Wednesday, May 21, 2008

5/18 Work Party - Pleasant Valley Acres & Broadturn

Pleasant Valley Acres:

-cucumbers starts in the back row, covered them in remay.
-radish seeds sowed directly in between the cucumber starts.
- bush bean seeds sowed directly in the back left
- tubing and rebar used to make hoops to hold up remay; rebar cut with bolt cutters.


Broadturn Farm: Angel & Ryan
- weeded around the whole herb spiral and surrounding area
- back area of the field looks nice as the "wild" section of the garden, encourage the growth of some red clover, yeowdock, red raspberry, plantain, and dandelion which are already growing there

3 comments:

margot said...

cucumbers died. the soil was not warm enough for them yet. next time, the soil must be above 60 degrees to plant. starting more seeds this week....

Winter Cache said...

Gene recommends the 2nd week of June for planting

Winter Cache said...

From MOFGA's pest report:
Stripe cucumber beetles are becoming active around the state and are destroying unprotected cucurbit seedlings. The adult feeding on the cotyledons and young leaves of seedlings is the worst damage. An additional risk with this pest is that the adults carry bacterial wilt and the only management of that disease is the control of the cucumber beetle.

The first line of defense is crop rotation. Adults spend the winter in crop debris and near the old field of cucurbits. Planting cucurbits over in the same field assures an infestation year after year. The cucumber beetle is a fairly good flier, and there is more than one generation per year, but the biggest problem is the early feeding by the overwintering adults and if you can confuse them by moving to a new field each year you may be able to get by.
The next bit of advice is that transplants can tolerate beetle feeding much more than tiny plants from direct seeding. Newly germinating plants are easily killed by an attack nearly as quickly as they break the soil surface.

Protecting the small plants is very important. Covering with floating row covers as soon as you transplant or seed will keep the beetles away. Remember, you have to periodically lift the covers to weed, and remove the covers at flowering to allow pollination.