Corn!

I started getting a little ansty for the corn to be ready and took one ear off that looked the most ready and it was looking good. Once the kids saw me take one off they insisted they all needed to come off. I'd been seeing more bugs hanging out around the corn so I decided to go ahead and pull the majority of the ears. As it turns out, the development of the corn really wasn't much better than last year. I had a few that were really well filled, but most of them were still just small. Still tasty though. I think next year I'll plant the rows differently and stagger the plantings by a week or so, that way the pollen hangs around longer. One of these years I'll perfect it. Until then, I think this was a pretty good haul.

My shucking helpers

This guy was stowed away and I stuck my fingers in all the mush because I wasn't watching what I was doing. It totally grossed me out. I think this is a corn earworm and I think I've had them in the past, but they ate up several of my ears this year. You can just cut off the chewed part and eat the rest of the corn if that doesn't gross you out too much. Good news is there was no stink bug damage this year and overall I had much better pollination of the lower kernels, I think this is a result of my hand pollinating but all my pollen expired before the silks were done being fertilized which is why I ended up with mostly half ears.

Those kids looooove shucking corn

We got a very large bowl filled to the brim. It was so tender and sweet. I just wished the kernels were bigger and many were not quite ready due to the kids' enthusiasm but all still edible.

Once I harvested the corn, I usually pull out the stalks and bundle and put them out to the curb but this year I'm trying something new and I just broke the stalks at soil level and laid them down in the bed and covered them with a layer of mulch. Unless my plants are diseased or severely infested with critters I intend to do this with all my plants this year. In the process I mulched over my field peas as well. I pulled some out and did see plenty of nitrogen nodules so I'm hopefully they are adding some back to the soil as they die off. In probably two weeks once the corn has died and settled I'll try to broadcast some buckwheat in that bed as a cover crop.

A Lost Cause

Well, the squash vine borers finally annihilated my squash and zucchini plants. I knew it was only a matter of time before I would miss eggs. I wasn't exactly being diligent either since I was getting tired of zucchini. The fridge is still full of it. I was planning to rip the plants out anyway but when I saw the health of the plant rapidly decline and new leaves looking wilty I figured I already knew what happened. I tore the plants out this morning and there they are the little culprits.

There are two of them towards the top of the stalk with little brown heads and all their poop (called frass) towards the bottom where they've been. Now that I know what I'm seeing, I'm sure this is what has happened to my squash in the past. I don't think I will plant squash here again for a few years in case there are any bugs there that will come out later in the season.

I think I'll plant some more okra there. I already planted some along the edge of the watermelon bed and the pepper/potato/strawberry bed. Or maybe I'll just let the area rest, now that I'm sure my dirt is protected with the mulch I'm not so afraid to leave the area bare.

So Many Beans and Promising Corn

One of my most favorite crops is green beans. They're SO easy to grow and the particular variety I like (Greencrop) is extremely prolific, even after the kids maul the plants in their enthusiasm to pick beans. The plant just bounces back and produces more and more and more. Bush varieties may not typically produce as much as vine varieties but this one is a contender. We pick a big bowl of beans from 8 plants about every 2 to 3 days. More frequently if I can keep DS from grazing, but he eats a sizable handful on his own every day.

The corn is also doing exceptionally well this year. Although I know I planted closer together than I should have almost every stalk has developed an ear and in a few cases there are two ears! The plants are over 6' tall now which is the tallest I've ever had a crop of corn grow. In the past I have just gone out and shaken the plants a bit and let the wind do it's own pollinating. I do always end up with the tips of the corn never filled out. This year I've gone out nearly every morning since the silks started showing and hand pollinating with a bushy paint brush. I just want to see if it really makes a difference. In this way I can target the tassels and anthers (dangly bits on the tassel) that are still full of fresh pollen and spread it to the new silks on all the corn, many times on plants that have tassels that are already done. You can tell that a silk has been pollinated if it turns dark and begins to shrivel within a few days. It's about time to put up my squirrel fence around the corn because those little critters will shred it open right on the plant and eat it up!

The male flower of corn, called the tassel. The dangly bits are the anthers which are pockets that contain the pollen, they will be a dark pinkish red when they are ready to release pollen and will turn orangy when they are spent.

The female flower of corn is called the silks. Each silk has to be pollinated to form the kernel that it is attached to. Silks continue to emerge for days, up to a week after the first silks show, so it's important to make sure it gets pollen continually to ensure a full ear of corn.

My whole crop of corn, in an 8'x8' bed, there are approximately 70 plants. I'll probably end up with around 45 ears due to some not developing silks, loss to bugs/squirrels, and underpollentation.

This stalk has two female flowers (silks) the top one is mostly pollinated and just forming kernels now and the lower one has new silks ready to be pollinated. I've had double silks before but the second one never formed an edible ear. I'll be super thrilled if this one does.

One for The Good Guys

Just thought I should point out that despite the pests I've seen, I've also seen quite an abundance of good guys too, specifically Lady Beetles. I'm happy to see them take up residence in my garden because I know they like to eat the bad guys, they're particularly fond of eating aphids. I haven't seen any aphids though. I do worry a little that the fact there is enough bugs to feed such a population, but I haven't seen devastating evidence so I guess the balance must be just right.

One of my little buddies. I named this one George. You can see the corn is just about to tassle. Since I took this picture about a week ago, many of the stalks have opened their tassels and many of their silks are just starting to emerge. I will go out probably mid week and give the stalks a good shake to distribute the pollen to the silks. I may do a little hand pollinating just to be extra sure the inside corns are filled out as much as the exterior are.

Every year I see evidence such as this on a couple of corn plants. I'm not sure what does it, but due to the pattern of the holes I expect this chewing is done when the plant is pretty young and the leaves are still rolled up. It doesn't seem to have much effect so I just don't worry about it much.

Zucchini and squash are in full swing. Since I took this picture about 3 days ago, we've also picked two more zucchini and a yellow crookneck squash. I've never gotten yellow squash out of the garden before so that was pretty exciting. The zucchini and squash plants seem to be the most under siege this year. Just today I squished a cucumber beetle and a stink bug nymph and chased off a squash vine borer and destroyed several eggs. Yesterday i was pretty sad to see one of my pepper plants nearly demolished and a webby white cocoon inside a curled leaf. I meant to take a picture but I just smashed it in my rage. Not sure what kind of caterpillar it was, but those suckers are so damaging so fast.

And I keep wondering, like every year, when will those tomatoes turn red already?! It seems to take forever, and there are so many.

Windblown

This is seriously the weirdest Spring ever for our area. Last week we had a front come through that dropped us into the 40s at night. I think the plants are thoroughly confused, but yet they continue to grow, so that's great. With the front came 2 brutal days of high speed non stop winds. I wish I had decided to mulch my corn. I came out to find this:

Kind of reminds me of that yogurt/probiotic drink commercial where all the people are walking leaning because they're out of balance or something. Clearly you can see this was a strong west/northwest wind. After it finally calmed down some, I loaded up my wheelbarrow with compost I had left over and carefully righted the stalks and mounded them up and saturated the soil so it was a heavy muck to give them a little more strength against the remaining wind until they recovered. I worked in little more blood meal and bone meal in the process and fed with fish emulsion a few days later. I expect they should recover ok. I'm pretty sure I planted too close again this year so I've been feeding more than I usually would. I hope they pollinate and produce ok.

DD also helped me pick the first bunch of green beans on Sunday. She doesn't care much for green beans, but she loves picking anything out of the garden. We should be picking bowlfuls soon. I went out and planted a few more seeds to try and extend the season. I haven't tried that before so we'll see how it goes. In the process, I moved aside the wood mulch to the compost, which was damp and cool, just scraped aside a hole big enough for the seeds and I happened upon a worm! I'm totally thrilled, I guess the worm towers are helping, but I think the compost itself has had the biggest influence. Either way, I'm happy to find a worm so easily and I really do love composting via the worm towers, it's been much more convenient than the rotating bins.

More Pests!!

The warmer week we've had is really making the bugs come out of the woodwork. I've never been quite so attentive to the critters coming in and out of the garden, but this is definitely the year I'm more conscientious of everything surrounding the plants and not just the plants themselves.

My most recent discoveries:

This is a Squash Vine Borer (Melittia cucurbitae). I saw this guy flying around and thought it was a wasp of some kind until I took the picture and realized it was fuzzy and figured it was some kind of moth (though flying around during the day I thought was weird). I couldn't figure out what it was just Googling on my own so I asked mom, who knows EVERYTHING and she told me what it was, and then Googling confirmed that. It also helped me identify what the eggs look like.

Doesn't look like much, but it is a small flatish red brown spec, usually standing pretty alone. Thankfully my plants are pretty clean and healthy so they were easy to spot, sticking out like a sore thumb. There were a few stalks there were 4 or 5 in a row like the critter had just walked along pooping out eggs as it crawled along the stem, but it was mostly one here and one there, no clusters. They pop off pretty easy and smash easy too so if you see some on your plants, destroy immediately. If the worms hatch, they immediately dig into your plant and kill it from the inside by eating it. Very difficult to save the plant once the damage is done. I don't plan to let that happen now that I know what to look for.

In the process of photographing the eggs I also saw this nuisance:

Which Google easily told me is a Spotted Cucumber Beetle (Diabrotica undecimpunctata howardi), another pest. I don't know much about them yet other than they can easily be mistaken for a yellow lady beetle, which are good guys. This is NOT a good guy, notice the black head and longer thorax section between the head and main body, the lady beetles don't have that. They hatch little worms that consume foliage. The larvae are commonly known as corn rootworms and destroy crops from the roots. I've only seen two of these guys so far. I'll have to keep an eye out for them and their worms. This year was looking so promising, maybe I'm just being paranoid or just more aware, but the pests are out to get my garden this year!

Prevention is the best way to control most pests so keep your eyes peeled in the spring to avoid devastation later!

Green as She Grows

The garden is almost in full bloom and production mode. Some plants have already begun, I suspect within the week we will begin harvesting zucchini and green beans.

Potatoes sprouted from the pantry. If they make anything I will be thrilled. Learning about how the plant operates here is valuable for years to come. Bell pepper is at least green this year, though still not very tall or looking very vigorous. One of these years I will figure it out. I've been feeding with blood meal every other week and fish emulsion on the opposite weeks. I will be happy if the plant produces anything. I expect better results next year once the soil is happier.

Watermelon and Sunflower. The watermelon this year is already much happier than last year. I've been feeding both of these plants abundantly with blood meal, which is high in nitrogen, to encourage their leafy growth, when it is time for flower and fruit, I will apply bone meal, which is high in potassium. The mulch is proving to be an excellent addition to the garden, the soil is staying damp and the plants are really happy about it.

Same story for the cantaloupes. Much more vigorous than last year, though not growing aggressively fast.

I had some concerns that I didn't plant enough field peas around the corn, but they are finally ramping up and generating biomass. The peas really seem to appreciate the shade from the corn. The corn really seems to need to be mounded up again as they get taller they are leaning a bit. I may add some mulch in soon to help this if the peas don't go to flower soon. I am feeding the corn heavily on blood meal and fish emulsion. I can tell where I haven't fertilized as heavily, the stalks are light green instead of rich deep green.

Green beans have already started flowering, the tiny little fruits will start expanding soon. I have only fed these plants an occasional feeding of fish emulsion. They seem to do great on their own.

The first flowers of the zucchini opened just a day after our Relief Society gardening class. The two flowers at the bottom are females and the one just above is a male. Zucchini grows super fast. I expect to eat some on Friday. Last year i had issues with the fruit only developing on the plant end, the blossom end wouldn't expand and grow, but instead, shrunk and shriveled. I spread a little bone meal and cottonseed meal hoping this might help with more even fruit development.

The tomatoes are well on their way. I've made it a point to NOT point out where the green tomatoes are on the plant to DS as last year he kept picking them all before they had even started to blush. Pollination rate has been exceptional this year. I just spread some bone meal here to encourage good fruit development. Smashed two stink bugs today. I didn't see any nymphs so they must have flown in from the neighbors to lay their eggs. I hope I destroyed them before they laid, but only time will tell.

The cucumbers have been pretty unhappy about the cold snaps, but I think that is good because I usually have so many cucumbers ready well before the tomatoes and I love to eat them together. Some of the plants have just started flowering but I hope they will come on fully at about the same time as the tomatoes. One of my happiest memories is eating tomato and cucumber salad with Italian dressing at my grandparent's home as a kid. You just can't beat that fresh home grown, sun ripened taste.

Thanks to the Thyme flowering at just the right time, there have been tons of bees in the garden. In the fall I always let some broccoli go to flower because the bees love those bright yellow flowers. It seems they have quite the preference for the tiny abundant flowers. Bees always welcome here so I don't have to hand pollinate.