Tag: cabbage

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10/24/2022 greens survived one night

We were worried the front yard earwigs would eat them all up, but the various greens we transplanted from backyard pots survived the night and seem happy with an inch of rain overnight into this morning! the metal raised bed is surrounded by scattered leaves and individual plant species and varieties are marked by small white metal signs. There’s some bluish bok choy in the front, a more yellow green lettuce in the middle, and frilly scotch blue curled kale in the back next to a tall Fordham giant Swiss chard. Smaller plants are scattered nearby but I’ve forgottten which ones.
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Afternoon harvest and repotting

Buckwheat is blooming.
Peruvian ground cherries are having a few potential fruits!
Paula and I repotted all the winter babies.
More babies.
The Missouri Yellow Watermelon weighs almost 12 lbs!
It’s so ripe that when I started to slice, it cracked open more on its own.
It was very tasty and sweet and crisp.
In the evening, I sliced some peppers for freezing. Green ones are jalapeños from our garden and red ones are serranos from a friend.
I made a small batch of salsa verde. Too little to can, so I froze it.
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Holiday Sunday

An outdoor dinner. Garden basil and oregano.
Moved the chives and garlic chives that Judy gave me last year. Maybe they’ll like this spot better.
Uzbek golden, little, and New Kuroda carrots.
Gram helps me get seeds out.
Fall seeds planted of cabbage, mizuna, greens, and cauliflower. Tomatoes and peppers for overwintering. And a few pots of Roman chamomile for the front yard ground cover.
This is where I shall attempt peppers and tomatoes over the winter.
This goldenrod was already here and is doing very nicely.
A giant 1″+ horsefly on a backyard window sill.
Never going outside again.
I lied. Outside again. Chiltepin peppers.
Frostweed doing alright after it died back earlier in summer.
A little spider got this Eastern Tailed-Blue on the englemann daisy.
Texas mallow blooming!
The non native clematis. I’ll clean it out over the winter.
Okra flower
A bumblebee on the okra!
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How can things grow this much in a week?  Front yard edition

Wow!!

Rouge Vif d’Etampes squash seedling.
The Brunswick cabbage apparently had enough and has gone straight to flowering.
Dutch corn salad greens have bolted too.
I got wild after seeing soil temperature is above 60°F and planted some beans and all the basil.
Sedums are blooming! Thanks for these, Judy!
I found surprise kale seedlings (two, the second is not pictured). I believe they are Russian red but I had thought they all got eaten so there’s no label anymore.
Perennial coreopsis are big and just starting to bloom!
Black coat runner bean making good progress at the base of a crepe myrtle.
Mealy blue sage about to bloom.
So many strawberries and there’s still more flowers!
Sugar peas are blooming.
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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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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!)