Makin' a Comeback

Since we moved a year ago and I had to start over my whole garden. It's been pretty painful having such a poor year after my most amazing year ever. I knew it would be bad and that I wouldn't get much from the garden (mostly because I'm too lazy to do all the supplemental fertilizing that the plants would need while the soil ecology is building up). But I planted a fall garden anyway and I got a couple good things out of it. it was pretty apparent that if the plant didn't root well it didn't survive or just stunted.

It can be difficult for young plants or seeds to grow up around such a thick layer of wood chips and wood chips that haven't fully aged at at that. The nitrogen fixing is true, but only for the very top layer, underneath the wood chip layer the compost is very nutrient rich. But as some of my plants overwintered this mild year some of them have suddenly renewed themselves. The peas have exploded in growth. Since I planted them in September they've been weak yellowy small plants barely hanging on. Now they are flowering every day and I'm starting to get the benefit of grazing on fresh sugar snap peas every couple days. It also gives me good hope that the soil ecology is doing very well and I should have a good crop from the plot I built last year.

I also grew several cabbages this year that are bigger than any cabbages I've ever grown. Even a crown of broccoli and cauliflower that were decent size. Two of my collard green plants have fared very well, enough to put up in the freezer. and we ate turnips and greens several times. I guess when I look back the fall garden didn't do so bad after all. I usually have great success with carrots and this year the seeds had too hard a time with the wood chips and they got smothered before they rooted well.

I love fall gardening because the plants really don't need much attention, but it's also the hardest to feed my family with because I'm the only one that likes to eat vegetables from the cruciferous family (minus broccoli).

I always leave some broccoli to flower because they're the bee's favorite. I killed my thyme last year (under watering in a pot --I'm a terrible pot gardener) so I don't have those to attract bees. They also love thyme flowers.

Seed Starting

I usually seed start in my Aerogarden which has always been very successful and I never have a problem with the seeds germinating and being perfect for transplant. The last two years I haven't been able to start my own seeds since life was so busy. The problem with the Aerogarden is you really have to replace the bulbs every year and buy more nutrients and the bulbs are pretty pricey. I tried not replacing the bulbs for two years and the seedlings were significantly more leggy that second year.

3 or 4 years ago

This year I spent a significant amount of money expanding the garden so in the interest of saving a little and starting my own seeds means I won't have to buy as many plants (I still bought potatoes and asparagus and plan to get strawberries as well) I tried to go the more traditional route. I bought a 72 cell seed starter jiffy tray with peat pellets for about $8 at Walmart and dug into my stash of seeds I've had for the last  7 years. I keep them in the refrigerator or freezer. I seeded the tray and so far things are working out great. I had several of the oldest seeds still germinate in the first 4 days or so. Seeds are truly amazing.

The next problem I went out to solve was since I wasn't growing these indoor under lights and my south facing windows just didn't get enough strong sunlight, I wanted to figure out a way to get the benefit of germinating outside (the sun and some wind to keep the seedlings strong) and the benefit of starting indoors (warmth over night, controlled germination). Enough Googling around led me to the use of clear storage containers as mini greenhouses. Once most of the seeds popped up, I put the whole tray inside a storage container (about $6 at Walmart) and brought it outside when the sun came up to my sunniest spot and if the day was going to be warm then I left the lid off and when the sun set I'd bring the seedlings inside. If the night wasn't going to get below 50 degrees, I'd just put the lid on and leave them outside over night. So far it's been working out great, but it's definitely A LOT more work than my Aerogarden, but it's also been cheaper as I hoped.

The tomatoes and cucumber plants were starting to root outside of the peat pellet nets so I used some old 4 inch pots I kept from years past and a bag of potting mix ($4 at Walmart) to pot them up in there with a little diluted fertilizer and they're looking pretty happy now.

Several of the seeds have yet to come up, peppers, cilantro, parsley, rosemary, oregano. And I've read most of those take a longer time to germinate, but it may also be age of the seeds working against them too. It's been 14 days since I sowed the seeds. Time will tell. I love watching those little plants reach their potential in this world. Gardening never ceases to amaze me, even when I know what to expect and see the same little miracles happen over and over again.

Aphids!

I've never really had any issues with Aphids before..or not that I ever noticed. It could be just because we've had such a warm and dry winter this year that they are out in full force. My turnips never were doing really fabulously, I planted them much too close together but I noticed that the leaves appeared to be going downhill quite rapidly. Upon closer inspection I found a massive infestation of aphids. Look at them!!



No, look away!!! The horror!! Apparently aphids are weak, vulnerable, stupid, and easy to control, but that's only if you catch them before they become a problem.



That's not dirt, that's bugs, hundreds and hundreds of aphids. Their only strength for them, is numbers. They reproduce with live young at an alarming rate. They suck the very life out of plants and excrete a sweet sticky substance called honeydew and ants will protect aphids so they can harvest honeydew. Google that, it's fascinating. Because they are soft bodied, they squish easily, they poison easily with neem oil or diluted soap water. They're slow so you can spray them with a targeted jet of water and apparently they're too stupid to find their way back to the plant. I dunno about that, I mean how did they get there in the first place, chance? They also have lots of natural predators, lady bugs and assassin bugs. I even found one trying to work on the population on the turnips. I'd need a whole swarm of assassins to make a dent in this infestation.



He looks very much like a nymph stink bug, but you can be sure it's an assassin because he has a long pointy proboscis that he keeps tucked parallel to his body on the underside. Before I snapped this shot, he was actually eating an aphid. Wish I had gotten a picture of that.

As counter intuitive as it seems, healthy plants have less pest problems. Just like your healthy immune system fights infections or prevents infections, a healthy plant can fight off disease and pests too. These turnips were always pretty weak, coupled with the weather, I'm really not surprised.

So I just decided to harvest, I tossed all the greens in the compost and kept the roots to eat. I also checked all my other plants and found the beginnings of infestation on one collard plant and one cabbage plant so I harvested all the good vegetable and pulled and tossed those plants in the compost also.



You win some and you lose some, but now I'm sure what to look for and how to prevent and control major aphid infestation. Hopefully future experiences with them will be more successful.