Gardening in a Drought

This year's garden has been disappointing. I have been diligent in watering the garden every few days or so as the soil begins to show signs of drying out. I mulched the garden with straw to cut down on weeds and to help retain moisture. Unfortunately, all of this isn't enough when you combine heat in the 100's and weeks without water. We ended up getting some rain a couple weeks ago, and have gotten a couple sprinkles here and there. All of this really puts a lot of stress on the garden.

My green beans are simply producing flowers and dropping the off without growing any beans. This is from the dryness and the heat. My tomatoes have been doing excellent, in particular the Large Cherry Tomatoes. The Amish Paste (Roma type) have been doing fairly well also. The ones that I do get are absolutely HUGE! Even with 6 plants of each though, I am having to freeze and can these at a later date because I am simply not getting enough at a time to do anything with them. My Brandywine tomatoes have been really disappointing though. They aren't getting any larger than maybe 4", if I'm lucky.

I have lost all of my zucchini and squash, so I am planning on putting a fall garden where these were. This will be my first time planting a fall garden. I have no idea why I have never tried it!

In the meantime, we are headed for another 100+ degree heatwave again!

Battling Squash Bugs

UPDATE: It seems that I have two issues at hand. Although I do have squash bugs, they have not been causing the damage I believed them to be. A reader was very helpful in pointing out that the problems I am having are more likely to come from Vine Borers! Although I do have the Squash Bugs, I haven't seen any damage that is associated with them. (Not that I'm gonna let them continue eating my plants! lol) Please see the comment below by "elle mental" for a wonderful explanation and solution if your vines are being eaten from the inside out by Vine Borers.

I cannot believe it has taken me this long to figure it out. For the last few years, I have been so frustrated with my squash crops.

This year I have finally figured out what is wrong! Squash Bugs are my nemesis. I was checking out some favorite Facebook page and saw someone reference the little "stink bug look alikes" and decided to check mine for them. What did I find? Armies of little bugs eating up my squash plants!

Since then I have lost one of my plants, and I don't think my others will survive the season. I am so grateful to finally know what was causing the sudden die off of my plants though. Since I discovered them, I have been picking off the visible bugs, toss them in a cup of water and feed them to the chickens. Boy did they enjoy that! Some other ideas I have found for ridding your garden of Squash Bugs without insecticide are:

• Use duct tape to peel the eggs off before they hatch
• After watering, walk through the plants and pick off the bugs. They will climb to the top when the plant is soaked from the water.
• Use a mixture of Dawn/water in a spray bottle and spray the base of the plant where the bugs live. It supposedly kills them in seconds. I have not tried this method.

The main thing to remember is to start preventing them early! If I had realized what was attacking them earlier, I could have saved my plants. Now I know what to do next year. This is what I love about gardening, everything is a constant learning process!

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Frugally Sustainable

May Goals

Well once again, I am late with my goals for the month. I always seem to do well with making the goals, not so much with actually completing them...lol.

Some of April's goals that I completed include, till and plant the garden, plant herbs (some have finally sprouted!) and letting the chicks in the tractor.

And once again, those goals that didn't make it consist of the household chores. Can you tell where my priorities are? I also didn't plant more trees, I decided that I will wait until this fall to plant more. We actually planted 40-50 small White Pine trees around the property, and I didn't want anything to become neglected.

Although it wasn't on my list, fixing the chicken coop fencing and run door was very high on my mental list! DH and I fixed that a few weeks ago. Although it doesn't quite work if while you are sick, you forget to close the door... because of this we are now down to 6 Buff Orpingtons. Two were snatched in the night. I also lost an Aracauna for no apparent reason a couple of days ago. My guess is she was squished beneath the others?

Soo, some goals for May are:

Gardening

• Mulch the garden

• Finish planting green beans

• Try an Epsom Salt weed killer recipe inside the greenhouse. I decided against the rock in the greenhouse for now. The weed killer is more frugal.

Livestock

• I have actually changed my mind (that never happens...) about the vertical fence extension project, also. In the end, it would have ended up much more expensive than it is to simply clip the chickens wings to keep them in the chicken run. 
•  Build better roosts in the chicken coop and REMEMBER to close the door!

Home

• Hmmm... Is it even worth repeating myself on the household goals that I haven't met for the last two months?? 

I have to say, keeping up with the two puppies and the incontinent German Shepherd has kept me pretty busy indoors.

Changing Things Up!

Normally I try to do one large garden or two smaller ones. In the last couple years, I haven't been able to keep up with the weeds and towards the end of the season (or middle like last year) I tend to get overwhelmed. I keep telling myself that this year will be different since I don't have to deal with all the wedding stuff I did last year. Even so, I still have a feeling that it would end up the same way.

For that reason, I am trying something different this year! That's what gardening is all about right? Experimentation until we find something that works well for us? I've decided my main problem is having too much space in between the plants (which results in a lot of weeds). My plan is to create small beds for a few certain plants that I am growing. Most likely I will have two pepper and tomato beds, spaced far apart. Like hundreds of yards apart. I am hoping to save seeds for the first time from these and I have more than one variety for both of these plants.

I am also going to make one small area for my green beans to climb a trellis. I am trying out pole beans for the first time. I normally go with bush beans, but I felt like being adventurous!I am also going to make another small bed for my cucumbers and zucchini. Lastly, the spinach might just go into some pots on the porch! If you can't tell, I don't have everything completely planned out just yet, which is completely the opposite of what I normally do. Normally, by the end of January I have every plant laid out on graph paper. Oh well!

Here is the list of varieties I chose to plant this year. My original list was much longer! I had to keep reminding myself to only order what I could keep up with! I also have a few different varieties that I will be starting for my mother-in-law (not listed). I can't wait to see how they all do.

Pepper, Quadrato Asti Giallo

Pepper, Jalapeno Traveler Strain

Bean, KY Wonder Pole

Squash, Black Beauty Zucchini

Tomato, Brandywine

Tomato, Amish Paste

Tomato, Large Red Cherry

Cucumber, A & C Pickling OG

Spinach, America

These are the herbs that I chose. When I was a kid my mom had a wonderful herb garden. I loved going out and getting fresh Oregano when she was cooking. I have been wanting to plant my own for while, so this is the year!  I can't wait to make some amazing homemade pesto!

Herb, Basil Genovese OG 

Herb, Oregano Greek

Herb, Chamomile German

Herb, Rosemary

Herb, Thyme

And a couple flowers just because they're pretty :) The Hollyhock is going next to our "outhouse" garden shed!

Flower, Outhouse Hollyhock OG

Sunflower, Valentine 

 This post is linked to:
Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways #14
Homestead Revival: Barn Hop #49 
FarmGirl Friday Blog Hop!

It's that time of year again!

I always look forward to this time of year. The time when seed catalogs start arriving in my mailbox, and I can spend cold evenings snuggled up in a blanket drooling over the wide varieties of seeds available. I have already been looking through the catalogs, trying to decide which varieties I will try this year.

Last year I started the majority of my transplants at home for the first time. They turned out okay, even though I had to start them in the window. It made it difficult because they wanted to grow towards the sun, resulting in lopsided little starts. Not to mention the cats liked to knock them over and eat them :(

This year will be different! This past week I found a 6' x 8' greenhouse for sale on Craigslist! So, DH and I picked it up and spent most of Sunday putting it together. It needed new footer boards and a little cleaning up. It is just the right size for starting my tomatoes, peppers, and probably some herbs. Best of all, I don't have to protect them from the cats!

My new (to me) greenhouse. It was like Christmas morning when we went to pick it up!

Another thing I hope that will be different this year is the quality of my garden. Last year was a busy one. I never realized how much work a wedding is until this year! Needless to say, my beloved garden ended up as a plot of weeds. Neglected from the rush of wedding plans and honeymoon. I was able to harvest some potatoes, after digging them up from under all of the weeds. And of course the indestructible zucchini and yellow squash! But other than that, it was a loss.

I am going to learn from my mistakes though! Instead of ordering a packet of every vegetable that looks sooo delicious, I am going to stick with the ones I have experience with. I think it will be better to have a small successful garden, than a large disastrous one ;)


What about you? Am I the only one that gets carried away once those seed catalogs show up in the mailbox?

This post in linked to the Living Well Blog Hop, Homestead Revival Barn Hop , Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways and Simple Lives Thursday.