Garden Update #2 7/3/2017
Garden Update 7/3/2017
Greetings Steemians! I hope everyone had a good weekend. I would say I hope everyone had a good day, but today is Monday, and well, I think that's probably explanation enough.
I've had something of a Murphy's Law Monday. I got to the garden this morning to discover that several of the large oak barrel containers had dried out too much over the weekend and I had a bunch of wilting plants. Nothing too serious, but not really the best way to start a Monday morning.
To my dismay it just kept going downhill after that.
The next problem that caught my eye was the feeding damage on my Cole crops. Danged cabbage caterpillars again.
These guys are on one of my Red Rubine Brussels Sprouts. Well they were. They ended up dying in a bucket of soapy water. Take that, caterpillars!
After dealing with those guys, I decided to scout the rest of the garden. So I'm walking around just kind of checking things out and I spotted some feeding damage on one of my bell pepper plants.
There are only a few things that will feed on peppers so I wasn't too surprised to find these guys hanging out in that plant.
Hornworms. Most likely tomato hornworms judging by the red on the horn. These guys are actually kind of cute, but they're extremely destructive. They joined the cabbage looper caterpillars in my bucket of soapy water.
After discovering the hornworms on my peppers I got all paranoid and went straight to my tomatos and scouted them. Nada. Yay! At least for now.
Off to see what else was going on around the garden. Crap, the Japanese Beetles found my beans.
They joined the caterpillars in my bucket of soapy water. I was feeling rather murderous today lol
Now for some good news! My Sikkim Cucumbers are actually starting to change colors and look like they're supposed to!
This is what the younger ones look like. I was beginning to think that maybe there had been a mix up of some sort.
The swallowtail butterfly caterpillars that were in my carrots did all end up leaving over the weekend as I predicted they would. This is what my carrot patch looks like in the aftermath.
My carrot patch is actually pretty small and there were 5-6 of the caterpillars in there that I let feed indiscriminately. As you can see they defoliated several of the stems, but nothing that the carrots won't be able to recover from.
Today's Harvest
Well, that's my garden update for today. Thanks for visiting.
All the pics in this post were taken by me, today, on a HTC Desire Eye phone camera.
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I really enjoy your garden updates for all the information and pics. Those are some massive Zucchini !!! and some destructive critters. I also find myself wanting to try Purple of Sicily Cauliflower now.
lol We actually had the cauliflower with dinner. Pretty yummy. Supposed be better for you than white cauliflower due to the anthocyanins that cause the purple color. Most of the zucchini is going to my aunt to make zucchini bread with.
So that's what a hornworm looks like. I've never seen one before. Cabbage worms I'm quite familar with from raising broccoli in the past. Strangely enough, I never had much problem with them on the cabbage when I used to grow it.
Zucchinis do seem to grow really fast once they get to a certain size. It's like one day they're not quite big enough, the next day they're huge.
I've noticed that they aren't all that found of cabbage in my garden either. They chew on it some, but they seem to prefer broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, and even kale. Both the cabbage looper moth caterpillars and the cabbage butterfly caterpillars. I very rarely find them actually on the cabbage, even when there's something like broccoli right next to the cabbage completely infested with them.
Interesting. We mostly found them on the broccoli also.
I had two kinds of cabbage going this year Chinese Hilton and Premium Late Flat Dutch. They had some minor feeding damage, but I can't recall finding any actual caterpillars on them. Even when the broccoli (green and purple sprouting varieties) and cauliflower (snowball and purple varieties) right next to them were completely infested. Interesting that we've both had them show preference for Cole crops other than cabbage. Wonder if that's a common trend or just an odd coincidence.
That's a good question, isn't it?