I’m a little unclear as to how I got into this… 

It seemed innocent enough.  Come to a meeting at the Benton County Extension office to talk about a Youth Community Garden.  The city had purchased some lots that had been flooded in ’08 and the Extension had gotten a grant to turn it into a community garden.  Sounds good.  So how come I’m spending hours weeding on empty lots?  I can do that at home.

It turns out this is an educational opportunity for kids.  The Extension sent home flyers with kids at school and advertised in all sorts of places to get them to sign up.  We have three girls that are helping out: Sarah, Aspen and Halie.  There was a lot of work to do. 

We started with three empty lots….

and ended up with something that is turning out very nice indeed…

Thanks to everyone who has donated, is going to donate, who has helped and who will help in the future.  This will be an ongoing project that many of the Vinton kids can enjoy.

The kids get to take the produce home and if we end up with a lot of extra, they will have the choice to sell it at the Vinton Farmers’ Market or donate it to the local food bank.

There is a Ribbon-cutting/Dedication at 5 PM next Tuesday (the 3rd) at 5 PM followed by a Ribbon-cutting/Dedication at 6 PM at a Pavilion on another flooded site just down the road.  They are on East 2nd street so come on down and check it out.  And go ahead, pull some weeds.  We won’t mind!

Dig it!

Posted under General

…Doesn’t matter… they were scrumpt-dili-icious!

We harvested our first potatoes on Sunday.  And a few onions!

This journey began way back in the beginning of April. 

I missed planting them on Good Friday because it was raining when I got home from work, but I managed to get them planted on Easter Sunday.

They grew nicely…

Dwayne has never grown potatoes and I haven’t grown them since I was a kid, so it was pretty exciting putting the fork in the dirt to dig up the potatoes!

And now it is time to enjoy the fruits of our labor…  (even though it was pretty easy!)

You put pieces of it in the ground to grow more of itself!  Have you tried the magic of the potato?  What an amazing thing a potato is.  

Dig it!

Posted under General

I love to take pictures in my garden.  We got a digital camera a few years ago and it is great.  Our neighbors probably think I’m nuts going around my garden taking a lot of pictures of plants.  I won’t tell them I take a lot of pictures of the cats, too.

There are a couple of problems I have when taking pictures. 

-I’m not very patient.  I’m running around the garden snapping away.   So far, I haven’t been able to get any butterflies and only a few bugs. 

-I don’t have a tripod or anything else to keep the camera steady, especially when I am trying to get close-ups.

-I’m really not very good.  I have this image in my mind and think it’s a great idea, but when I look at the image on the computer (when I can enlarge it), it invariably comes out blurry.  The shot I thought was the one for the fair is only good enough to be deleted.

Despite all of those shortcomings, I have managed to take a few that I like.  Some of these are from last year and some are from this year and, yes,  I took all of them.  Enjoy!

The next series of photos is of lilies.  There are day lilies and asiatic lilies. 

 I hope you have enjoyed my photo tour.  Send me some of your photos and I’ll putt them in a future post.

Dig it!

Posted under Photos

This…

… is not welcome in my garden.

This is the Japanese Beetle, not to be confused with the Asian Lady Beetle…

Chances are if you haven’t seen the Japanese Beetle in your garden yet, it will be there soon.  They have been reported in 44 of Iowa’s counties since 1994. 

If you are in a county not shaded in red and you find a Japanese Beetle contact your local Extension office.

They were transported into New Jersey with ornamental plants from Japan in about 1916 and have been spreading ever since. 

Adult Japanese beetles are around from late June through August, about 6 weeks.  The adults lay eggs in July and August in grassy areas, and these eggs then hatch into white grubs that feed on plant roots and organic matter in the soil.  The grubs stay in the soil until the following June when they become new adults and emerge from the soil to start the cyce again.  Now, while you can treat your lawn for grubs, the female Japanese beetle lays her eggs in grassy areas over a LARGE area, not just your lawn. 

And they are hungry little buggers.  They feed on leaves and fruits (and the flowers) of over 350 kinds of plants.  I found one on my Butterfly Bush, the neighbors asparagus and several on our basil, chokeberry and hibiscus.  They are apparently especially fond of roses, raspberry, grape leaves and crabapple and linden tree foliage.  I don’t have a linden but they haven’t attacked our grape leaves, raspberries or our crabapple yet.  However, they have decided a couple of my roses are their favorite places to dine out.  I have seven separate rose bushes, not including the roses we got from our friend Bill many moons ago.  The beetles love my Sven rose bush…

and they have taken bites out of the Firefighter…

World War II….

and Strike it Rich roses.

I have found them on my Pink Knock-out….

and my miniature chinese rose, too.  (I can’t find a picture that doesn’t have it buried for winter, sorry)

They seem to be leaving my Ole rose (yes, he is Sven’s “brother”) alone.  It is on the other side of the house and that may make the difference, but they were on the chokeberry bush just to the east…. hmmm.

Controlling the adult beetles is rather hard to do because they emerge daily for several weeks.  I have been able to get a lot of them by handpicking, but a word of warning…  They tend to drop if they feel threatened, so I have had to get my hand or the bucket under the flower or stem I am grabbing.  Oh, and they can also fly. 

The early morning seems to be the best time to get them since they appear more sluggish.  You can use Sevin, Eight or Tempo to spot spray infested foliage but multiple applications are required to keep control.  And make sure to only use them according to label instructions.  AND… spraying the adult stage doesnt’ control the larval stage (they tend be grubs in the turf) with grub damage to the turf and treatment of the turf doesn’t prevent adult damage to ornamental plants.  Tree foliage can be protected with a soil-drench application of a systemic insecticide (this works through the roots of the plant), but make sure you apply it several weeks ahead of the beetle emergence.  I used a systemic on my roses, but I didn’t get it on in time.  The beetles appeared within two weeks of my application.   Again, some of the tastiest morsels for the Japanese beetle appear to be peach, cherry (haven’t see any on mine, yet), plum, apple, linden, birch (again, none yet), elm, Norway maple, horse chestnut, willow, grape (not yet), raspberry (not yet), Virginia creeper, rose (oh, yes!), hollyhock, hibiscus, dahlia and zinnia.  Now, I will say that I treated our trees this spring with a systemic so that may have been enough to keep the beetle at bay.

There is some hope….  Japanese beetles rarely attack red maple, magnolia, white oak, red oak, common lilac, burning bush, hydrangea, forsythia, rhododendron, boxwood, holly, juniper, arborvitae, yew, fir, spruce, pine, impatiens, begonia, ageratum, columbine, sedum, coral bells and coreopsis.  And, for some reason, they have left our “Bill’s roses” alone.  It may be that they finished blooming before the adults emerged and therefore don’t taste as good.  I don’t know, but I keep checking, just in case….

Oh, and there are supposed traps out there (floral lure and sex attractant), but I wouldn’t use them.  The University of Kentucky did some research that showed the traps attract more beetles than they catch and that plants near the traps may have more damage than if no traps are used at all. 

So get out there and get rid of those Japanese beetles!

And Dig it!

Posted under Pests

Lynne sent me an email saying that she has a wonderful patch of potatoes but has some bugs on them.  She called them potato bugs and that brings up an image of the Colorado Potato Beetle.

However, there is also an insect called the potato leafhopper.

It is probably the beetle since the leafhopper relies on the wind to get to where it is going.  It cannot survive our winters and gets blown in on the wind, so where it lands is where it eats.

The Colorado Potato Beetle, however, is common in Iowa’s home gardens.  They are about 3/8 of an inch long and have an oval body.  If you care to count, there are ten alternating black and yellow stripes on the wing covers.  Hmm.  Must be a Hawkeye fan. 

The adults hide in wooded areas and other protected locations for the winter and begin laying eggs on host plants in early spring.  These host plants include potato, pepper, eggplant and tomato. The eggs hatch into dark  red, humpbacked larvae with dark heads and two rows of black spots on the sides of the abdomen.

The larvae often feed in groups and cause isolated severe defoliation.  When the larvae grows to 1/2 inch in length, they burrow into the soil to transform into the adults that appear in mid-summer to repeat the cycle. 

The beetle is difficult to control.  Hand picking may be the best method as long as you don’t have a whole field of potato plants.  If you decide to use an insecticide, complete and thorough coverage of the infested plants is necessary for good control. Liquid sprays are usually more effective than dust applications.  Now, these bugs have been around for a long time and decades of repeated insecticide use, the beetle has developed a resistance to some insecticides, including Sevin.  If Sevin doesn’t work, try Eight, also called permethrin, or bifenthrin, kaolin clay (Surround) or azadiractin (Neem).  You can also utilize Mother Nature.  The Predaceous stink bug feeds on Colorado potato beetles.  Just make sure you don’t step on them!

I wouldn’t go out and recruit a bunch of these, however.  They will also eat monarch caterpillars.

To help control the Colorado Potato Beetle, examine plants early in the spring for these beetles.  If they are found, the undersides of the leaves should be looked at to see if there are any eggs.  Also check for larvae.  You should only use the insecticides if the insect populations are large enough.  Otherwise, you will just have to pick them off and drop it into a container with detergent and water.  The Extension office at the University of Maine even suggests using a hand held vacuum cleaner.  Hmmm.  If you do either of these every 2 to 3 days, all the Colorado potato beetles life stages should be removed. 

I am picturing a run on hand held vacuums…. I call dibs!

Dig it!

Posted under Pests

Apparently the secret to making the garden look great is to plant it and ignore it.  And the abundant rain is helping, too.

And that’s just the original garden.  The only thing we have done is pull some weeds, but the mass of the flowers seems to be keeping that to a minimum.  Of course, after all this rain, it will be easy to pull out what weeds there are.  I guess I know what I will be doing this week!

Hope your gardens are growing well, too.

Dig it!

Posted under General

KC left a comment on the slug bug post about earwigs and ants.  I’ll talk about the ants in another post, but KC is not the only one noticing all the earwigs around the garden.

They are somewhat common but are really noticed after prolonged periods of wet weather.  We have certainly had that!

Earwigs are pretty easy to identify… they have some pincers on the end of their abdomen.  The females pincers are fairly straight, while the males are more curved.  The pincers are used as both offensive and defensive weapons.  Though they may try to pinch you if you capture and handle them, they do not harm people.  They are about 5/8 of an inch long and adults are dark brown with a reddish head and pale yellow-brown legs. Juveniles are lighter in color.

They are outdoor insects that can usually be found in damp areas like under mulch, dead leaves, logs  and piles of stuff that would keep moisture around.  They can also be found in rotted wood where they feed on moist, decaying plant material.  They have been known to attack living plants, including vegetables, fruit trees and ornamental plants but they are considered only minor pests of plants because the damage is widely scattered.  They tend to hide in flowers and plants that provide some protection, like the top of milkweed plants where the leaves are folded together.  They generally eat decaying organic matter, but can eat other insects (like aphids and mites) and plants such as vegetables, flowers and ornamental plants.

Earwigs will sometimes get into your house, but only by accident or when seeking shelter, especially in the fall.  They don’t cause any harm or destruction, they are just an annoyance.  You can just sweep them up in the house and dispose of them.  Outside control is generally not necessary to keep them out of the house, but you can use barrier treatments around the house and on the foundation if you find a large number of earwigs are present. 

Outdoor management of earwigs is not easy and there is probably no way to completely get rid of them from your yard, but you can trap them and physically destroy them.  Place burlap bags, damp boards, damp newpapers or other materials on the ground for them to take shelter under and then collect the individuals and kill them.  You can drown them in a bucket of water or introduce them to the bottom of your shoe.

As a last resort you can spray insecticides on the plants to reduce damage, but make sure to select a home garden insecticide labeled for this purpose.  And always apply according to label directions.  Avoid applying insecticides to flowers because they will harm the beneficial pollinating insects as well.  And try to apply in the late afternoon since earwigs feed at night.

And, no… they don’t climb into your ear to lay eggs in your brain.   They just crawl in to see if there is anything there.  Naw!  They don’t do that, either!

Dig it!

Posted under Pests