Dealing with Peskies Mechanically

Mechanical methods include the physical removal of pests.  For example, aphids can be hosed off of leaves rather easily.  Yes they may climb back up there, but if you stay at it a few days in a row there's a decent chance they will give up.

Another example - vine-borers.  These are nasty things.  They are little evil worms that bore into your squash or pumpkin (and sometimes cucumber) vines and dine voraciously.  It's obvious very quickly when you have one as the leaf at the end of that vine will promptly wilt.  Since they are inside the stem of your plant, there's no use spraying anything - so go ahead and get a garden knife or pruner, cut that stem off at it's base, slit the stem open and look until you find the detestable creature, and then gain great satisfaction from stomping the life out of it.

In some cases you may get an infestation on just one plant - usually the one on the end of the row or edge of the garden.  I have had situations when literally - just one plant - is very quickly overcome but there's no sign of problems on the adjacent plants.  Assess the situation quickly, but it might be more beneficial to sacrifice the one plant and dispose of it as far away from your garden as possible in order to keep the problem from spreading.

Sometimes you may experiment with growing a particular type of vegetable or ornamental plant, only to discover that a certain pest is prevalent in your area and will always attack that type of plant no matter what you try.  This is where I step back and consider the big picture.  Many vegetable plants we grow these days are not native to our location.  Even the ones that are native in origin have often been bred to no longer resemble the plants that were once native.  In some cases certain plants aren't quite suited to our garden environment and may always struggle to thrive, therefore inviting pests to come take advantage of the situation.  The way I look at it, if a plant variety just isn't going to be happy to grow in your garden, or if the same pests repeatedly take it over time and time again - you've got 2 choices.  1 - douse it with chemicals, or 2 - give it up.  I'd rather eat vegetables that have not been doused with chemicals, and I'd rather not introduce harmful chemicals into my garden environment.  It is way more worth it to me to stick with the things that grow well than to go against my conscience trying to convince any plant to thrive when the odds are against it. 

Mechanical methods of pest removal can be very effective if you are vigilant with inspecting your garden closely and you are consistent in your removal of anything suspicious.  This method is certainly worth a first try, even if you choose to move onto other remedies.

Peskies

I have delayed writing this one.  (Sorry Christyn!)  There's just so much that could be discussed.  What to do, what to do! - when your plants are being invaded!  I'll give the discussion a start, and we'll see where it goes.   Garden pests can include critters, bugs, and fungi - but for now we'll deal with the bugs.

Rule #1 Regarding Garden Pests:  Pests will rarely attack a perfectly healthy plant. 
This is what I've always been told, and in my experience, it's rather true.  A healthy plant has its defenses up, and just like humans, plants do have pretty good defenses.  But allow your garden to wilt, allow weeds to crowd your plants, allow a nutrient deficit to get out of control - and you'll be invaded.  Keeping your plants happy and healthy is your first preemptive strike.


Monitor your garden regularly for water needs.  It's been raining a lot this week, but if next week is dry and your garden is already producing fruit regularly, it may need some supplemental watering.  Much damage can be done if your garden is allowed even just one good wilt.

Weeds readily bring pests into a garden.  They allow nocturnal insects a place to hide during the daytime, they keep the ground moist in a way that provides habitat for slugs and the like; since weeds often have a shorter life span and go into decline readily, they invite pests to themselves that will then move onto your garden plants once the weeds have expired.  Weeds also compete for sunlight and nutrients so that your plants won't get as much as they could and therefore might begin to suffer.

If you notice that your plants are yellowing or your blooms are dropping off prior to setting fruit - those are signs of nutrient deficiencies.  Consider mulching with a rich compost, watering your plants with a "tea" made from soaking compost in water for most of a day, or purchase a good organic (or not-so-organic, depending on your persuasion) fertilizer.  Follow package instructions carefully for any sort of chemical fertilizer since adding too much can "burn" and very much harm your plants.

Inspect your plants regularly.  If you find a branch on a tomato that may have been bruised and the branch is starting to decline, go ahead and clip it off.  Remove any declining leaves and take them far away from your garden in order to discourage any sort of fungus from gaining a foothold.  Look very carefully for any signs of pests - look closely enough that you would discover if a half-dozen aphids were setting up camp on a cucumber bud.  The earlier you might find a pest problem, the more success you will have in fighting it.

If your garden does begin to experience a pest problem there are basically 3 ways you can deal with it: Mechanically, Naturally, or Chemically.  We'll be discussing these in subsequent posts, so stay tuned...

Keep a close eye on your tomatoes, watch out for blossom end rot

Blossom end rot occurs when your tomato or pepper plants are not absorbing calcium fast enough to support maturing fruit.  The result is a rotting that occurs at the end of your tomato or pepper, and it ruins it completely. In my experience gardening in the southeast, this will very often occur with your first fruits, and excessive amounts of rain greatly increase your chances for it.

Acidic soils, like we have in the southeast, tend to chemically tie up calcium so that it is not as readily absorbed as quickly-growing tomato or pepper plants would like.  One solution is to add lime to your soil to chemically mediate the acidity.  Another is to add compost to dilute the acidity.  An old-fashioned trick that I have had some success with is to pour any expired milk onto your tomato plants.  Last year someone suggested that I break up an egg shell and put it in the planting hole for each of my tomatoes and after following this advice I had zero blossom end rot!  Too bad I forgot to do it this year, but I'm going to crush some shells and put them around my plants this weekend. 

All this rain we've had this week means that your plants have been absorbing plenty of water, and plenty of other nutrients that are more readily available than calcium.  This promotes fast growth and encourages maturing of your veggies, but without enough calcium to go with it your first crop may be a disappointment.  Keep an eye out for it and the due dates on the milk in your fridge.  And if you like tomatoes better than milk, forget the due date and dump it!

Last Spring Garden Harvest

I didn't intend to grow potatoes this year, but one that I'd bought from Athens Locally Grown didn't make it into a dinner before it sprouted, and to show the boys the process of growing potatoes, we planted it.  Not too bad of a return, eh?  Especially for a shady spot.  This garden bed is located along our front porch and there's a redbud tree in front of it.  It will work great for an early spring garden since it's sunny until the redbud gets it's leaves, but this potato plant could have used some extra sun.  So Mommy learned some things along with my boys!  Here's a pic with the proud helpers:

The same day I also harvested the rest of my rainbow chard:

We ate both at dinner that night.  There's no better food than that which goes from garden to table in so short a time!

Cages are not just for tomatoes and beans!

Other viney crops will also benefit from caging or staking, and in some cases by growing up instead of out, you can save on soil space and plant more plants.  Growing plants up may also increase their exposure to sun, depending on your garden conditions, but note that anytime you grow something taller, it may block out sun from a shorter vegetable growing next to it. 

Some squash, cucumbers, and the smallest melons or pumpkins can benefit from a cage or some sort of staked fencing to grow on.  Cantaloupe, watermelon, butternut squash, all but the smallest pumpkins, etc. are just too big and the weight of the fruit will cause the vines to break - so leave these on the ground.  There are some vining varieties of smaller squash though, and these along with cukes will grow up if given the chance and a little help.  Getting these vegetables off the ground prevents a variety of pests that may attack the fruit itself, and overall just helps the plant produce a prettier crop.  These are great plants to train up a cage or fencing instead of letting them sprawl, since they take up so much room growing along the ground and can often interfere with neighboring plants.   You can use cages similar to the ones I described in the previous post - making your own, or those smaller ones available at your garden center will probably do fine in this case.  Just remember to make sure your cages are staked, in case of thunderstorm.  Installing fence posts and running some strong chicken wire between them is also a great solution.  Either way you may need to help these vegetables along by wrapping them onto the structure a little as they grow.  Look for the fine tendrils that arc out from the vine, and place them close to a wire, wrapping a little as necessary to get them to find it.

Those smaller cages at the garden center are also great for bell pepper plants!  Pepper branches break easily, and one hefty pepper during a storm can bring down half a plant!  With a little support, you'll maintain much more of your plant and get more peppers.

Staking for your Beefsteaks

 Real tomatoes need real support.  Those little 3-4' slightly conical cages that are still the staple sold at garden centers?  - Not gonna do it.  Those adorable swirly garden sculptures that claim to support your cosseted red deliciousness?  They are adorable, aren't they.  Not gonna do it.  Maybe for dwarf tomatoes, maybe for that "patio" variety, but if you're growing a real 'mater, get yourself a real cage.  Think this through - on any given good day in July, your prized tomato plant may have anywhere between 6 and 30 maturing fruits.  Roughly 3 medium-sized ones weigh a pound, so you might have anywhere between 2 and 15 pounds of anticipation on that vine.  Then bring along a Georgia July thunderstorm.  You just don't want to risk it.

My best recommendation: if you're going to grow your own, make your own.  Use something called WWM, which some folks refer to as Woven Wire Mesh or Welded Wire Mesh.  Some may even call it woven welded wire mesh but WWWM starts to invoke some sort of wrestling match.  WWM is used as reinforcement in building sidewalks or other concrete structures; it's laid into the concrete form as the concrete is being poured.  It will be available at Lowe's or HD in rolls and you'll have to cut it into sections to form each cage.  One roll might cost in the range of $50, but will make 8 or 10 cages - so go in with a friend or sell the extra to cover costs.  They will last for years! 

When choosing your WWM, consider the width (or height in your case).  5 feet is great, 6 is better.  Also consider the size of the mesh - 6" squares are pretty good.  4" is kinda small - imagine sticking your hand in, grabbing onto a luscious half-pound tomato, and then trying to get it and your fist back through the mesh.  If you've got a 4" mesh you might get stuck there like a raccoon in a trap.  I mean - who could risk letting go of a half-pound tomato lest it fall onto the ground to it's demise?!  I would have to stand there until a rescue operation became available.

Once you have your roll of mesh, unroll it, cutting it into lengths of about 5-6.5 feet.  5 feet will get you a cage of roughly 18" diameter, 6.5 feet will be more like 24" diameter.  When you cut the mesh, cut just before a vertical wire, leaving the lengths of horizontal wire free.  This way when you wrap it into a circle, you can use these free lengths to fold back over the other side of the mesh in order to secure it into a circle.  Hmmm... maybe next year I'll make some more and do a tutorial with photos... that would probably be nice huh.  It's all rather self-explanatory once you start doing it though.

After your cages are put together, very carefully place them over your plants, making sure not to break or bruise branches.  And then - stake your cage.  A 24" wooden property stake can work; I use a 5' steel fence post.  Hammer the stake into the ground directly adjacent to your cage **make sure you're not hammering into any underground utilities!  Call Before You Dig if you have any question!  You can call 811 or 1-800-282-7411 for them to come mark or flag your utility lines. Click here for more information.  The stake should sink into the ground at least 8" if you've got hard ground and 12" or more if your ground is soft.  Then tie your cage to the stake on at least 2 places.  You can use twine, string, old hosiery, or fabric as ties.

As your tomato plants grow, inspect them regularly and gently re-insert any branches that poke through the caging.  Leaves poking through are fine, but if a branch gets out and grows to become a high-producer, it will weigh the branch down onto the cage, bruising and even breaking it.

In the next post we'll discuss the benefits of staking or caging on other types of vegetable crops.