Daily chicken September 20
Koekoek and the caterpillars.
There's millions of caterpillars out in the yard and they're eating everything. I don't thing there's enough chickens to help...
Pretty sure this marks the end of the garden for this year. The cucumbers were decimated overnight, no doubt the okra are next. Bittersweet because it was awesome this year, and I'm excited to plan our improvements and planting for next year.
If y'all have any prayers left, toss one up for my friend @burntoblog. He and his family may have found a place to start their own homestead!
Steepshot
wow sir nateonsteemit that's a shame, sorry to hear that. Did they just show up in one day?
I started noticing them earlier this week. Now it's like the ground is crawling with them. Need to find out what they are. The chickens don't seem to like em. They'll peck at a couple, but not eat them.
yes sir we've been having tons of worms lately. But an old farmer told us to take a gallon of water and put a little Dove dish soap in it and spray it on the grass and ground and that kills them or drives them away. We did do a small patch and it lessoned them, just need to do more of that.
Hmm. I think it's too late for that now, but I'll remember it for next year. I'm gonna go ahead and embrace fall and let the season end naturally.
howdy again sir nateonsteemit....I agree but man..that's too bad that they got into your garden like that!
Well, they got washed away in the flood today, so...
😂😂😂
haha! well sir that's true, it sounds funny to say flood but I guess it is kinda deep water in the yard, is this the first time you've seen it like that?
Yeah, but we only moved in in April. This is the biggest rain event since then.
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The reason the gardens die down at this time is they run out of balanced nutrients. If you side dress in August or early September, and do foliar feeding the plants remain strong and continue producing.
I could not side dress this year, but I did foliar feed each week. The problem I had was so much rain! It leached away the leachable nutrients, creating an imbalanced soil. This weakened the plants and the pests moved in. For the first time ever I had zebra caterpillers and they decimated, to the stems, all the brassicas.
Next year I will have extra of all the nutrients on hand and side dress as needed.
I'll have to look into those processes and prepare for this next year.
We had about a week and a half of rainy weather proceeding this, which may have affected it. The immature fruits on the vine were mushy on bottom, which hints at too much moisture I think. I imagine they'll make a good snack for chickens.
The start would be a soil test from Logan labs. It's important that it be from a lab that uses the processes that work with the following information. Not all labs process soil tests the same way.
Here are the posts I made about the process:
https://steemit.com/gardening/@goldenoakfarm/reading-a-soil-test-part-1
https://steemit.com/gardening/@goldenoakfarm/how-to-read-a-soil-test-part-ii
https://steemit.com/gardening/@goldenoakfarm/how-to-read-a-soil-test-part-iii-building-the-amendment-mix
It's best to do a soil test at the end of the growing season, usually in November, but before the ground freezes (not an issue where you are, I expect...).