The garden is now fully functional and starting to produce! I have harvested some lettuce, spinach, cilantro, chives, raspberries, a miniscule amount of blueberries (like 4) and an abundance of sweet peas. I am also starting to have to deal with the garden pests that come with organic (chemical free) gardening. While I visit friends and neighbors who have these beautiful weed free, bug free gardens thanks to Sevin dust, commercial fertilizer sprays and the like I have to relish in the hodge podge jungle that sometimes invades my gardening space and relish in the fact that I am feeding my family with chemical free, as close to nature as God intended produce. Oh, and bonus is we can eat straight from the garden without having to worry about washing the produce!
This is currently one of my nemisis, the potato beetle larvae. Someone forgot to tell these guys that these are tomatoes, not potatoes. Seriously. Last year they nearly decimated my potato crop and when I didn't plant the potatoes in the same location they have now gone after my tomatoes....arrrrgh! So, here is the way I deal with them, are your ready? This is pretty complex...I hand pick and squish them. one by one. yup, it's tedious.
My other main pest right now is the cabbage worm, he makes short work of my cabbage heads turning them to swiss cheese looking masses. I hand pick him too, however I kept reading about using a "floating row cover" to deter the white chaotic butterflies that lay the worm eggs in the cabbage. I never did order the stuff so hubby rigged up a redneck floating row cover for me out of an old roll of window screen that was in the barn. That guy can be pretty ingenious sometimes! Here it is, I will keep you posted if it works as well as the organic gardening magazines tout.
The berries I have on the other hand seem to be doing very well and so far have not had any pests. I have to say that I have never in my life tasted raspberries as sweet or good as the ones that are homegrown. My aunt has some as well and hers are just the same as mine, so sweet and not at all like the ones from the grocery...simply delish!
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Last but not least, a few of these green tomatoes that promise the abundance to come. I think I ended up with almost 60 tomato plants this year...mmmmm.
