Bug Horror!

So it has come to this.  I, the person who has trouble pulling weeds because I don't want to hurt 'them', have now become a major thorn in the side to stink bugs.  And by thorn in the side I of course mean I am killing them.  Killing lots of them unfortunately.

Time was when I didn't kill them.  My scenario was to just ignore them for as long as I could and then abandon the tomato plants when things got too buggy.  Then I thought I should just net the tomato fruit so the bugs would not get on them.  This resulted in my discovery that netting tomatoes is made difficult by this thing called a tomato plant.  It worked, but it was very hard to get the netting material all around the tomatoes and the netting had to be placed on every set fruit or else the stink bug hoards would descend.

As the netting process became more arduous, I resorted to killing the multitudes of stink bug babies.  I chose them as my victims for the sole reason that I could do it without touching them with my hands.  My method was to place a small container under the area the babies had congregated (usually a tomato) and then shake the branch causing the babies to fall into the container.  The first few times I did this I then added soapy water into the container to take care of the 'business'.  Soon though I left off the watery death in favor of crushing them beneath my foot.  I figured at least it was quick.

This gardening year my bug killing behavior has further evolved.  No longer do I use the container unless there are a multitude of babies in a hard to reach location.  Now I just grab them with my gloved hand.  I think it has helped that I got a new type of glove this year.  A Playtex Living Glove that comes up my forearm like some sort of rubberized gauntlet.

I purchased these gloves because I wanted something to use when I watered the plants.  We are afflicted by dribbling water nozzles.  No matter how you tighten them or use pipe tape, they dribble like some incontinent little creature all down your hand and wrist.  Regular gloves become drenched and then have to dry out before being used again.  The Playtex gloves are waterproof and the additional length means I can water impervious to both dribbly nozzles and the ever present mosquitoes.

The people at Playtex are savvy about the gardening uses of these gloves.  First of all they made them a very attractive green color and second of all they came with a free packet of flower seeds.  Smart move Playtex.  What I wasn't expecting was the bug invincibility shield these new gloves have given me.

Take for example today.  I did in over two dozen stink bugs hand harvested off of my tomato plants just like yesterday and the day before (gah - what a horrible, horrible year of bug this has been) - all with my Playtex gauntleted hand.  Mind you there was a moment or two where I was cringing in anticipation of some sort of aggressive bite from the stink bug as I clasped their little bodies.  No worries - either these bugs don't have a bite capability or the gloves are impervious.

Now I am sure you are wondering, just as my husband asked me - 'What do you do with the bugs after you grab them?'  I throw them onto the ground and stomp on them.  I wish I could say that I do all of this with a suave, matter of fact nonchalance, but the truth is, a keen observer would see a little bit of sissy prancing in my manner.

Yes, it weirds me out this 'killing of bugs' and from the moment I spy the critter to the moment I am frantically stomping on the beasty I am in a highly stressed out frenzy.  I liken it to the way my dogs address the tree roach problem in our home.

Being as how it is a paradise of heat and humidity, the Texas gulf coast has quite an assortment of bugs.  There is quite a list to pick from but the worst of the bugs in my opinion is what is often called a tree roach.  It goes by several names including Palmetto bug, but it is classically called the American roach, Periplaneta americana.  I have been horrified and disgusted by these creatures ever since my childhood where I can recall many instances of run-ins involving the awful things flying around rooms as well as other diabolical actions.  The horror.

Since I choose to live a life without pesticides other than those considered organic, my choices in pest control are limited.  Periodically we dust our household floors with boric acid and sprinkle it in cabinets and that does quite a good job of controlling their breeding indoors.  However, being as how our old house is for want of a better term - porous - in its assortment of nooks, crannies and holes to the outside, there are always new volunteers of tree roaches joining us from the great beyond.  So, there are frequent roach episodes indoors.

Ensign Wasp - Photo by Muhammad Mahdi Karim

We have an ally in a little parasitic wasp who plants its eggs in the egg cases of tree roaches.  These little torso-less wasps as I call them are always inside during the summer.  For the longest time I would place them back outside thinking I was doing them a favor.  Then I looked them up and realized they were actually doing us a favor by preying on the tree roaches.  Now I let them go where they want.

We also employ another organic roach killer which is also known as a Westie.  Every since his childhood he has revealed an impressive skill at finding, catching and killing those horrible roaches.  For this noble job he receives cheese.  Even though we have also had a Mini Schnauzer and now a Border Collie, none have rivaled his roach killing skill.  The Mini Schnauzer would not even try, knowing no doubt that even though he was not involved, he would get cheese anyway each time a roach met its demise via Westie.  In short, the Westie was subsidizing his brother.  The Border Collie on the other hand shows a desire to do in the roaches.  It is just that she is not as efficient.

Westie - aka Roach Bane

When the Westie discovers a roach he goes boldly toward it and swoops in to grab the hideous thing in his mouth where he swiftly delivers a death bite and then spits the disgusting thing out.  The Border Collie can find the roaches, that is not the problem, she is actually very good at this part.  She can even rush towards them in hot pursuit.  However when it comes to actually putting that nasty roach in her mouth, she balks.  Who could blame her.  Her method instead is to try and stamp on the roach with her front feet.  This seldom has the desired effect and the roach usually gets away.  However, recently her method did take out the intended prey and she proudly earned her own cheese.

Border Collie - aka Roach Dancer

The Border Collie stamp method and my stamp the stink bug method have a lot in common. Both of us know we have a job to do and both of us really don't want to do what is most effective.  She doesn't want to put the bug in her mouth and I don't want to squash the bug with my hand.

So we dance.

Vegetable Bondage

You would think that as an inanimate object, a plant would stay where you put it.  However, inanimate is not the most accurate term for something that in certain cases can grow nearly a foot a day.  Slowly animate would be more precise.  Ruthlessly, persistently, and insidiously animate would be much closer to the truth.

It all starts off so small and barren.  I am talking about the garden each year.  Even though I have gone through this for decades and know the chaos that ultimately results, each year at the beginning it looks so peaceful.  Look at it.  So sweet and reasonable.  Look at all those cute little plants - vegetable puppies really.

Look at them all getting along in their own spaces all compact and orderly...

Then bam! Out comes the vegetable equivalent of a shiv.

Okay, so that is a 'bit' melodramatic, but honestly I do think they would stab each other if they could.

I have learned a lot in my gardening efforts about proper spacing of plants, mostly through trial and error- with the emphasis very heavy on error.  If you don't give your plants enough room they will take it by force if necessary and bad things will happen.  Bad things like plants being smothered, bugs having a heyday in the congested mess and fruit being lost in the jungle until it must be registered as a weapon (ah yes, the cucumber baseball bat).

I have also learned a lot about what works as a containment system for plants through again, many, many failures.  If the garden plants were a business, every year they would meet and exceed their forecasted growth.

So now in my umpteenth year of organic gardening I will share with you my vegetable containment experience on what does and does not work.

Tomato Cages

 

My Tomato Supermax prison

Tomatoes are absolutely the worst plant to contain.  This is not just my opinion, but one that is shared by every other gardener as evidenced by the enormous industry that is devoted to tomato caging systems.  Entire companies are built around the desire of gardeners to have some way to control tomatoes.  The problem is that tomatoes do not desire to be controlled. They are in truth a vine although we think of them more like a bush.  They are a vine with multiple branches that can grow seven to ten feet in length.

To try and contain these vine like bushes, there are many different types of tomato cages on the market.  For example:

Ohh.  Looks great - like some big tomato spring.  This will be perfect unless the tomato plant does not become narrower as it grows.  Unfortunately, most tomatoes grow like an inverted pyramid of vigorous green branches and leaves.

Well, here is an inverted pyramid like shape.  I see these all the time, so they must be very effective, unless you have a tomato plant that grows taller than 3 feet.  Unfortunately, most tomato plants grow at least six feet tall.

Well, this one is boxy, so it must be great.  Look at all those tomatoes. This would be perfect unless again you have a tomato plant that grows taller than three feet.

Well this one looks taller at least.  It does not however depict the true tomato growth which is not just up, but also very much out in a 365 degree pattern.  Soon you will have a tomato cylinder.

These are all great looking and seem like they will do a splendid job, except for one small detail.  In none of these images do we actually see a live tomato plant using the cage.  These are artist depictions and perhaps that is why they are so effective in selling the products.  They offer the buyer the illusion of tomato control.  They indicate that the solution to the 'tomato problem' is easily remedied by the application of money to the purchase of a simple device.  It is all great if what you are wanting is a beautiful fantasy.  The unfortunate reality is that tomatoes don't want to be controlled.  Tomatoes are hulking beasts ready to burst forth on the planet with vegetable furor.  Take for example this scenario:

Okay, so that is not exactly what happens, but close.  As a child, this particular movie "Day of the Triffids" was the ultimate in fear inducing horror.  Little did I know it was just a foreshadowing of my gardening days to come.

Here we have a cute little tomato plant just a couple of months old.  Look how dignified it seems all happy in its provided space.  There is plenty of room to grow and lots of space.  Bunches of space.

Here it is just two months later.  You can practically see it slobbering in its mad determination to escape the cage.  And it is just getting started.  Within the next two months it will be growing over seven feet tall and spreading an additional seven feet if it gets its way (somewhat Triffid like, don't you think?).

You can get good tomato cages, but you have to know what to look for.

The best tomato cages for sale are robust and tall and also conveniently collapse down after the season so you don't have to resort to an arc welder to break them apart the next year you want to use them.

Look at all the pretty, pretty colors of tomato cages...

They don't look as pretty all tangled...

This is probably the best tomato cage on the market.  It is robust, tall and even better, collapses down after use.  (Texas Tomato Cages)

The problem with the best tomato cages for sale is that they ask a substantial price for them.  It is a good business because desperate tomato growers will pay practically anything to solve the tomato dilemma. 

But you don't have to pay a lot for your tomato cages.  You can also build them.  Effective tomato cages are built by people who have tried the fantasy offerings and found themselves outpaced by the relentless growth of a plant who once established will not cease in its quest to sprawl.  There are many inventive designs out there by folk who have dealt with this menace and found their own solutions. 

This gardener understands tomatoes.

There are also a whole bunch of things that are more 'experimental' and good intentions than actual tried and true solutions.  My personal journey into someone else's solution was the 'Florida weave method'.

I ran across this method and was intrigued by the simplicity.  Just a couple of stakes and some string.

Some of the images were a little more complex, but the system was very simple.

Basically, you just place your plants between the poles and then weave the string front and back of the plants.  As they grow, you just add another layer of string.  There were many, many different examples and lots of directions of how to make this system work.

One year I set my entire gardening support system up with this method, including tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers.  It was not hard to set up and not hard initially to wind around the plants, but without direct staking overhead, the plants would droop.  I found I had to bind them very tightly and to add string about every other day to stay ahead of the growth.  Because the plants shared the support system, their growth merged and soon their combined growth created an impenetrable mass.  This made it difficult to pick fruit, or even find fruit.  It also unfortunately led to the demise of my tomato crop that year.  One plant from a nursery brought in a case of late blight, which due to the entwined growth of the plants soon spread to every tomato plant and decimated the crop.

It also left me with several hundred feet of string which promptly became a tangle mass.  I gave up on the Florida weave after my first year with it.

My final tomato solution has been the 3/4 cage made of wire fencing and very tall bamboo poles. 

Found at most home improvement stores, this type of fencing comes in various sizes.  Get the tallest you can find.

Bamboo poles (3) support the front and back.  You simply roll out a section of fence, cut it and then wrap it loosely around the poles.  I suggest the tallest poles you can find.  This design will allow you to add fencing to the top of the set up, using the poles for support.

This is not a perfect method in that the tomatoes still try to escape.

They also must be bound in on the open side. Yet, it is this open side that makes this cage so effective.  From this opening you will be able to reach the entire tomato plant which will aid picking fruit as well as keeping the plant neat.  I have found that trimming out excess leaves and branches is essential to maintaining a robustly growing tomato plant.  The wideness of this cage allows the plant to be contained within it (for the most part) without further binding.  Those shoots that grow outside the cage can easily be tied to the outside of the structure. 

The top of the cage has to be added to as they grow ever taller, but this is easy to do with separate pieces of the same fencing material..  This system has been the best for support and also allows me to segregate the tomatoes to prevent the sharing of diseases and pests.

Cucumber Trellis

Cucumbers love to be trellised.  Well, let me correct that.  Cucumbers love to grow their little vines up and over things.  They are not discriminating in what they will climb on.  If you happen to stand still too long near the cucumber patch it is possible they will begin to climb you.

Cucumbers also have these little tendrils that reach out and upon coming into contact with something, will begin to wind around it, pulling the vine of the plant near.  These little tendrils seem heart-breakingly dear and tender until they are wrapped around something they should not be climbing on and resist with impressive tensile strength your attempts to remove them.  This results in the dear little tendril breaking, or with equal likelihood, the plant it was attached to breaking.

I have experimented with several trellis supports for cucumbers, including 'teepee', The Florida Weave, and single poles.  The best method I have come across is using wire fencing strung between two fence posts.

Simple, effective and rather boring...

Now, one might think with such an excellent support system ready and waiting for them, the dear little cucumber plants would rush to climb their trellis.  However, I believe that cucumber plants are basically very near sighted and refuse to wear glasses.  They stumble around with their arms outstretched in various directions which typically does not include the trellis.  Once their little 'hands' have touched something they will latch on.  Taking them off is the equivalent of removing a clutching cat from a bath towel.  They cling.

Even with these 'guides' trying to direct it to the trellis, this cucumber plant is still reeling about drunkenly waving it tendrils in random directions.

Here again is the guide pulling it toward the trellis while the cucumber leans vigorously away.  Don't think it is just 'growing toward the light'.  They grow in multiple directions at once, each plant just heading out randomly in a chaotic pattern.

This one looks like it might continue toward the trellis, but who knows.  Let it grow another day or two and I might find it turned 90 degrees and latched onto a passing bird.

So the cucumber, excellent climbers that they are, need assistance and constant monitoring.  They grow quickly and are quite fussy about having their direction changed.  They will pout with leaves all mussed up for about three days if you let them start growing in a direction then move them.

Their constant need of constraint caused me to look into various means of bondage. 

Twine, Bands and other Bondage Devices

Here again is a topic that is very near and dear to the hearts of gardeners everywhere.  We seek out things to tie up our plants and are always looking for new and different ways to do it.  Mind you I am pretty sure most gardeners stop short of handcuffs, but considering some of the plant mayhem in the average garden I am sure some of us have thought about it.

Of course businesses are there to make sure we have all of our plant securing needs met.

Jute twine is considered the thing to use.  I, however, find this abrasive cord to be unpleasant to touch.  It also has the disadvantage of being unlikely to survive for re-use.  Yet it is very inexpensive. 

These twist ties are nice if you have something small to bind to something close by.  It takes quite a few of these to totally meet the binding needs of the average tomato plant.  They are very handy because you don't have to tie a knot - something to consider when you are wearing gloves.

This is the new style of twist tie.  It is just wire with a soft plastic coating and you can cut it to length.  This would work, but although ten feet sounds like a lot, you would find yourself running out in no time at all.

Now we are talking new age plant ties.  Velcro has the advantage of being soft, cut to length, and re-useable.  It also makes that great sound when you tear it apart.  Perhaps not so good for those stealthy ninja gardeners.  This pack would cost about $6 for 75 feet making it a somewhat expensive proposition.

For me though, I prefer two different choices:

Nylon twine has the advantage of being soft and gentle on my hands and the plants.  It also is totally re-usable, if you can find a way to keep it from tangling.

It does have a disadvantage in that it won't stay tied with just one or two knots.  I get around this by using slip knots and the fact that it unties relatively easily helps me reuse it.

My favorite of favorite gardening bondage devices is panty hose.  I am not talking about using the hose intact.  What you do is cut the hose into multiple bands.  You can get about 60 ties from each pair of queen sized panty hose.  You will have most from the legs which can stretch to about a foot long loop.  You will also have longer lengths from the waist area of the hose which are tougher and can stretch about three feet or more depending on whether you get a control top version of panty hose.

Using pantyhose for the garden delights me in a number of ways.  The bands are very soft, resilient and easy to use.  Being a loop, it can be bound with one end around the trellis and then the other end can just be placed around the plant.  They can be reused year after year.  You can find panty hose for $1 or less per pack which means 60 bands for very little cost.  But most of all.  Most of all - they are the best thing ever to do with panty hose.  Forget wearing the cursed things - I make my plants wear them.

That's all for now.  I just know those cucumbers are meandering off in some random direction.

Happy Gardening!

The Spring 2013 Line Up

It is that exciting time of year when hope springs eternal because it is spring.  The weather is mild and still cool.  We had a recent series of rain showers.  The mosquitoes have yet to make an appearance.  There could not be a more wonderful and more 'waiting for the shoe to drop' time of year than this.  It is great, but it won't last.

Instead of dwelling on the upcoming horror that is the summer I am keeping my sights on the current moment and reveling in the garden.  This year's garden is the best yet.  I can't wait to introduce you to the starting line up.

If you have been following this blog from last year, you may recall how we spent a lot of time and effort transforming our ceder fence garden from several six foot by six foot beds into three foot by six foot beds.  We also installed a water line down the back of each bed and installed drip hoses into each of ten beds.  Whew!  What an effort, but at least we won't have to redo the beds again since we got them so perfect...

The briefly perfect 2012 garden...

Ha ha!  Oh how naive I was to think that.  No, actually our perfect beds were not so perfect after all and this year we fixed them.  Last year we had each bed surrounded by a back pathway, a front pathway and a pathway in between each bed.  Each of these paths were about 22 inches wide.  Why 22 inches?  Because that was all the room I felt we would need to navigate and quite frankly was all the room I begrudgingly wanted to give up for something 'unnecessary' like a path.  You know, the thing you will walk down when your arms are loaded with harvest.  That walkway you will travel countless numbers of times as you attend to the gardens needs.  That thoroughfare that will become so choked with vines and abundant growth you will think malevolent thoughts of vegi-icide just so you can make your way through without tripping for the four billionth time.

Hmmm... I know there was a pathway around her somewhere...

So it turned out that 22 inches was not nearly enough room, especially between the beds and the ceder fence.  Heck, my shoulder width is 22 inches so each walk down that path meant rubbing up against the ceder fence (there was also this remnant of a fence post that was strategically placed in nearly the center of that 22 inch pathway.  A post that we were going to remove but never got around to.  A post that was about thigh high, the exact height which can be measured by the scars of where I rammed into it on at least half a dozen occasions leaving wounds and many more torn pants, torn shirts and narrow misses.  God how I hated that inanimate object by the end of last year...).

The front pathway of last years beds became lost in a vegetable haze of overgrowth from the garden beds met by Bermuda grass from the lawn.  Walking that path meant sliding along the dog fence and hippity hopping over vines, plants and tall weeds.  Some places you would just have to detour up an in-between path to the back path before you could proceed up the front of the garden again.  Definitely a cartoon map of Billy's path from Family Circus if ever drawn out.

My husband first suggested we widen the ceder fence path.  My first response was 'but, but, nooooooo!' followed by the quick recognition of his wisdom.  We could just take out the useless front path and move the beds forward to butt up against the dog fence.  Not only would this give us a wider back pathway, but also add several inches onto the bed length.  All it meant was digging out the front path, removing soil from the back of the bed and re-framing each bed.  Hard, relentless labor?  Sign me up!

It was awful but in a mercifully limited way.  The Bermuda grass covering the front path was tenacious and difficult to get rid of.  There were thick cement blocks, about half a dozen, sunk into the ground and hard to remove.  Along several sections I had created a rock pathway, which was totally overgrown with grass.  Not only did we have to move the dirt from the back of the garden, but also pull up the water system we had so diligently installed last year.

On top of all of this work, we decided that the ceder fence path should be paved.  No more of this unsteady footing, muddy walk and treachery.  We were going to put down plastic to block the weeds and brick in that pathway.  Piece of cake!

What a back breaking cake that was.  But it is done.  Many weeks of labor later it is done, all except cementing in the bricks (check in next year when I lament my decision to cement the path and am chipping through the bricks for some yet unfathomable reason). Last year I calculated that I must have moved a whales weight of dirt and stones in my gardening efforts.  This year I am pretty sure I moved that whale again.

Ah yes.  Moby Dirt.

So we now are living the 2013 Spring Gardening Nirvana.  Here is what is different this year:

The ceder fence pathway:

No longer will we have to lurch through a too small area encountering wayward fence posts and muddy footing.  It is about 3/4 done and just needs some quick set concrete swept into the spaces, a sprinkling of water and viola - our garden super highway.

The back 40:

This was the last untamed land of our garden as it looked in 2012.  Clumps of clay filled gumbo soil, tough roots, resilient weeds, and piles of rock were all that grew here.

What a difference a ton of backbreaking labor can make!

In addition to several new beds, this area also has strategically placed stepping stones to aid in squash vine navigation...

and a drainage system to keep it from getting boggy.

18 garden beds:

I think we may have finally maxed out our garden bed potential this year.  Although, next year we may find a way to put a bed in some underused corner of our yard - or who knows -  maybe even start gardening on the roof. 

Sand:

We needed some sand to help fill in some low areas of the yard and also use as a soil amendment.  We figured that we needed around 4 yards of sand.  However, upon checking with a local 'sand dealer' we were informed that the only amount of sand we could have delivered was 8 yards.  So after some internet research we found that an 8 yard pile of sand would easily fit in our front yard and we (meaning my husband) would have only about 50 wheel barrow loads to bring around to the back.  Okay - let's get some sand...

Well, about 30 wheel barrow loads served to fill in some low spots and even out most of the back yard.  This made no appreciable dent in the hulking sand pile in our front yard.

90 wheel barrow loads later and there are still about 20 more loads left in the pile in the front yard.  We have this chest high sand berm along the back yard fence, along with the two other piles taking up space in our compost area.  Suffice it to say, the sand company was very, very generous in their delivery quantity and it is likely we will have all the sand we could possibly need for the rest of our lives.

A cooler spring:

Based on the photographic evidence from last year, our cool spring is having a dampening effect on our vegetable crop.  We have not lost any plants due to freezing weather and most lows were in the 40s.  We had several weeks where the temperatures did not rise above 70 degrees.   I could see some minor leaf damage, but overall nothing seemed to be strongly effected.  Then I took a look at my pictures and found some shocking comparisons.  We planted at the same time last year, but by this time in 2012 I had already harvested my first crop of green beans.  This year the first tiny little beans have just set.  Last year the tomatoes were already bigger than my fist, but this year they are about golf ball sized so far.  The butternut squash had a large sized fruit in April 2012.  This year it is yet to start blooming.  The worst effect seems to be on the okra plants.  Leaf size last year at this time was triple the size of the leaves of the 2013 okra.  The little plants look as if they have been in some sort of suspended animation.

The good news is that the plants are all doing very well and I am pretty sure they will catch up as soon as we have warmer night time temperatures.  Don't get me wrong.  I personally have been enjoying the cool weather and it has allowed me to do far more in the garden with far less personal suffering.  It is interesting though how much difference there is in the plant growth.

Coming soon - an in depth look at this years garden participants.

Happy Gardening.