Category: Garden

Posts about gardening and related topics, such as canning and maybe other aspects of food preservation.

Post #G21-037: Where are the Japanese beetles?

Edit:  Perhaps Nature has a sense of irony.  I went out to look at my garden just after noon today, only to find both Japanese beetles and a squash vine borer.  So, as it turns out, I was just half-a-day early with this.  And the stated range of dates for first emergence of Japanese beetles in Virginia is too narrow.  Today, here, the Japanese beetles showed up on June 26.

Original post follows.  I’m off to the hardware store for some beetle trap lures.

Sometimes problems are notable by their absence.  Today’s question is, where are the Japanese beetles this year? Continue reading Post #G21-037: Where are the Japanese beetles?

Post #G21-036: Name that disease!

It’s rare to find a plant disease to your garden that can’t be identified with diligent internet search.  This year, however, I have managed to achieve that.

The disease currently killing my summer squash started off as a dark-brown smear on some of the older leaves.  That’s the center of the picture, below.  It also produces a mottled brown discoloration of the leaves.

Whatever it is, once established, it seems to respect the leaf veins to some extent.  To the left, it appears to be staying away from the major leaf veins.  To the right, it actually outlines the minor leaf veins in brown. Continue reading Post #G21-036: Name that disease!

Post #G21-031: An obvious marketing opportunity, missed.

I’m growing patty-pan squash for the first time this year.  In doing my research, I got all kinds of information about germination times, time to maturity, disease resistance, and so on.

What nobody bothered to tell me is how darned cute the fruit are.  At least, for this variety.  Based on what I’ve seen pictured, I was all set to harvest fruit that looked like some sort of alien starfish.  But mine are turning out to be cute little yellow pumpkins.  Seriously, I was expecting ugly, and I got this instead.

Post #G21-030: Bee-proof sticky traps, and potential solutions to a cucumber beetle problem

This is a followup to Post #G21-029, where I made some bee-proof cages for yellow sticky traps.  By surrounding a sticky trap with 1/8″ mesh hardware cloth, I hoped to catch cucumber beetles and not catch bees, butterflies, or other beneficial insects. Continue reading Post #G21-030: Bee-proof sticky traps, and potential solutions to a cucumber beetle problem

Post #G21-029: Bee-proof cucumber beetle traps, Part 2

See Post #G21-028 for the background.  Briefly, I’m trying to get rid of cucumber beetles in my garden.  The last time I tried sticky traps for this I caught many beneficial insects along with cucumber beetles.  At which point, I called that a failure and tossed out the sticky traps.

Today’s question is, can I set up a sticky trap that will catch cucumber beetles and not catch beneficial insects?

In this post I show the simple construction of a “bee-proof” sticky trap.  It’s a sticky trap enclosed in a fine-mesh (1/8″ square) hardware cloth cage.

I have no idea yet whether or not these will work.  This post documents the construction of the bee-proof sticky traps.  Next post will give the results, if any. Continue reading Post #G21-029: Bee-proof cucumber beetle traps, Part 2

Post #G21-027: Cucumber beetles.

Source:  University of Kentucky

This year, I thought I’d avoid cucumber and summer squash pests by growing those vegetables as spring crops only.  Plant as early as possible, harvest what I can, then tear them out in early July and replace them with some heat-loving vegetables.  Instead of spending half my summer trying to defend those plants, the plan was to grow them when they are easy to grow, and replace them when their main pests arrived. Continue reading Post #G21-027: Cucumber beetles.