without the horn - and I know you did - you're right.  It's amazing how much these guys can eat in a short period of time.  Here's a nice picture of the adult moth stage, which I don't ever see, and as large as they are, you'd think I might.  They have to lay their eggs in the immediate area for me to find the caterpillar (larva) stage.  It's from gymnosprout.blogspot.

If you're interested in the life cycle of the hornworm, check out the University of Florida's sheet with pictures, including one of a parasitized hornworm, which I've also never actually seen, but if I ever do, I'll be sure and take a picture, and leave alone in order to let the parasites live and (hopefully) establish a population.

Speaking of the volunteer tomato plant, I'm positive it's one of the "purple" varieties I planted, but I don't know which.  I just know it isn't Black Icicle, because that's a Roma style tomato.  One of those is growing as a volunteer on my compost pile.

The reason I know it's a purple one is the coloration, which is typical of several of the purple varieties I planted.  I don't know if it's true of all purples or not.  But these have a dark green top that looks like glazed frosting over a lighter green blossom end.

Sorry for the poor focus on the nearer tomato.  Here's a clear picture from 2014 of Black Krim:

Black Prince and Cherokee Purple were both planted last year near the area where the volunteer is growing, and I can't tell the difference.  At least not yet.  If I recall correctly, Black Prince is a smaller, rounder tomato than Cherokee Purple.  Whichever it is, it's going along nicely on the trellis I built for the cucumbers that died out in all the rain.

I haven't harvested any tomatoes for about a week, and only a couple are looking ripe enough to pick.  The remainder are all still small and green.  That long spell of very high temperatures put the kibosh on fruit set, and the accompanying large amounts of rain encouraged the plants to grow lush and tall.  They're now coming out way over the top of the cages and hanging down.  I have to keep training the limbs back onto the cages.  

The lettuce mix I planted on the 12th is up and coming.  

It's near the tatsoi, arugula and cabbages I planted at the end of June, all of which are beset by some tiny flying insects that are chewing zillions of little holes in the leaves.  It's not whiteflies, but beyond that, I don't know what it is, because it was so hot in July I let that patch go, and now I'm sorry.  I did spray it a couple of times recently with spinosad and cut back the plants in hopes of knocking back the population so the plants can grow to usefulness.  

Recently I was reading about making an insecticidal tea from rhubarb leaves.  The claim was that this works because rhubarb is not bothered by insects.  I beg to differ.  My rhubarb looks fantastic through spring and then gets regularly attacked by grasshoppers and katydids when the summer comes on.  

But it gave me an idea.  I've noticed that the stevia I plant never has been attacked by anything - insect or disease.  If I'm not too lazy, I think a good experiment would be to make a tea from stevia leaves and see if it repels or prevents insect attack when sprayed on other plants.  I know interplanting stevia doesn't work to repel insects from plants growing next to it, because I tried that experiment this year.  They happily munch away on everything else, but they never bother the stevia. 

Stevia in full sun

Stevia in partial shade

  

I'm big on ideas.  Not quite as big on implementing them.

That's it for now.  I hope you're enjoying this lovely weather.

Til next time.