Gardening

[helwen]

Gardened for a few hours, not sure if it was a lot done or not -- staked and/or tied up some tomatoes, fed tomato horn worms and some Mexican Beetle larvae and beetles to the chickens, picked some blueberries, yellow waxed beans, Cranberry Vermont beans, Amish Paste tomatoes, zucchini, and summer squash, dispatched a few squash bugs, and weeded some. That said, I covered a very small part of the garden -- much more to do, and not quite enough energy to do it. Maybe in a couple of hours I'll go back out...

I wasn't sure if the Cranberry Vermont beans (a dry bean variety) were ready to pick because mostly they aren't the deep cranberry color, but some plants that got flattened by tall weeds in one part of one of the rows had started to grow from seed pods that had gotten squashed against the ground, so I guess I can pick them now, before the Mexican beetle larvae eat them all.

This has been a rather pestiferous year. I don't think I've had to work this hard on removing eggs, beetles, worms, etc. ever before, and at that quite a few of them will survive, I think. After we've finished harvesting L will need to till the whole garden. Not my preference, but we can't let all those critters winter over in the mulch.

Comments

[estela-dufrayse.livejournal.com]

can you let the chickens loose in the garden to dispatch the pest for you? or will they just distroy the garden?

I miss my garden...

[fitzw.livejournal.com]

I'd have to fence the chickens into the garden -- they aren't pastured chickens, and aren't used to running free.

But that's definitely a thought.

I think I'd only use a dozen or so at a time, though.