Author: larksparrow

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Backyard baby plant update

The purple lady bok choy grows quite nicely when earwigs are not swarming it.

It grows bigger, too!

The wildflower seeds are doing better than I had hoped!

The green milkweeds are starting to have adult leaves.
There are actually pale coneflowers (Echinacea pallida) growing!
A single adult leaf is emerging on the Liatris mucronata. I have a second one in a smaller pot too.
I mistook the leaf of this seedling for a clover and pulled it yesterday, but quickly realized my mistake. I put it back in the dirt and watered it and it seems okay so far?? I hope so as it’s the only columbine seedling I’ve found so far in the sprouting trays or on the ground where I put seeds in the fall. The package said best sown outdoors in the fall.
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Big tomatoes

There were four plants getting too big for their containers, so we put them in the raised beds.

I also planted seeds of rouge vif d’etampes squash, cushaw squash (supposed to be resistant to squash vine borer), country gentleman corn, bush zucchini, and marketmore 76 cucumbers.

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Another night, another earwig

I put petroleum jelly around the bases of the four test plants. I took pictures of two. I also covered the Brunswick cabbage again with a jar since it got eaten a lot last night when uncovered.

You can see the messy petroleum jelly right near dirt, at base of ground cherry stem. I took care to make sure no other parts of the plant were touching the ground.
Here’s the poblano. Its seed leaves (cotelydons) were touching the ground so I put the petroleum jelly above them.
While I was finishing up the other two plants in the earwig battle zone (raised bed 7), I noticed the newly planted William’s pride apple has flower buds. Wow! It might even get pollinated as the neighbors have a crabapple tree in bloom…
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Quick checkup before work

I need to put a cover back on the Brunswick cabbage.
Briar very interested in oil traps. 🤦‍♀️ Can’t see in them well but there were earwigs last night.
Salvia greggii started blooming yesterday.
One leaf got chewed up a lot on tomatillo.
Likewise on tomato. I’ll try petroleum jelly on stems tonight.
Pepper seems ok.
Peruvian ground cherry also seems about like yesterday.
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Earwig battle

Several interested earwigs on oil jar edges and a few already in oil! Yay!

Don’t think too hard, earwig. It’s totally fine.

Less yay: more earwigs eating the Peruvian ground cherry (which is farthest from the oil).

More yay: big beautiful toad patrolling the backyard prairie.

An excellent friend.
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No more diatomaceous earth, now for oil traps

I talked with a nice county extension agent today who said anything soft-bodied could be hurt by diatomaceous earth (DE) including toads, though being large and hopping they’ll be less so than a slug or earwig. But, I love my toads, so no more DE.

She did however suggest oil traps to reduce their population while I work to make the habitat less absurdly full of rotting wood (thanks past Claire for all the mulch).

So, now we have five pitfall traps with about half an inch of oil in them.  Three have used fryer oil (vegetable oil) and two have fresh, unused vegetable oil.  (That big plant in the lower right is the Brunswick cabbage I have been nursing along under a glass jar.  Time for it to face the world!)
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Testing summer plants in the land of earwigs

I set out some of the tomato cages today. In the raised bed with the worst earwig depredations, I put one each of poblano pepper, Rio Grande verde tomatillo, Tommy Toe tomato, and Peruvian ground cherry.

I put out these four plants to see if the earwigs attack them and if so I’ll try petroleum jelly around the stem. I have other plants of all these so if any get completely consumed it won’t be the end of the world.

There have been fewer earwigs out in that bed since I’ve started putting out diatomaceous earth. However, in the adjacent bed, they have now moved onto a lettuce that was less dusted. So, maybe it’s helping?