JUNE UPDATE pt.2

The hot months are here and there is little to plant other than OKRA and BEANS the dry beans like blackeyed peas and black beans for example.
Our gardens have grown and we are starting to harvest. Just when our gardens are starting to look great that is when the uninvited guests arrive, the pests. Here is a simple way to attract our allies, the beneficial insects.
Don't be too quick pulling up the bolting cilantro, dill, and fennel. Any one of these three plants' flowers will attract green lacewings, lady beetles, and hoverflies. Get to know these friends a little better. They pray on aphids,mites, and mealybugs and other small pests. Adult lady beetles feed on aphids but the larva eat even more. The adult lacewings and hoverflies are not predators. It is their offspring that work for us. You can save the seeds as well, if you are not growing both fennel and dill as they will cross.
Here are a couple of links that will help you learn the good guys from the baddies. http://vegipm.tamu.edu/indexbyname.html and http://toxipedia.org/display/imopedia/Benficial+Insects to use this site one must set up an account. I got there by going through yahoo images hoverflies larva.

Thanks for the update Shannon! I did not plant my intended squares of cilantro because I have discovered volunteer cilantro ALL THROUGH my 7 SFG's! Hubby and I love cilantro so I decided to let it grow where it likes and I will make sure to leave a few to flower to attract the good guys!

TC

Guess it was a good thing I didn't pull my cilantro! It's totally gone to seed now. The slo-bolt kind next to it hadn't, but it also wasn't really growing. I harvested some last week and it doesn't look like it's going to come back.

Overall, I have a lot more surviving to this point than I did last year. My tomatoes are in a lot worse shape, though. I think I'll go back to at least some hybrids next year. I did pull my tomatoes in June last year, but they were thriving plants beset by leaf-footed bugs. This year the plants (other than a handful of exceptions) are just miserable. In both cases they'd stopped setting fruit. I put in a couple of cherry tomato plants late, hoping that the smaller fruited ones would set in higher temps. The first of those is just starting to flower, so we'll see what happens. But even my Riesentraube is barely setting any fruit, so I'm not sure if I'll get much from here on out.

Of course the good news is that I can plant fall tomatoes in August! It's getting too hot to get out there and really stay on top of things anyway. My youngest gets me up and outside to water each morning, but other than that I find that I am spending less and less time outdoors, and that's not good for the garden.

I really excited that I've kept my squash alive this long...definitely a record for me!

Thank you for the update! As you know, I'm battling the fly infestation right now. It's so hard not to just say "Kill 'em all!" and take out the good with the bad. I really appreciate the links to tell them apart.

Shannon1 - You saved my cilantro just in the nick of time. I have been thinking of pulling it because it is trying to go to seed. Now I will let it go and let it bloom to see if it will bring any of the good bugs to the garden to battle the bad bugs!!! Thanks!

Rookie mistake. I only planted one little cilantro plant not knowing it bolts (I didn't even know what that meant) quickly. I planted some slow bolt seeds and hopefully something will come from that.

I have been fighting my cilantro and cutting off the thin leaves trying to flower. Can I cut off the good cilantro leaves and leave the rest to flower and go to seed?

H_TX wrote:Rookie mistake. I only planted one little cilantro plant not knowing it bolts (I didn't even know what that meant) quickly. I planted some slow bolt seeds and hopefully something will come from that.

I have been fighting my cilantro and cutting off the thin leaves trying to flower. Can I cut off the good cilantro leaves and leave the rest to flower and go to seed?

Yes you can but once it starts to flower the production of the yummy leaves will slow and then stop as the plant sends the energy to flower production. This will happen anyway so I would get as big a harvest as you can and then just let it flower instead of pulling and replanting right away.