The Blog of Dre.: May 2009

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Thursday May 28, 2009 - 6:11pm - Overcast 17 °C

The tomatoes in plug trays are in serious need of transplanting - I will be doing so very soon at my uncles farm in a 4 ft x 24 ft raised bed that I amended last weekend with plenty of manure (purchased composted sheep and cow, as well as aged goat manure from the farm) as well as equal parts Wegeners' general fertilizer 8-4-5, bone plus bloodmeal 7-5-0 and bonemeal 2-14-0

Five square pots are currently planted with a Jalepeno, Gypsy F2, Sweet Banana, Red Bell pepper, and Yellow Bell Pepper. Five more pots have been prepared and have yet to be planted.

Four more tomato bins, these ones will be huge! as I have provided all the neccessary nutrients, and a large volume of soil for the roots. Big root mass = Big above-ground plant mass. To two 3 cubic foot bags of Premier Promix I've added one bag of sheep manure, one bag of cow manure and equal parts of Wegener's organic garden food 8-4-5, bone meal plus blood meal 7-5-0, and bone meal 2-14-0. This mix managed to fill up the 4 bins. A duplicate mix was created but mixed with some existing soil from last season - this time it filled 5 of the smaller square pots as well as a large round tub and a medium round pot. These last pots to be filled have not yet been planted.

I planted Zucchini (Dark Green a.k.a Black Beauty and Spineless Beauty Hybrid) and Cucumbers (Babylon Hybrid, Diva Hybrid, Eureka Hybrid, Armada Hybrid, Salad Bush Hybrid, and Spacemaster) yesterday.

Tomato Bins!

These bins will grow some monster tomato plants :-P

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Another day in the garden...

Found this bugger eating my lettuce, I had to follow a path and dig down to catch him and boy its a big one, about an inch long! It is a grub of some kind - a larval stage of an insect. I'll be seeing it again soon at the expense of another lettuce plant because I somehow managed to let it escape!
I will do some online research to try to identify it. I now have the identity of the white ovoid eggs on my spinach... Spinach Leaf Miner! I have been keeping on top of them pretty well, harvesting the leaves with eggs on them, washing the eggs off and making a salad! Only 2 leaves had hatched eggs with the larvae tunneling in the leaves. Hopefully the flies stop laying their eggs at some point in the season, egg removal in the spinach patch has become a daily task.

What remains of the lettuce plant, the grub eats the base of the plant where the leaves join - destruction!

What remains of my broccoli patch, I've removed the maggots from this last one but its taproot is chewed down to a thread, yet it remains green and turgid, it just hasn't grown much since the maggots hit. I am leaving this one plant as an experiment to see if it will re-root from the buried portion of its stem. I have more unplanted broccoli for a second attempt, or I may plant a zucchini in this spot instead.