Attack of the Potato Beetles

I wrote this a week or so ago, but when I tried to add some pictures, it seemed to disappear, so I didn't post it, but now I found it in the draft file, so I may as well post.  I will do pictures separate.

How does the garden grow? 

Weather has been warm and dry.  No rain for many weeks.  Garden has been growing well.  We have been eating salad greens, lettuce, turnips, spinach, broccoli and peas. 

We planted four cauliflower plants and three out of four bolted before they produced a head.  That is my typical experience with cauliflower. One of the hardest things to grow. 

We ended up with a total of 56 tomato plants.  A few we planted didn't make it, but we picked up some more.  We gave some plants away, but have 56 in the end.  Plants look nice.  I few small green tomatoes on some plants.  We'll see.  If they all produce well, we will have to open a stand or something.

Now to the potato beetles.  We planted a couple of rows of potatoes.  Four varieties.  They have grown really well, with a few exceptions, each hill is big and green.  However, the other evening I noticed some orange colored bugs munching away on some of the leaves.  I thought I recognized them, and so I looked them up and they were what I expected.  The dreaded Colorado potatoe beetle.  They are kind of a famous bug.  They are a little light green bettle that can fly.  They lay eggs on the underside of potato leaves and the eggs hatch into organge colored larvae, which proceed to munch on the plant.  Both the larvae and the adult bugs eat the leaves.  They are famous because they are a pest that has repeatedly developed  resistance to pesticides.  DDT and other pesticides stopped working on them much quicker that people ever thought possible.

The thing that amazes me about this pest, and some others, is how did they find my potatoes?  There are no potatoes growing anywhere for miles away from me in any direction.  These potatoes are in an area of the garden where I have never had potatoes before, so I cannot imagine that the pest was in the soil somewhere.  I have wondered about this before.  The little bugs that specialize in various crops--the worms that attack the tips of sweet corn--the bugs that get on broccoli and cabbage.  They are specialists and I wonder how they find that particular plant in my garden.  One of the mysteries.

Anyway, what did I do about the beetles on my potatoes?  Even if they weren't resistent to most pesticides, we are organic gardeners (mostly, just a few exceptions).  So last evening I used the old fashioned ten finger remedy.  I put on a latex glove and smashed them one by one.  The things I do for my garden.  Completely disgusting, I know.  I only found three adult beetles, but hundreds of larvae.  They had not really done that much damage yet, but there were sure lots of them and at least one or two on almost every plant.

I walked by the plants this morning to see if I could see more bugs, since I am sure that I missed some, but I actually couldn't see any on a quick walk by, and the plants seemed to be happy.  I imagined them thanking me.  I hope they thank me by making some great potatoes!

Tomato insanity

Garden update:  We started an early spring garden, as we usually do if the weather permits.  We planted broccoli, cabbage, bok choy, carrots (three kinds), red and yellow beets, three kinds of peas, lettuces of various kinds, swiss chard, three kinds of onions, spinach, onions and leeks.  I think that is all.  No.  I forgot, also turnips and radishes.  It has all done well.  We have eaten the first batch of broccoli, lots of lettuce, radishes, bok choy.  Peas are just about to come on.  We had a great salad yesterday and today with five kinds of lettuce, radishes, chives and greens from the garden.  We also had a good asparagus crop this year.  That is a perrenial crop, not something we plant every year, but we have about 50 feet of asparagas established in the back.

These are the potatoes and a bed of carrots beets and spinach.  I planted four kinds of potatoes.  Yukon gold, kenebec (brown), pontiac red, some purple potatoes I saw at J & L and thought I would try, and then I had a little more room so I planted some potatoes we had in storage from last year that were starting to sprout.  Not sure the variety.  Potatoes are growing very well, as you can see.  We are just now using the last of our onions and potatoes that we grew and stored from last year. 

                                                                         Onions.

Now this is where the insanity comes in.  We have planted 53 tomato plants.  Honest.  We didn't mean to, really, it just happened.  We couldn't stop.  Someone please make us stop!  Please!

These are the varieties and the number of plants:

Speckled Roman  8
Opalka  8
Big Beef  10
Bib Mamma  8
Big Daddy 1
San Marzano 1
Parks Whopper 3
Juliette 6
Heirloom 6
Goliath 3

How could this happen, you ask.  Well, this year I decided to start some tomatoes from seed indoors.  I have tried in the past and never got very good results.  They were weak and spindly and never seemed to do well.  So, not really thinking my home started ones would work out, I also ordered some plants from a couple of garden stores.  I wanted to try some new varieties.  I like to try ones that you cannot buy at Home Depot, if you know what I mean.  But the plants that I started did quite well, actually.  The Speckled Roman, Opalka and Heirlooms are all ones that I started and I got more of them than I had thought.  Then we "had" to order some Big Beefs and Bid Mamas because those are two varieties that have won us blue ribbons at the State Fair for a couple years running.  Then some neighbors gave us some Parks Whoppers, then Eva thought if we are going to have that many, we may as well have some more Juliettes, since they are really good.  You can all say it now to us:  all together:  "you are nuts!"

I do not know what we will do with all the tomatoes.  Eva says she is going to sell them at the Bountiful farmers market. 

Oh, and just in case I forget to mention it, we also planted 48 pepper plants.  Really.

Japapeno  9
Cayenne long 10
Mini belle 8
Golden treasure 5
ancho  3
golden giants 3
yum yum 5
Big Daddy 2
Hot red 3

Same deal.  I started some from seeds (cayenne long, jalapenos and mini belle) and they did really well.  Others we ordered or picked up or whatever. 

We also started some celery.  No one grows it because it is hard to do and the results are not nearly as good as the celery you buy, but we can't resist.  We started the seeds indoors and transplanted them and we have 22 celery plants, 12 of a variety called "Utah" (really--you never knew Utah was known for its celery, but it actually is) and 10 of a variety called "golden."

So I may need to join some kind of 12 step program for compulsive gardeners.  Maybe you all need to stage an intervention or something. 

I will keep you informed about how the tomatoes and peppers do and more importantly, what we do with them. And my state of sanity, which is at present obviously in question.

Finally, our yard has looked particularly nice this Spring.  Thought I would share: 

Iris have been particularly good this year.

 

New Neighbors

News from the Farm.  A young couple with three little ones bought the house next door, the one that has been rented since we moved here.  We are glad that we will have permanent neighbors. We invited them and the Howards and the Davises over on Monday night for hamburgers and hot dogs and treats.  We all had a great time.  For FHE we all went over and helped them put in thier garden.  I tilled the whole thing and others planted seeds and plants.  That is the new couple in the background. 

Only thing we are concerned about is that they told me they want to put up a fence.  They are worried about their kids falling in the creek.  I am okay with a fence, but they wanted to put up a privacy vinyl fence.  I asked them to reconsider.  We want to maintain the rural atmosphere.  So I confess our party on Monday had an ulterior motive.  We had such a nice time, playing frisbee, working in the garden.  It was great.  Our flowers looked great, lawn was nice.  I think they got the idea that this is a special place and we do not want to turn it into a subdivision.  I hope they did.  I think we will end up with a fence, but something that will preserve the atmosphere a little more.

Eva putting the finishing touch on the neighbor's garden. 

Welcome to the Ellsworths. 

May 12, 2012, was Bryce's graduation from the BrandCenter. 

Here is the graduate in all his glory.  He looks masterful, I think.

Bryce waiting to come into graduation.  Dig them barrets!

Day after graduation, we went for a hike to Belle Isle.  Historical site that is now a park in Richmond.

This picture may not look like much, but it is here because it reminds us of something very meaningful that happened to us.  My Mom and Dad, Eva and I, were all there in Richmond VA for Bryce's graduation from The Brandcenter at Virginia Commonwealth University.  We arrived Friday evening and had dinner at a Cuban restaurant (Bryce's choice) which was good food and atmosphere. 

Bryce's graduation event was just for the Brandcenter--we did not participate with the rest of the university.  The event started at 3:00 p.m on Saturday and Bryce was supposed to be there at 2:30.  We decided to all go down to Williamsburg VA, the colonial history site, Saturday morning.  We had a nice visit there for several hours.  It is about a 40 minute drive from Richmond.  We left Williamsburg in plenty of time to make it back to Richmond for the graduation.  We stopped on the way back for some fast food lunch.  It was Dad, who was driving his rental car, Bryce, Eva, Mom and me in the car.  Dad mentioned that he needed to get some gas and we thought we would get it where we got off the freeway for lunch, but there was no gas station at that exit so Dad said he thought he had enough gas to make it to Richmond so we started back north on the freeway. 

We had only gone a few miles when the traffic ahead of us came to a complete stop.  We could not see what the problem was, but it was obvious the freeway was completely closed down.  We could see people ahead of us getting out of their cars and walking around on the shoulder.  It was a four lane divided freeway, with a band of trees between us and the lanes going south.  There was no way to exit or get off.  We saw a helicopter flying ahead of us, obviously off in the distance it was heading to land on the freeway.  Life flight.  We looked at the clock and realized that with the freeway closed and at least several miles of traffic backed up, there was no way we were going to make it to Bryce's graduation in time.  Bryce would not be making it to his own graduation.  We all felt sick and knew how much it would hurt Bryce. 

My Dad only hesitated for a minute or two and then he turned the wheel to the right and started driving north on the shoulder, passing all the cars that were stopped.  A few people waved at us like "who do you think you are?" and one honked.  We had to wait for some people who were standing around to get out of the way.  But we gradually moved past all the traffic.  When some people made rude gestures at us, Dad just pointed at Bryce.  He had to get his grandson to his graduation.  Dad said later that if the police would have given him a ticket he would have just told them the same. 

Hard to say how far it was.  A couple of miles at least.  We were lucky there was a wide shoulder all the way, that there were no bridges or obstacles.  We went all the way up to near the accident scene.  There was a spot about 10 cars back of the road block where we could pull in in front of truck.  So we did.  Still, we didn't know how long it would be until they opened the road.  We watched the clock.  We waited.  Waited some more.  Watched the clock.  Checked and re-checked the GPS. 

Eventually the helicopter took off and they opened the road.  Bryce and I have GPS on our phones so we checked what it said about how long it would take to get to Richmond.  It would be close.  The GPS also showed stop and go traffic again up by Richmond.  Sure enough as we neared Richmond there was a sign saying construction ahead.  So Bryce had us get off the freeway some ways before his normal exit and we worked our way across Richmond on the surface streets.  All the while Dad is saying he is out of gas, but we were saying if we stop we won't make graduation. 

We had planned to go to our hotel and change and take Bryce by his house to get his cap and gown and change clothes, but we obviously couldn't do that so we just went by Bryce's house where he ran in and grabbed the bag with his cap and gown in it, a shirt and tie and shoes and he changed in the car as Dad drove to the Church where they were holding the graduation.  Dad muttering that we must be running on fumes. 

We pulled in front of the Church at ten minutes to three.   Bryce jumped out of the car right where the students were lined up to enter the Church.  His classmates cheered when they saw him jump out of the car.  Mom, Eva and I got out of the car there too and went into the graduation services.  We were dressed in our casual clothes but very glad to be there. 

Dad went and got gas for the car and came back and parked in the no parking zone in front of the Church so that he could be there in time for the graduation.  (He was not ticketed.) I asked Dad how much gas the car took.  He said that he had looked it up in the car manual in the glove box and the car had taken one-tenth more gas than the maximum capacity of the tank!!!!

As I look back on it now, I honestly feel we were blessed.  One of those tender mercies.  Bryce really would have been hurt to miss his graduation.  It was important to him and to all of us.  So many things had to work out just so so that he could make it there. 

Another classic Isaacson adventure!  Thanks Dad.  I doubt if I would have had the guts to do that!

Hi Folks,

Thought it would be fun to join the blog family.  I know how much I enjoy reading everyone's blog and realized that maybe you all would like to see what is going on with us.  I also want to keep a garden journal this year--mostly for myself, but others may be interested.  This short blog is just a test. I am learning the ropes here.