Wed, Jun 20, 2007 · Filed under Spring, Veggies
Potatoes are looking good, all weeded and hilled, around seven weeks after going in. There’s been a Colorado potato beetle watch on for the last few days, the little guys are out in some force this year, more than in the last couple, although not a major problem so far. Control is time-consuming (what isn’t ! :) but easy: they tend to congregate conveniently on the topmost leaves, munching away, so we pick them or shake ‘em off into a small bucket of water. A simple end.
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Thu, Jun 14, 2007 · Filed under Fieldwork, Pests & Disease, Spring, Veggies
In today’s field photo choice, there was a kinda cool shot of a last season carrot starting to flower, a freshly hand-weeded onion patch looking quite sharp, or this shiny, slimy cluster of baby Colorado potato beetles, going to town on a Black Beauty eggplant. Pests and disease have thankfully not been a big problem in this organic field. I like to think that the garden is in some sort of balance, but perhaps it’s just location and luck… In either case, there have been some outbreaks: many tomato hornworms on the…tomatoes in Year 1, same for Colorado potato beetles on potatoes, early blight on tomatoes three years ago when the summer was cool and almost always cloudy and damp, and, of course, the everpresent flea beetles (brassicas) and striped cucumber beetles (cucurbits). The last two are defended against with floating row cover. The rest have recently died down, to the point where I let them do their thing, handpicking a few, but really accepting a small amount of leaf damage (they all eat leaves) and no plant loss. This year, the CPBs seem to have crossed over to eggplants (another of their natural targets, but one they never really took aim at in past). They seem to be favoring the Black Beauty eggplant… This highly visible damage happened in probably less than a day, as I’d taken a walk through there just yesterday. Only about four or five of 60+ Black Beauties had a significant presence, with a few loners on other varieties (and I’d noticed no eggs on the leaves in earlier checks). So, I squished ‘em. Vigilance is somewhat increased.
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