LysmachiaMoon's blog: Rain

Rain. I almost hesitate to write about the weather here knowing how many other gardeners are struggling with dry conditions and drought. I think we got all their rain. It has been raining more or less non-stop for the past two days and looks to continue until Monday morning. We are under a Flood Advisory in our region. Later I'm going to walk down the hill and see if Marsh Run has gone up over the bridge, which is only a foot or so above the water level.

All last week I got a lot done around the garden, mostly those "little things" that add up fast and keep you working all day. Tuesday was one of those exhausting "walk around" days when it felt like all I did all day was carry things from one location to another. I must have made a dozen trips up and down the long flight of deck steps getting all the over-wintered plants out of the house and into the greenhouse. (Bizarrely, I have to remember to get in there today and water everything. This was a lesson hard-learned as a new greenhouse owner: Just because it's pouring rain outside, it's still dry as dust in the GH.) The temps are not ideal for some of the tenders, but our overnight lows aren't dipping below 40F so I think everything will be ok.

I got my first cabbages planted out into the garden, just before this rain started. Aphid problem. I never had trouble with aphids before, but some of the young plants were pretty badly infested. I just wiped the bugs off with my fingers; they are very soft-bodied so the act of scraping them off probly killed most. I'll have to keep an eye on those plants and if there's still trouble, I'll give them a spray with soapy water. Quick, simple and very effective against aphids.

My bean towers (3 of them) are set up and the pole beans planted: Two towers of Blue Lake Stringless and one tower of Gita, which is a "yard long" Asian bean variety...green, not red podded. I grew the red-podded variety a few years ago and although very tasty and very prolific, I'm sorry...those long dark red pods look too much like earthworms to be appetizing I don't know if these early planted bean seeds will come up with all this rain pounding them; we'll have to see.

The parsnips are up and growing very nicely. I've got very spotty germination of my 2nd red beets and so far nothing showing of the 2nd sowing of carrots. The carrot seeds I started in flats indoors are up and growing well....I am hoping I can successfully transplant the plugs into the garden. My experiment with red beet seedlings started in flats is not a success: the seedlings were booming along in the flats, but suffered terribly in transplanting and only a sparse few are hanging on. I think the solution is to start the seeds in long, narrow containers (rather than individual plugs) and then sort of slide them into furrows in the garden to transplant. I saw pea seeds started in lengths of rain gutters and planted out like this; I'm thinking something a bit smaller. My first idea is to collect plastic water bottles, cut the ends off them and tape maybe 3 together to form a tube. Then cut the tube in half and use the halves as seed starting containers. Then when the seedlings are big enough to move, dig a furrow in the bed and carefully slide the seedlings and their potting soil into the furrow. Experiment time!

Allium leaf miner. I've got a terrible problem with this new invasive pest. I have no idea how it got into my garden, but I'm seeing evidence of its presence in my chives, garlic, and worst, ornamental alliums. I've talked with our cooperative extension agent and we worked out a plan for onions. I've got the small onion sets planted cheek by jowl in a big tub in the garage, just so they begin to wake up and sprout. Normally, they would be outside in the ground by this time. But this is the egg-laying period for the Allium leaf miner, so the idea is to start the onions indoors where they can't be infested, then, after mid-May, set them out into the garden, under cover, to grow on. I usually harvest onions in late July, so they may be ready to go before the second emergence period of this pest, which is in September. If I have to give up growing onions, that will be a blow.
My biggest worry is my ornamental alliums. For those, the agent suggested spraying with spinosad, which is an organic pesticide and I did that. I'll repeat the spraying (after this rain passes) every 5-7 days right through to the end of May. If this doesn't work, she suggested moving up to a chemical spray, a systemic that will eradicate the larvae as they eat their way down the allium leaves. These pests have a modus operandi very like the dreaded Iris borer: the mature bugs lay eggs on/in the allium leaves. The larvae hatch out and work their way down the (usually hollow) leaves of the allium, til they reach the bulb, where they munch away, pupate, and then emerge as adults. So the trick is to disrupt the life cycle somewhere along the line. I'm also going to plant out the onion sets in a band of wood ashes, which is supposed to help and I'm looking into yellow sticky traps to get the adult flies.

Ooo.. Big news! I BOUGHT A BATTERY POWERED CHAIN SAW! It's an Ego, 18 inch saw and I like it a lot! Normally I rent this sort of saw but this time, the guy said somebody stole theirs and he only had corded electric saws to rent. That wouldnt work for me. I was leaving the store in disappointment, when I spotted their display of chainsaws for sale. There was a sale on this model: I got the saw, the battery, and the charger for $300, which is half the price of what I've been seeing. This is not a "lumberjack" saw...it's not going to be felling any mighty oaks, but it is perfect for my needs. Once I got it charged, I took it over to E's house and we cut down a 4 inch diameter black walnut that came up too close to her paved driveway...it took about a minute. Then I got it home and got to work on that downed apple tree that I've been pecking away at for a year. Got several big chunks cleared away. There's still a lot to go, but I need to wait for dry weather next week. So far, so good.

Finally, got a low (18 inch high, about 8 feet long) stone retaining wall built next to the greenhouse to hold back the dirt on the slope from washing down onto the access path. It's one of those smallish projects that I've been meaning to do for YEARS. And it turned out to be one of those times when every stone I picked up was PERFECT for the spot it went in. I think the whole thing took about an hour to build and it looks better than some of the other walls I've slaved over for weeks.
Slava Ukrania!

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