Well, the garden is looking happy for the most part! I'm not sure about the sweet peppers. They look a bit sickly to me.
The cucumbers are happy and beginning to climb.
See our first tiny little cucumber? Exciting!
Our in ground bed seems happy too. I love the neat look to our vine tomatoes. Last year I let them grow wild along the ground. (maybe a reason we harvested few?) We've already had two batches of pesto from our basil plants. (in the center).
A first, tiny zucchini.
I also added a green pepper to our containers.
& another variety of peppermint. Peppermint tea is a favorite of mine.
I also brought home an English Lavender (for lavender cake or cookies) & a yellow squash.
I was very excited about bringing home this artichoke seedling, but it soon began looking very holey! I've searched & searched for the culprit and can find nothing.
It also likes sage apparently. I'm thinking it may be something that likes to come out at night? Does anyone know what it might be?
I did find this little guy eating the gnome garden's Roman Chamomile but he's fairly obvious. If anyone has advice on organic pest control, like say what I can do to prevent more artichoke munching, I am all ears!
Until next time...
Posts
So I don't know if this will work for you, but we have had deer and bug pests in previous years and what I do is mix a spray bottle of water and 3 tablespoons of hot sauce. Then I mist the victimized plants. It worked for us and didn't hurt the plant- or effect their taste once harvested. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI have some hot sauce, I might try this. Thank you!
DeleteThat's a cut worm and he could be the one doing all the damage. The best controller of him is wasps--they lay their eggs on its back and when they hatch they eat the worm. Pretty neat system, but not much you can do to enforce it. You likely should take matters into your own hands and destroy him yourself. They can eat a LOT and you don't want him multiplying! Looking good though, we have never tried artichoke, I need to add that to our list!
ReplyDeleteThe green guy is a cutworm? Interesting. I haven't seen any more like him but I'll keep my vigil. Oh and now I've seen some bites taken out of my sunflower seedlings & my son found a grasshopper. Could the grasshopper be the one? Last year at fall we had a ton of them.
DeleteYour garden looks great! It's so exciting to see those first cukes and zukes, isn't it?! I'm not sure what's eating yours, but we've had trouble with bunnies and field mice. We finally had to build a fence to keep out the bunnies, then wrap it in plastic to keep out the field mice. It was quite a process, but we have no one eating our plants now. :)
ReplyDeletethank you! It is exciting!
DeleteYour garden looks great. We are in NC and have just started to see the yellow flowers on our tomatoes so seems I am a bit behind you in our growing season.
ReplyDeleteI planted peppermint in a containter too this year. It was looking great then something went wrong and it died back. I watered it again and pulled some of the brown bits off and am seeing tiny leaves returning. I was starting to feel a tad like a brown thumb because I read it is virtually impossible to kill mint. LOL
I love the idea of harvesting our own food.
I wouldn't feel bad, my chocolate mint was looking sad for awhile. It's starting to look better now. I took it out of our direct NM sun and have been watering like crazy.
DeleteI love harvesting our own food as well and can't wait to do more. I would love to me more self-sustaining.
No advice unfortunately but your garden is looking gorgeous!!
ReplyDeletethank you!
DeleteHey gardening minds think alike today! ;o)
ReplyDeleteYour garden looks great! You are so ahead of us here, lucky!
I would remove the victims from the garden and put them into pots higher up so that they have a chance to grow back some healthy leaves. I've successfully saved poor munched on plants by doing this and then babying them! Our sage started off in a 4" pot and is now in a 5 gallon pot. I've hacked it back many times so it's a pretty hardy herb! And so good in pinto bean patties! I've never grown artichokes, not sure if they grow up here?
Looking good!
xoxo
~ joey ~
Good idea to remove them. If I see anymore damage, I think I'll try that. I just pulled the one sage that was really bad. I have a couple more so I wasn't too sad.
DeleteWell, it certainly isn't me eating your artichokes (artichokes... bleah... you can have my share, but I'll have extra helpings of zucchini, cucumber & basil, please!) The usual suspect would be caterpillars causing your artichoke-woes. I think usually what is recommended is stuff called "insecticidal soap?" I think it's fairly benign, but worth researching just to make sure...
ReplyDeleteAh, summer gardens... we're going gangbusters with strawberries and should have green beans fairly soon. As for our tomatoes, we are thinking of taking out the plants we have and getting a different variety... the ones we have are looking a little bit sad.
xo
I'm dying to have berries but am scared to try and fail in NM heat! Have to do more research. Can you believe I've never eaten an artichoke? Was watching a suburban permaculture video and they had a artichoke in their front yard and it was so beautiful. My hubby loves them so thought we'd try it. Plus "Julie & Julia" make it look pretty yummy! Butter sauce, mmmmm, yes please!
DeleteDiatomaceous earth? Lots of crawly things won't crawl over it because it slivers them all up.
ReplyDeletehmmm, I'll have to try that. I had no idea what it was and just looked it up. Sounds perfect if they're caterpillars. Now I'm starting to suspect grasshoppers. If so maybe I should try the hot sauce spray or an essential oil spray or something. ?
DeleteThanks everyone for all of your suggestions. We've found some grasshoppers and now I'm wondering if it could be grasshopper damage? My sunflowers have bites taken out of them as well. Maybe an organic spray or the hot sauce spray might keep them away? Also I've plucked a couple of caterpillars off the basil & chamomile so I think Diatomaceous earth is in order as well. Thanks so much for your ideas!
ReplyDeleteI also have used Diatomaceous with good results for the outside of our house to keep bugs out, but be careful with it and your kids' eyes. I hope it all works out!
Deletethank you! Good to know.
DeleteWe just did some research on diatomaceous earth for treatment of fleas in the house and we learned that it's very nasty stuff if accidentally inhaled. It works by literally cutting the pest to death as the dust particles are super sharp and because it so easily becomes airborne it's really easy to breathe in.
DeleteWe decided against using it in the house.
Be safe,
~ joey ~
We have cats now too that annoyingly race across the garden at play. Sounds like we'd better not use it. Thanks so much for the info.
DeleteYour garden looks great and full of promise. Have you gone out at night with a torch? We did that when our seedlings were been eaten and found we were infested with earwigs - don't know I you even have them but hey can do a fair bit of damage.
ReplyDeleteI did, lol! MY husband thought I was crazy. I didn't find anything though.
DeleteYour garden is looking amazing! So lush and green. Good luck tracking down the culprit, we also have one eating our spinach leaves at the moment.
ReplyDeleteHave a lovely weekend
Linda