September 22, 2018
Having an abundance of functioning neurons may not be conducive to a joyful gardening experience. I let some of mine rest so that I don't over think things. The requirements of the real world, to act after acknowledgment of a problem, do not apply in your garden. In the garden you need to see a whole bunch of things that need doing before you can decide which ones might get done today. Your priorities will change based on your blood sugar levels, the temperature, and the time of day. Issues of control need to be disregarded. Just let some things unfold. Throwing stuff in the compost pile is not waste, it's abundance..
I watched a cedar tree discharging so much pollen into the winter wind that I thought there was a fire. I thought to myself "what a waste". Then I realized that nothing goes to waste in nature. Ladybugs eat pollen as part of their life cycle. When you see them crawling up grass stems in early spring before anything has produced pollen, and it's too early for aphid, they may be eating the winter cedar pollen that has clung to the grasses. There is no doubt the extra cedar pollen will feed numerous critters as well as soil bacteria..
September 23, 2018
The cucumbers stopped producing flowers as soon as the heat wave was over. They know what up. As a result all of the cucumbers on the vines are of uniform size. There are no small ones, and no flowers, so I picked them all and pulled up the vines. The vines got placed around one of my artichoke plants, and it now looks like it has a winter scarf. My son has been breaking off the big old, cracked and tough Swiss chard leaves and using them as weed killing mulch. I hadn't thought of doing that but I think it's a great idea..
No one wants to eat them and if you don't cut them off the leaf miners will infect them. It helps keep your garden looking fresh. I'm still pulling the bottom leaves off the Brussels sprouts to reinforce my weed barrier berms. The aphid don't like the sunlight so they are dispersing. Win win..
September 24, 2018
Well it doesn't look like I'll get to overwinter perpetual spinach this year. All three plantings with the seeds from Borneo have failed. This last row was seeded thickly, came up sporadicly and began to disappear. I found no slugs or earwigs under the board that I left next to the row, kind of like a row marker so I wouldn't step on them, and only one sow bug. It may be that birds are getting them..
I've only seen a few grasshoppers but one of them could probably eat the whole row in one sitting. The Bloomsdale Long Standing spinach that I sowed thickly like radishes is too crowded. I've picked by the handful twice but now it's stunted. Next planting will be half to one inch apart seeds which is probably how I sprinkled them when my spinach hedge was successful..
