The heat of summer is certainly upon us. The insects are taking over the garden with extreme force. Just walking around this morning I found two varieties of stink bugs.
Because of the massive invasion of these guys, all my tomatoes still coming off the vine were so damaged and just sticky and gross, I decided to clip down the plants and wait a month and replant for the fall. Since I'm trying to keep as much vegetation recycling directly back into the soil, I took a pair of manual hedge shears and chopped up the tomato plants into a fine salad and laid it on the existing mulch. I didn't think much of it initially, but I did leave about 2 inches of stump at the bottom, and the tomatoes may regrow...which would be awesome and perfect when they start fruiting in the fall. I'm interested to see what becomes of it. I've probably harvested 20 lbs of tomatoes. I'll be making and canning spaghetti sauce this weekend, my favorite way to store the tomatoes.
Along with the bad bugs, I did find some beneficials too. Early in the season there were lots of lady beetles, now I'm seeing Assasin bugs and black soldier flies.
Then there are the soldier flies, which are mostly neutral, they don't even eat in their adult life, they just live to reproduce. As far as the garden goes, I don't mind them but they do buzz around like wasps and can be unnerving. They don't carry any diseases and such, so they're pretty inert.
The larvae are actually extremely efficient at breaking down rotting food. I think they're much faster than compost worms. I have a tendency to not put enough carbons in my worm towers (I had the same issue with my composters, which is why I gave them up) and so the environment has been perfect for soldier fly larvae and they make quick use of the scraps. I can't even keep my 8 towers filled anymore because they are so fast at reducing it all to mush, the burning heat helps too. When they are done eating, they just climb out the tube and become adults. If you have chickens, you can harvest them to feed your birds.
Concerning the worm towers, it's been 3 months since I installed them. I'm not yet sure how effective they have become for attracting native worms, but they've been ideal for composting in general. My kids love "feeding the worms" and they're just so easy to use. Once it got hot enough to kill off the fruit flies, I've been much happier with them. I'll try to put forth more effort to put in carbons as often as I do nitrogens so the worms have something to work on. The soldier fly larvae really prefer to eat on the nitrogens. I'll be digging around the towers and do an update in the fall after they've been in 6 months and see how much better or worse my dirt looks.
In other news, the sunflowers are blooming. I stopped fertilizing them so they got pretty lanky before they flowered and then we had a really windy day and they blew over. By that time the heads were too heavy for the plant to recover upright, but as long as they're still alive, I will let them be. When the heads start to die and yellow, I'll cut them off and hang in the garage to finish drying and maturing the seeds. Last year I tried to hang a paper bag over the head like I had read, and that just doesn't work here in our humidity. All it did was mold and lost all the seeds. My husband is 5'7", before they started to bend, they were at about 9.5-10 ft.
The watermelons really love the shade that the sunflowers provide. They don't have a whole lot of leafy growth so the sunflower leaves keep the melons from sunburning. we have 6 melons growing. Lost one to DS, but he hasn't picked anymore since.
I planted some okra near the watermelons and they are doing ok, but not great. The ones shown here are planted near the peppers and are loving it there. Here's some of the peppers I picked from our plants. Not huge, but the best I've ever grown. The walls were thick and extremely juicy. I kept getting sprayed in the eye while cutting up the peppers. The plants are still really green and are getting along well. The peppers I planted in the herb bed aren't doing as well. I didn't prime their planting spots with rabbit manure though.
I probably won't have much update for a while, I can't bear to be outside for too long anymore, it's just so hot. The plants are mostly done anyway sans the eggplant and the upcoming okra. Oh well I guess potatoes will be ready soon, the plants flowered and they've started to wilt. I'm excited to see what some sprouted grocery store potatoes will yield me. I did toss some Buckwheat into the corn bed and I am hoping that sprouts up and generates some biomass to lay over the exposed stalks.
So far, I'm loving my new gardening techniques this year, no till, mulching/ back to eden, lasagna, organic fertilizing.
