R.I.P. Zucchini, Yellow Squash, and Soybeans. C'mon Watermelon!

The zucchini and squash were mercilessly eaten alive by a grub, future moth, that had the audacity to lay eggs and get comfortable inside the trunk of the plant and then start eating it from the inside. The grubs are called Squash Borers. I had a bad dream about these jerks but I assumed they attacked the squash veggie it's self, not the trunk. One day, the zucchini plant is chugging along producing these huge zucchinis like a champ, the next day all the leaves are drooping as if someone scolded it for showing off. 

Six hours later, I am trying to apply some diatomaceous earth (this stuff has become my new best friend) and the plant just topples over, severed at the trunk. I found these chumps inside...

A Squash Vine Borer

Look what they did!

Turns out these grubs are pretty hard to prevent and once you have them, from what I can gather, it is really just a matter of postponing death by infestation. Because the stems of the plant are hollow, the bugs bore into them and then camp out inside. They lay eggs at the foot of the plant and then the eggs hatch and make their way into the plant too. Theoretically you could poke around or actually cut into the plant with out killing it and just remove all the bugs surgically, but it is likely that you would only find a fraction of them since the plant is so huge and branchy. Also, you risk infesting the other plants if you keep the afflicted ones around for too long. That is what happened here. One plant started showing that it was struggling, then the one next to it was on the verge. I ripped out two zucchini and a squash plant all in the same day. Then the next day the other squash was falling over. There was ultimately one zucchini plant left standing, and despite the powder I caked at the bottom and me dripping diatomaceous earth water mixture actually down into the tubes of the plant, they got to it anyway.

Apparently, to really ward them off you need to treat the soil before the plant gets too far along. If I had put some diatomaceous earth mixed in the with top soil first, making the environment down on the ground inhospitable to these crawling bugs and the eggs, it's possible it could have been prevented. The diatomaceous earth is a powder that scrapes up crawling bugs and dries out/makes eggs and exoskeletons brittle (pretty brutal huh?). The good thing is that we got at least two rounds of vegetables from the plants before they went kaput. That's more than I can say for the soybeans. Those fellas never really became edible. I don't know what happened, it was maybe too hot or I let the beans stay on the plant too long. I tend to do that. The soybeans were just losing leaves and getting gradually more yellow. I removed them this weekend to make room for the other plants, and just to stop bringing down the garden. There is something about dead plants that can really kill the spirit of a place (one reason winter really wears on me). 

The woman at the plant store where I brought a zucchini branch to get diagnosed (thank you The Great Outdoors, it's always a pleasure) said that butternut squash is a good alternative in the squash family because it doesn't have a hollow stem. I am a little worried about the melons and cucumbers but I read somewhere that they are less likely to get attacked. I realize now I just assumed this is because their vine tubes are smaller but I am actually not sure at all. It would be pretty cramped I imagine, for big dummies like the ones that invaded my garden. I still went ahead and scattered some diatomaceous earth where the dead plants were and in the soil around the melons. Hopefully the melons will survive. I have been sort of rooting for the watermelon because it still just seems crazy to me that people can grow something that delicious and huge at home.

I was reminded that it is almost always a good time to plant something. Again, I keep forgetting gardening is a constant cycle. I could start planting things for the fall in the current empty spots. We'll see. I am kind of excited about giving the melon plants more room to grow since they were sandwiched between the huge squash and zucchini before. They were already reaching pretty far out into the other plant's territories as it was.

The okra is just loving the heat. Also, I discovered that okra produces a beautiful flower. That was a pleasant surprise. I was moping around the garden, trying to psych myself up to take out the soybeans when I spotted this...

It definitely sprinkled some magic into what was looking to be a pretty grim day.

I have been forgetting to take pictures regularly so here is a run down on progress for most of the plants. I have three Jalapenos. The bell peppers are still taking their time but the plants look full and green, so there's some hope. At least now one of them isn't totally taken over by the zucchini. The bush beans are steadily producing even though something keeps eating the leaves on the perimeter. I have used soapy water spray and diatomaceous earth spray (just a little diatomaceous earth mixed with a lot of water) and it still won't cease. It is hard to tell if I am even slowing down what ever it is that is eating them. The chard is also keeping on, though I still feel like I need to get the hang of when to trim the leaves and figuring out which ones are the best to pick. Also, the cucumber started subsuming one of the chard plants. We moved the trellis I had for the soybeans so the cucumbers could use it. The cucumbers immediately took to it, climbing up. And last but not least the watermelons are looking more and more like real watermelons! They are the miniature kind so I am hoping to pick them soon. I am itching for another big harvest. We got spoiled with the initial squash and zucchini ones.

One tomato turned red and we ate it immediately. It was superb. The other tomato plant has yet to produce anything. We are thinking it is probably a container/root space issue. Not enough root space for the type of tomato plant. Ugh always so much learning. No I'm just kidding, I love it.

Till next time friends.

I Can't Stop This

The plants are going crazy, just blowing up. We had some serious rain the past couple weeks and the plants responded really well. I swear, I checked one day and there were just a few flowers, the next day all the flowers had baby vegetables growing underneath. This weekend we left some of the vegetables on the plant for an extra couple days and they literally doubled in size in that small amount of time.

When things first started popping up a part of me was convinced that it was some freak occurrence. Every time we picked something I would have a moment of panic thinking it might be the only fruition from the plant we see for the season. That fear has been put to rest pretty quickly. The only thing I am still sort of unsure about are the tomato plants. One has zero fruit showing up, the other three have only one or two tomatoes and it has been that way for several weeks, just one or two tomatoes. We'll see what happens.

I was pretty shocked by this recent surge in progress. I had been doing things to maintain the plants and keep pests at bay but I don't think this latest growth spurt can really be attributed to any of that. At least not much. This was bigger, cycle of life, nature's inner workings type stuff. Dare I say, beyond my control? I think the key players in this crazy turn were the steady, sometimes torrential rain that showed up with uncanny timing, and the man power we put in at the beginning to make the garden bed just right. Before planting we were meticulous (thanks dad) when it came to digging out all the previous dirt and making the bed deep enough, we laid down a weed barrier, and used some super quality dirt and compost. I also watered twice a day pretty consistently. Then the rain showed up at these really strategic points. It seemed like we had a good rain at every stage- when the seeds were just put in the ground, when they had grown to little seedlings, and the ones recently when the plants were established but had not yet bloomed.

While I was twiddling my thumbs waiting for things to appear I kept reading that the best defense for a garden is good soil, but then I would promptly shrug this off. Boring, moving on. I wanted something more to do now. As my worry mounted leading up to this crazy harvest period I became convinced that there was either some way to drastically mess up the garden in the mean time or that there was some thing I could do to alter what I was certain was an already shaky trajectory considering that I was the one in charge. I see now, having witnessed the burst in production, that once I put the seeds in the ground, other than watering, there was actually only so much I could do to make a difference. I could mitigate some problems but in fact, the majority of the leg work falls on the plants. So it's true, their not all quacks. A critical factor is the soil. It helps to create the most friendly, welcoming environment/atmosphere possible for the seeds to take off in and get a strong start. Gardening after a certain point seems like just watching and eventually playing damage control. Who knows, maybe in a week I will have a completely different take on this. This is Texas and it is heating up outside.

Speaking of damage control, my soy beans have turned yellow and a couple of my chard plants didn't really sprout... I may have over picked them thinking they were weeds early on. Also, the zucchini totally subsumed one of the bell pepper plants. So gardening has not been with its perils lately. Also, I had some bad dreams about bugs eating my squash after someone told me this is a common problem in Austin. I dreamt that I forgot to check on the garden and then when I went by and poked them they turned into mush. I have had stress dreams about the garden before. The one prior involved me accidentally getting days wrong and somehow missing a whole week of watering. Everything was decimated. These dreams have actually proven to pretty helpful for kicking me into gear. I wake up so relieved to find they are not true I hustle to fix the pressing issues.

The first time we picked vegetables, after the initial excitement, I was feeling kind of overwhelmed. I think the breadth of the project was finally sinking in. The sudden progress and realizing we were only half way through the season had me a little worried that I had maybe bit off more than I could chew. I was thrilled at first as we called out all the new vegetables we found, but eventually I started to get freaked out. "OK, that's enough, I am good for now" I wanted to say. In the car after visiting the garden I was trying to put my thoughts into words and it just wasn't happening, then Andrew helped me out with "there is not a pause button." Exactly. You can't come back to it later and pick up where you left off, it just keeps going. Also, if a plant isn't doing well, it doesn't just immediately keel over and disappear like in a video game. Or beep to tell you are on your last life. Improvement is gradual, and progress, good or bad, is constant. The garden is going to keep going whether I show up or not and the reality is that the plants have reached a point where they have some momentum. I would have to drastically change some thing to get them to just stop producing altogether. This has been hard for me to grasp. I am always looking for imperfections which I think has helped me be vigilant about a some things, but a critical eye can be exhausting. Case in point, it happened again where I had been looking at the beans for a week getting discouraged that nothing was showing up then Andrew came by and immediately pointed out a whole bunch that had probably been there for days. It would have been so nice for my piece of mind, to have noticed those beans earlier. I am starting to realize that there is not an expiration date on my worry for this project. Unless I can figure out a way to to bring a second set of eyes with me every where I go, I need to start focusing on the observation part. Sometimes I skip that step and miss out on some really nice moments for mini celebration, and I don't really give myself or the plants the credit they deserve for surviving and thriving so well. I mean it is a rough and tumble world, and they have made it this far. That is no small feat.

The cooking and eating of the vegetables has been an excellent remedy for the onset of garden fatigue. Cooking dinner with produce you helped bring into being is amazing. It is probably a placebo thing but after eating something we just picked from the garden, I feel more energetic, like absorbing one of the blinking stars in Mario that makes you invincible and super alert and fast for a few seconds. Again, probably all in my head but I will go with it!

Anyways, with out further ado here are pictures...

Bush Bean

Edamame

Baby watermelon

Squash

Chard

Tomatoes

Monster Zucchini Plant 

Tomato

You can see squash and blurry Jalepeno,
but in the center there is basil

Jalepeno

The weekend bounty

Washing that Chard

Dinner!