N & C Midwest: April 2016

Or bridal tulle for the white butterfly? What is nice about tulle is that you can see through it.

Ditto on keeping a space between the bed and the brick wall. And make sure it clears the eaves or rain gutters.

CitizenKate wrote:

Scorpio Rising wrote:We have rain today, and they even said a chance of Tstorms, so my plants stayed inside...no Tstorms....oh well, no real sun either.  Need to get down to the basement and get my squash & melon seeds started...on the heating pad, right?

Need to get my Annex (falling apart bed on the south side of my house up against a red brick wall--hot and sunny) ready for the melon/squash eventually!  I think they will like the heat over there.  

Thoughts?  I will get picks when it stops raining...thinking some rhubarb over there too since mine kept drowning out back

Yes on the heating pad to germinate squash and melons.

Yes on putting a bed on the south side of the house, that's prime real estate for growing stuff.  I would put about 2-4 feet of space between it and the brick wall, if there is room.  The warmth is nice during the cooler part of the growing season, but when it gets to the hottest part of the season, that wall will make the area right next to the house super hot.  I learned that lesson with my patio containers.  Everything I had closest to the house really started to struggle in late July.  So I give the containers on the south side some breathing room between them and the back wall of the house.

OK, will do. Kate! My distance between the wall and the box is about a foot. But the box is falling apart..I will stabilize it but really want to do this on the cheap and plan to have squash, melons , melons and melons over there

sanderson wrote:Or bridal tulle for the white butterfly?  What is nice about tulle is that you can see through it.

That will work, too.  I just checked at JoAnn, and it's on sale for $0.89/yd - can't beat that for cheap insect control. My two cabbages are ready to put out, and I want some protection in place for them before I plant them. Last year the larvae really did a lot of damage.

Now if I can just figure out how to keep the pill bugs from eating my spinach sprouts.

Sluggo Plus for pill bugs.

Need to weed in my boxes. Also, pull the Annex out a bit from the south wall and lay some cardboard down between it and the wall. Will those butterflies bother kale? Or their larvae I guess?

SR, I found they like any of the cabbage family, including kale. When there are no brassicas, I have found them on green beans and cucumber. I guess when you are in labor, any hospital will work.

Hmmm. OK, need to get some tulle! Lol, true that, sanderson!

White butterfly is my nemesis! Don't let them near your brassicas or they'll poop out cabbage eating pac-men...er...worms!

CC

Radishes too? I have grown radishes and never seen any issue, though technically they are brassicas. My first year with kale, not sure if my lone cabbage made it through the cold blast...forgot to look

Radishes?  Not to my knowledge... but slugs sure do like mine. At least I always thought it was slugs. Maybe it is the cabbage worms...grrrrrrr..

Oooops! Turnips, those are a brassica! Not radishes

sanderson wrote:Or bridal tulle for the white butterfly?  What is nice about tulle is that you can see through it.

Okay, sanderson, they were having a big sale at the local JoAnn fabric store today, so here it is:


I'm a little concerned about how delecate this stuff is. One of my snap clamps put a little tear in it when I snapped it on, but as long as I keep it attached as it is now, it seems like it will be okay. In hindsight, it occurred to me just to clamp the fabric at the bottom of the cage and just let it drape over the top parts. Put tulle on my other cage, I'll try that.

It is nice and see-throughy!  Looks delicate, but pretty!

I do like being able to see through it.  You can check the plants without moving the cage, and you know it's letting plenty of light through.

Now I can finally plant my cabbage starts.

I think my lone Brunswick cabbage got frozen....not sure, came as a freebie with my seeds from Pinetree. I will want to cover my kale, though. They looked pretty good, will take some pics after I tidy out there! Need to weed wack, and weed.

I hear that! We needed to mow the lawn before we left for LA, but there just wasn't time. Then we hit the ground running at work after we got back. Finally got it done this morning! Hopefully the neighbors didn't take it too personally. Back yard still looks like a jungle and we have neighbor's tree branches to cut down, but there's always tomorrow, right? Here's to life!

Right with ya on that Prom shopping yesterday, so today is my day in the yard. Got melons and squash on the heating pad to germinate in the basement. Will plant out my Matchless, weed, weed wack, and turn compost/start 2nd pile. Adding blood meal to various things for a boost. Direct seeding carrots, beets, and turnips. Starting some Wild Carrot for flowers, and nasturtium & sunflowers in recycled annual pots. If I get anywhere, might grab some Yukon Gold and stick them in too.

Also need to pot up the Great White and German Green tomatoes, and the ground cherries. No rest for the wicked! Moving seeds outside as I type this! And hummingbird feeder is up!

Whew - what a night. I'd say spring has come in like a lion in Kansas, if the first big thunderstorm of the year includes large hail and a tornado. Usually we have a few rounds to build up to it. Fortunately, the tornado fizzled out and the really big hail missed us, we only got an avalanche of pea-sized hail and about 20% marble-sized. And 3 inches of rain in 90 minutes. Really glad now I brought all my starts inside, or they would have drowned.

I really thought my tulle cage was going to get ripped to shreds by the hail, but as far as I can tell, it seems to have held up. I won't know for sure until tomorrow.

Glad you are all safe!  Wacky spring weather!

Got some stuff potted up, started my nasturtiums and sunflowers and wild carrots for flowers. Pinched peppers. Direct sowed beets and carrots and some Tokyo cross turnips in the beds.

Need to do heavy lifting. Compost, and rake out front perennial bed.....my back hurts just thinking about it!

Those are looking great, SR.  What-all have you got going there?  I recognize the pepper plants, but what is that in the back with the leaflets?

I know what you mean about heaving lifting.  Today I'm going to try to get all the tomatoes planted, and that's the most backbreaking job I do in my garden.  I really have to psyche myself up for it.

This year, I have some going into my self-watering patio containers, and some going in the SFG.  I decided the containers work best with determinates (although there are some indeterminates that do really well in them, too), and am trying more indeterminates in the SFG.  I'm also experimenting with a few grow bags (walmart shopping bags).  The one tomato plant I have growing in one now is doing pretty well - although it's a little sad today after last night's storm, but it should recover.

Elsewhere, sluggo+ for the leafy bed to get rid of the pill bugs... got a couple of new spinach sprouts and a few more carrots that need to get put in...  got a couple of basil plants that will go in the same bed with the tomatoes and peppers, and a few extra I ended up with that will get grow bags...  the cabbages went in yesterday - minutes before the storm hit - ha! - the tulle protected the entire bed from the hail, everything was untouched, and now my leafy bed is a "full house"...  not sure what to do about the hail-damaged onion stalks, though, they're pretty fouled up...  scored some used coffee grinds from Starbucks for the compost bin... building a new pvc grid for the next bed I'll be planting in... yup, I think I have enough to do today.  Better get off this computer, get down there and get to work!

Those tall wispy things are Cottage Red Marigolds!  They rock, are a really attractive plant.  Hope they are as pretty in bloom!  Then there is peat pots with 3 cukes, 3 ground cherries, a flat full of nasturtiums, sunflowers and wild carrots just planted, peppers, tomatoes in various stages of growth, and my still vacant (grrrr) Ruby crunch cell.  

I know I am jinxing myself, but I don't think I have had pill bug damage in the past...what does it look like?

Glad you dodged the bullet!  Yeah, I know, I dread the grunt work, that is the absolute necessity of gardening!  But we can still complain!  And love the results when that first  summer BLT hits the palate!  

Oh yeah, my lone Brunswick cabbage survives in the middle of a patch of radishes! Blends right in, but it is alive! My first!

Peas sugar snaps are up, about half of them...and kale, 2/3 of spinach, black seeded Simpson alive and growing. Stupid Ruby Crunch? WHY

Kate...for tonight, future radar shows Manhattan getting hit around 2:00 am, Johnson County around 3:00 am.  

Turns out I could care less about any early season plant except my sugar peas...hoping they don't get damaged tonight.

Scorpio Rising wrote:Those tall wispy things are Cottage Red Marigolds!  They rock, are a really attractive plant.  Hope they are as pretty in bloom!

That's going to call for some photos when they bloom, you know. At least, I'd like to see them.

Scorpio Rising wrote:...and my still vacant (grrrr) Ruby crunch cell.

Wish I had an idea, there...

Scorpio Rising wrote:I know I am jinxing myself, but I don't think I have had pill bug damage in the past...what does it look like?

They seem to really like plants that are just sprouting, or very young. Once they decide they like something, they eat it to the ground, or eat all the leaves and buds off so there is almost no chance of new growth to revive the plant. They started attacking my green bean plants last year, and I kept re-planting, and they kept eating whatever sprouted so it could not survive. Some plants made it past the point where they were interested in them, but they never produced much. I'm ready to get medieval on their little keysters!

Scorpio Rising wrote:Yeah, I know, I dread the grunt work, that is the absolute necessity of gardening!  But we can still complain!  And love the results when that first  summer BLT hits the palate!  

Love the results, yes! Every muscle in my body hurts right now - got a lot done today - but when I bite into that tomato, or squash, or... whatever... it is so sublime.

landarch wrote:Kate...for tonight, future radar shows Manhattan getting hit around 2:00 am, Johnson County around 3:00 am.  

Turns out I could care less about any early season plant except my sugar peas...hoping they don't get damaged tonight.

Yeah, I've been watching wunderground, looks like another rough night ahead.