Oh how I wish it would rain

The weather forecast keeps teasing rain, and it never happens.  Plants I've grown from seed are ready to go in the ground, so they have. And I've been forced to do a lot of watering.

We went from a very cool April (with some unfortunate freezing) to a very hot May - temperatures in the upper 80s.  Such is gardening in Missouri.  Maybe everywhere nowadays.

Lettuces I sowed earlier are coming up sporadically and sparsely.

Peas ('Kelvedon Wonder' and 'Lillian's Caseload') are up and coming along nicely, and the 'Calima' bush green beans I planted next to them are just now coming out of the ground.  The straw paths I made this year were apparently much more loosely baled than the bales I used last year, and these are just falling apart and blowing everywhere.  

Transplanted wasabi radishes are looking okay.  But I don't know how they're supposed to look.  I planted them once before and didn't get anything useful from them.  If they don't produce anything of use this year, I won't be trying again.

'Seaside' spinach - my first go at this - looks good.  It looks good to the rabbits, too.  It has a mild taste and a sturdy leaf.

That snap freeze we had got my potatoes, but they've come out of it and don't seem to be any worse for the wear.  This year I'm growing 'Yukon Gold', which I've grown before and know to be delicious, and 'All Blue', a purple variety. The picture below is 'All Blue'.

Hoping to get my small bed at the edge of the wildflower garden fleshed out, I purchased some small plants from the Missouri Wildflowers Nursery in Jefferson City.

The bed looks over the rest of the garden between the wildflower garden and a cut flower plot and the roses.  I envision it as a lovely place to sit and gaze some day.  Except it's awfully hot in the summer when everything is in full bloom, so I probably won't be doing any long term sitting.

Honeybees were out early this year, and they seem to appreciate the shallow water dish where they can sit at the edge and drink.

And it's apparently baby bunny season.

'English Charm' iris is supposed to be double-blooming, but this is the third year it's bloomed, and it's only been once in the spring; nothing in the fall.  At least it's charming that once.

'English Charm'

'English Charm'

The same is true for 'Victoria Falls'.

The oriental poppies have tons of buds this year.  

I revamped the pet cemetery, and hope I can keep it going until the rains come - if they come at all this year.  Chances are not looking good.  

Speaking of not looking good...yikes!  My 'Phenomenal' lavender died way back this year.  I don't know if it simply ran its normal life course or if the dry winter did it in.  I'm trying to nurse what's left long enough to get some of the living branches to root on their own.

 

I have no idea what name this iris has, but it looks a lot like 'Mother Earth'.

Until next time...rain dances welcome! 

Flora and fauna (no Meriweather)

Early this spring someone remarked that we just don't see many rabbits like we used to.  I don't remember the "used to" part, but I agreed that we didn't see many.  But this summer, we've got an abudance of bunnies here.  There are all sizes of them scampering around the yard and garden.  After the early damage to my peas and beets, they haven't been eating anything in the garden.  I think it's because they get their fill of clover in the yard.

And they're not diggers, unlike those rascal raccoons.  I set my traps out in the perennial bed where they were digging up all my newly planted gaura and trapped one raccoon and one possum.  

The next night was July 4th, and the nearby neighbors had a big fireworks display going for about two hours.  Neither trap was bothered for the next three nights, and there was no sign of digging in the garden.  Last night, I moved the traps back up to the house and captured (and released) two more raccoons.   Fortunately, there still wasn't any digging in the garden. So far, that's seven raccoons and a possum in seven days.

Yesterday we had an unexpected guest.  For the first time since I've been back (that I've noticed), a wild turkey came strolling about the grounds.

I hope s/he's not lost.

The lima beans look like they ought to be flowering any day now, and the onions behind them are pushing up out of the ground and could be harvested any time.

The cowpeas were showing a lot of what looked like insect feeding, but I haven't seen any actual insects on them, so I guess it could have been a leaf disease.

The newest leaves seem to be less damaged, so I won't worry about them.

So far, the Japanese beetles have been somewhat sparse.  I'd like to think the exteme cold froze out some of the grubs and we'll have a lighter population this year, but I don't dare say it out loud.

It seems like we've had a lot more shield bugs (named obviously, for their shape, aka stink bugs - aptly named when disturbed) this year than previous ones, although they were particularly bad on the tomatoes last year.  They don't have chewing mouthparts, but everywhere they stick their needle beaks leaves a small dead spot, and enough feeding disfigures the fruit.  Even though they're a  large enough size, they're hard to see because they blend in so well and lay pretty flat against the plants.  They're also fast movers, which is why I don't have any pictures.  (They could be what was feeding on the cowpeas.)

Here they are on the internet at Stink Bugs Guide:

This is the first time I've spotted their eggs, and unfortunately, these had already hatched.  It's very neat how they cut a perfect circle off the top of the egg to get out.

There are two types: the brown marmorated stink bug (Halyomorpha halys) and the green stink bug (Chinavia halaris).  I think this must have been the green ones, because the eggs are on an asparagus stem, and that's where I've seen mostly the green.

I'm afraid my prized little grapevine is going to be an insect magnet.  The new growing tips have been assailed by aphids, and this morning I found a caterpillar feeding.  I believe this guy is simply the grape leaffolder - Desmia funeralis.  The internet literature says they also feed on redbuds, which we have several of near the garden.  Oh boy.

UPDATE 7/13:  I spotted this lovely little moth on the grapevine today:

I'd never seen this moth before.  It's the eight-spotted forester (Alypia octomaculata).  According to the literature, as an adult, it feeds on flowers in the day, which is unusual for a member of this family - Noctuidae, the noctuid moths. It's also unusually colored, as most noctuids are dull browns and grays.  This guy is quite fancy with his shiny black wings, big yellow and white spots, and those very, very fancy orange leggings.  It seems backwards: this one feeds in the daytime in its evening wear, while the others feed at night in their camouflage.  Other members of the family are armyworms and cutworms.  The eight-spotted forester feeds on virginia creeper and grapes.  So, maybe my little grapevine really is going to be an insect magnet.

Speaking of damage, it's not all critters.  I snapped this picture at the edge of the soybean field that's next to the house and garden.  That's herbicide spray drift on the grass, which will die out in a large swath.  The field gets nearer and nearer the house every year because the  farmer plants to the very edge and then sprays herbicides just beyond that edge to keep weeds out of the crop.  One day, we'll be swallowed by corn and beans.  But this wasn't intentional.  It was a big mistake.

The last two surviving cabbages may or may not produce anything edible, but I'll leave them as long as they're healthy.  

'Violaceo di Verona'

'Kalibos'

Carrots are harvestable.  This year I planted 'Short 'n Sweet'.  They're short okay.  Not particularly sweet.

One 'Fall Gold' raspberry ripened.  They're very pretty and have a hint of a taste of honey.  I'll be looking forward to more of these.  

The 'Glencoe' red variety has stopped producing fruit, but is growing new canes that are taking up more space than I was expecting.  

Perhaps it's the copious amount of rain we got - two and a half more inches last week added to the toad stranglers we had all spring.

Hooray! I actually had success rooting cuttings of my climbing rose 'Moonlight', so if the raccoons find a way under the screen and bricks I laid down to protect it, I'll have a replacement.  I wish I knew what made it successfull, so I could get cuttings from the tea roses.  (I did finally get one from 'Julia Child'.)

It may have been the medium I used - playground sand and potting soil - which held moisture well.  Or, it could have been something else entirely.  I'll try some more using that same medium one of these days.  

It looked like my air-layering attempt to get a start from 'Shazam!' might be failing, but when I opened it up, indeed there were some roots.  I can't tell, but I don't think they're from the area that I scraped, but from a node, which means I didn't really have any success, just luck.

I potted it up and hope it can stay alive.  The leaves are damaged and won't be able to produce much food, if any, so I'm not feeling optimistic.

Wrapping it up, I offer you a Sun Ball (Craspedia)...

And a bouquet in honor of my sister's birthday.

Daylilies, Zinnias, Carnations, Roses, Gomphrena, Yarrow, and Marigolds

Wascally Wabbits

The cabbages that survived the rabbit attack are growing back.  I wonder if they've escaped attacks by the early cabbage worm moths.  We'll find out.  I planted marigolds amongst them to see if that was a deterrent to the moths, but that experiment has now been nullified, since, if they have escaped, I won't know if it's the late start or the marigolds that worked.

The lettuce has outrun the rabbits, but I'm paying for letting them run free in the garden.  Turns out, there are three large rabbits (at least), and they knocked my peas way back.  I was so looking forward to a great pea harvest.  

 I don't know if they have time to recover before it gets too hot for them.

See if you can find two culprits in this picture:

In a fine example of closing the barn door after the horse is gone, I've been spraying the pea stubbles with Liquid Fence deer and rabbit repellant. 

I ran out of Ortho Deer-b-Gone, and the Liquid Fence product was the only thing available when I needed to buy something.

Lowe's website has the skinny on Liquid Fence:

Putrescent whole egg solids and it's unscented???   

Believe me, this is wrong.  Deer-b-Gone has added cloves and cinnamon to its product, which is also primarily putrescent whole egg solids, that make the smell of it tolerable to the human olfactory sense, but Liquid Fence doesn't bother with such amenities.  It smells exactly like putrescent egg solids.

(Other  Liquid Fence ingredients are: garlic, sodium lauryl sulfate, potassium sorbate, thyme oil, sodium benzoate, citric acid, and xanthum gum.)

So do I.  And I thought you said it was unscented.

There's another contradiction in the information as well:

But...

If the duration of effectiveness is less than a day, why do you apply it only once a week? 

The beets are just little stumps that the rabbits left, but they don't eat the carrots or arugula.  Of course, the beets are sweet.  Hopefully the clover in the yard has grown up large enough to keep them out of the garden, in combination with the "unscented" Liquid Fence.

carrots and arugula

The arugula is reaching the maturity stagevwhere it's not as tender as I like it.  I sheared it off to see if it's easier to pick new leaves - if in fact it produces new leaves.  I haven't tried that before, and if it doesn't work out, I'll have to pull what's there and reseed.  It certainly spoils the ornamental function of the ornamental vegetable garden.

I used the clippings to mulch the two new rhubarb plants I put in this year. 

'Canada Red' rhubarb

Last year I finally broke down and bought a red-stemmed variety (which all of the ones I grew from seed were supposed to be) that I could see actually had red stems ('Canada Red').  It was so hot and dry that it died.  This year, the weather has been cool (and wet), so I'm hoping I can keep these alive with extra attention.  I had no idea rhubarb would be so touchy about getting established because they don't seem to have any problem when I divide them.  I suppose it's probably due to the fact that the ones I bought had been living in a protected greenhouse.

Seems like overnight the lettuce has been growing distorted.  Many of the leaves are cupping and curling.

I thought this was probably caused by some insect pest, and when I unfurled one of the celtuce leaves, I found this guy.

However, after unfurling a dozen more leaves, I didn't find any other insect.  Researching the matter online, at the Wisconsin Russell Lab, I found that the insect I found was a bean leaf beetle, and not something I think would be creating the damage, but simply taking advantage of it for shelter.

I haven't found bean leaf beetles on anything in the past, but there is very close cropland that's sown in soybeans every other year.  Last year it was in corn, however, and no alfalfa was nearby, so I don't know where this guy has been all winter.

At any rate, I'm quite certain that beetle didn't cause the damage, and although I have a microscope, I didn't bother ito nvestigate further, because the new grapes I planted this year on the opposite end of the garden have had cupped leaves ever since it leafed out.

Other causes of leaf cupping, according to the information I found, include physiological factors caused by ... too much water.  I think that's probably the culprit, because we have certainly had too much water this spring.  It's been difficult just finding dry enough times to get things planted.  I'll keep a watch on the plants to see if they straighten out.  Assuming, of course, that it doesn't keep raining torrents.

The lettuce is still perfectly edible.  It tastes great.

The onions have sprouted up and are now readily visible.  Well, they were until I mulched the bed with grass clippings.

 Onions

I was very happy to see them, because the ground was so wet when I planted the seeds, and the weather cool enough, that I thought they might just rot, which is what happened to the cucumber seeds. 

Thankfully, I had also started some cucumbers indoors, so I had plants to set out under my wagon wheel. 

I'm starting to wonder what I'm going to do for composted garden soil when my compost pile is gone.  It's about a quarter of the size it was when I started the garden five years ago.  It consists of all the grass and top couple of inches of soil from the plot where the garden is situated, plus plant matter and compostable kitchen garbage in the intervening years.  Last year, I pulled all the Egyptian walking (bunch type) onions from the garden and threw them on the pile. They happily put down roots.

I've planted my extra melon starts there. 

This year, I bought crimson clover seed from Outside Pride, which I'm going to use as a cover crop.  The idea is that I can turn it under to act as green manure and substitute compost.  The reason I chose clover is that it has the added benefit of "fixing" nitrogen in the soil (like all legumes do), making the nitrogen readily available to other plants.  I don't know how this is going to work out, but I already planted it in a plot where only a few zinnia seeds germinated. If it works out well, I'll plant it everywhere a crop comes out in the fall.

Here's a little money-saving tip that I hit upon last week:  Peony rings and U-shaped plant supports are quite expensive; $10 - $20 each.  I have six peonies that I've been debating with myself about whether to put out that much money to support, or just  keep letting the flower stalks fall.  Then I realized I had three useless store-bought tomato cages that looked a lot like something that could support a peony.  They certainly don't support tomatoes - much too small.  I took wire cutters and cut them vertically so that the bottom ring and legs were separated from the top two rings.  That gave me one taller, and larger, piece, and one a bit shorter.  Then I cut those in half through the rings, giving me six supports that I could spread open  to whatever diameter I needed to support the front and sides of each peony, like a U-shaped support.

Those cages cost $3 or $4 each, as I recall.  You can buy them in several colors, as well as the plain galvanized ones, so the green ones would be perfect.  You just have to be careful not to poke yourself on the cut ends.  And you have to have access to a wire cutter.  If not, you could just use them as they come before the plants grow too large to place the rings around them and still save a fair bit of money.

Till next time.

Bees in the chives