Cabbage looper caterpillars are devastating my garden!
I’m picking off dozens of these darn things a day, but the cabbage moth caterpillars are winning. I’m about to resort to Bt spray, an organic option. I will spray it ONLY on my vegetables. I look first for caterpillars of native butterflies and move them before spraying.
I don’t want to tell you how many of these things I squashed yesterday, all sizes. This is too much. I thought I had gotten them all, but the centers of my lettuce plants were destroyed when I looked at them this morning. This is war!
I have a few bunches of grapes that seem to have set fruit. I have no idea how long it will take until they are ready to eat, since I haven’t grown grapes before. I am loving this new venture in my garden.
My “compost pumpkins” are about to flower. This female flower bud isn’t open yet, but it is pretty obviously a pumpkin. The odds are good that it is a New England pie pumpkin, as a lot of seeds of that variety went into my compost bin. The Amish pie pumpkin is larger at the top than on the bottom, and isn’t as symmetrical as the New England pie pumpkin.
Some green bunching onions have sprouted. I grow them from seed, and try to have several containers of them growing all the time at different stages of growth. These are babies, my future harvest.
I need to redo my container of ginger, show sprouting here. Bloodflower milkweeds have taken over the pot. I want the milkweeds for the monarch butterflies, so I will need to do some transplanting.
This is bloodflower milkweed in bloom, a lovely plant.
Daphne, look away. This is my row of yams, blue potatoes, and eggplants, all in pots. Not nice plants for people with Solanum allergies.
I am in awe of the transformation that my Garden of Infinite Neglect has undergone. I think I’m going to call it my Garden of Amazing Abundance. That sounds better than Bano del Gatos (Bathroom of the Cats). The nice thing about this view is that you can’t see all of the cabbage looper caterpillars.
Butternut squash and Scarlet Runner beans are growing up this trellis.
Ooh, I like this shot. Pretty marigolds, nearly invisible carrot seedlings, baby radishes, cucumbers about to march up their trellis, and in the background, an abundance of Bok Choy.
Oh boy, my first squash of the season! You wouldn’t think anyone would get excited about a summer squash, but I haven’t been able to grow them for the past three years. The crops failed miserably. The plants in the Garden of Amazing Abundance look like they’re doing really well, so I’m hoping that this won’t be my first and last squash. The yellow crooknecks are lagging behind the straightnecks. I don’t grow zucchini because I like the flavor of the yellow and patty pan squash better. Oh rats, I forgot to plant patty pans this year. I need more room!
Couldn’t resist a flower shot. The white ones are fortnight lilies and the pink ones are Mexican Evening Primrose, or Pink Evening Primrose. I identified them incorrectly in a previous post as Mexican Poppies. My bad.
Wow, look at that harvest of bok choy and kale. I can’t believe I grew all this. We ate the Lacinato kale as Kale Crisps. I’ll post the recipe and a photo on Thursday. I froze the bok choy, over 3 lbs of it. This is Joi Choy hybrid. I usually grow the dwarf bok choy, but I’m loving the productivity of these full sized plants. I just harvest the outer leaves and let the inner ones keep growing. I think I get more harvest that way, and all of the leaves are at the perfect size. None too small and none too big. I’m hoping to stretch this harvest on all month before the heat of July arrives.
See yesterday’s post for more pictures of the harvest, like my oranges. Now on to the week’s harvest in weight.
FRUIT
2 lbs 14 oz Oranges, Navel (last of this year’s harvest)
6 oz Peaches, Florida Prince (last of harvest, possums got the rest)
2 oz strawberries (ate others without weighing them)
Subtotal 3 lbs 6 oz FRUIT
VEGETABLES
5 lbs 4 oz Bok Choy (Joi Choi, Pak Choy)
1 oz Green Onions
0.5 oz Ginger
6 oz Kale, Lacinato
6 oz Kale, Scotch Blue Curled
5 oz Lettuce, Red Oakleaf (or maybe it’s Red Sails, can’t remember)
2 oz Snow Peas (Mammoth Melting Sugar)
Subtotal 6 lbs 8.5 VEGETABLES
TOTAL 9 lbs 14.5 oz PRODUCE plus 3 EGGS
Oh, dear, look at that tiny egg harvest. One chicken is four years old and seems to have stopped laying, one is broody and not laying, and the last one is three years old and carrying the load as best as she can.
To see what others are harvesting, visit Daphne at Daphne’s Dandelions.
