September 13, 2017
I have peas and Swiss chard coming up around my artichokes. That's what you get when you mulch with garden waste. Volunteer veggie plants make me smile because they remind me of how much effort I take in my seed planting to ensure the depth is correct. I water gently to keep them covered but not sunken. Mother nature just throws them on the ground and they deal with it. I've got volunteer kale and chard all over the place this year, I must have been careless while carrying the stalks, but I'm leaving them grow where they are..
If your garden isn't for show I guess it should be for fun. When it comes to fruit nature is more careful. The seeds germinate in a soil rich with decayed fruit nutrients. Fruit is full of fructose so I wonder if we would be wise to add sugar to our seed starting mix?..
September 14, 2017
September is a gardeners friend. Warm sunny days but not too hot. Cool evenings but not too cold. The fall garden thrives. Warm soil and dew at night is making all the plants prosper. I can water every couple of days now and only need a half hour per spot..
The kids are back in school so peaceful silence has returned. The Perpetual Spinach in the greenhouse has come back as a dense short hedge with all leaves and no stalks. Sometimes when you cut back chard it sends out more stalks instead of leaves, and this is a type of chard. It will make an interesting overwintering experiment having it growing both outdoors and in the greenhouse..
September 15, 2017
I've always had spinach leaf miners on my spinach and chard but not enough to worry about. They have turned the leaves brown on less than a third of the plants. They are caused by a fly that lays it's eggs on the underside of the leaves. The eggs hatch into maggots that "mine" the leaves between the top of the leaf surface and the bottom, leaving the space between empty and brown. Picking off the leaves and destroying them is intended to break the cycle because when the maggots mature they fall to the ground, pupate, and the new fly doesn't have to go far to lay more eggs. The spinach in the greenhouse is more infected than usual..
I think it's because the fly preditors don't spend much time in there. I'm still finding more cabbage moth caterpillars on the cauliflower in there than the cauliflower outside, and the leaves are far more jagged, indicating a longer time that the caterpillars have been allowed to feed. Other control measures include insecticides and row covers. Systemic insecticides are not an option for me, and row covers mean you only get to see your veggies when you harvest. I learned with my shade tunnel that seeing the plants is a primary enjoyment of my gardening experience..
