GA: APHIDS ON THE KALE/CHARD! AND BLACK FLIES IN THE BROCCOLI!!!!

Oh no!!!  I haven't looked at the kale in ages, and went I went to harvest some today, I saw that it's full of green aphids!!! There are some on the chard too, but the kale especially.  So, I'll pull and discard all of the kale and chard next time I go.

I didn't see any aphids on the broccoli, so I brought that home.  But at home I found that there were many little black flies within!!  It took many rinses/soaks to get them all out, but otherwise the broccoli is gorgeous, so I used it.

I have no idea how these aphids/flies got in under the netting (which is a sheer sheet thing, not tulle, so no holes to get in).... My best guess is that they may have overwintered in the soil and therefore popped up under the cover.

GA: Oh no!!! A 2nd zuke lost! (presumably borer, but not pulling it quite yet) --> NOT the borer

Egads!!! The most productive plant has wilted!  This makes a second plant lost!  I'll leave it for a few days to finish ripening what it has.  I didn't check the stem closely because whatever (but will check it out when I pull it to see if it's SVB).

--> Update on August 1st 2025:  Pulled it today after harvesting its last two zucchinis.  There were some squash bugs on it, and found at least one or two borers in leaves/stems, but the main stem seemed clear of borers.  So, I'm guessing it died of some type of disease transmitted by the squash bugs and/or cucumber beetles, rather than SVB.

GA: No longer removing squash bugs / cucumber beetles, will see what happens

Yes, I've decided the plants are big enough and que sera sera.  Let's see what happens!

GA: Oh no!!!! A zuke plant looks struck by SVB already!?!?!?

Oh no!!! Can it be the SVB?!!  It feels like only a week or two that I took the cover off.  But overnight the plant is all wilty, not due to lack of water.  The strange thing is I can't find a point of entry on the stem.  Oh well, I'll wait until it's totally kaput, then will have a closer look when I pull it out.

GA: No squash bugs/eggs last few days --> A few days later, more appeared

After a couple of weeks of near-daily checking and removing squash bug adults and eggs, I didn't find any at all today or a the last time I was there a couple of days ago.  Here's hoping they're done?!

--> Update:  A few days later I found more -- and am still finding them occasionally as I write this update edit on July 14th 2025.

GA: SQUASH BUGS!!!!!! MATING AND LAYING EGGS ON EXPOSED ZUKE AND ADULTS FOUND ON NETTING!

Hooooo boy!  Last year I only saw a couple of squash bugs, only on one plant, only once.

This year looks to be a different story!  Found about 4 or 5 mating couples, on the one un-netted zuke and on the netting of several zukes.  And the un-netted zuke had several eggs on the underside.

Sigh!

GA: FOY Colorado Potato Beetle!!

Well that didn't take long!  While transplanting zukes, suddenly I saw a CPB crawling on the soil.  Not sure if s/he had been under the soil and recently emerged or had flown in from elsewhere.

I'll definitely have to keep an eye on the potatoes since even though they were covered since day 1, always a chance CPBs could pop up from under the soil.

DON'T RE-USE SOIL FOR INDOORS STARTS THAT WAS IN OUTDOOR-HARDENING OFF POTS!!! EGGS!!!!

Hoping I dodged a bullet here!  For the seedlings that had been hardening off outside and then flopped, I had been dumping their potting mix into the indoor potting mix mixing bowl to use for upcoming starts.  Then, tonight when I started potting up the sprouted seeds from a few days ago, what I did I see in there but what I'm sure are insect eggs!  They were a few millimeters long and sort of copper-coloured -- like the colour of those orangey long slow insects -- wireworms maybe? -- that I've seen in the yard.  

So, immediately I "dumped" that plan and dumped all that bowl into outside garden (I'm not worried about the eggs outside, just don't want some strange insect running ramping inside where there are no predators).

Lettuce seed heads full of aphids

Dang, the backyard lettuce seed heads are full of aphids, so I might just not collect any lettuce seeds this year.

GA: Caterpillar at top of an corn ear

A plump beige/grey caterpillar was at the top of one of the ears of corn I harvested today.  The rest of the ear was perfectly fine though, so just removed the damaged part and ate the rest.

GA: Praying mantis!

Saw a green praying mantis wandering in my garden!  I have a feeling s/he must have come from an egg sac that someone bought, but who knows.  Cool regardless.

GA: SQUASH BUGS!!!

For the first time since seeing a few eggs earlier in the summer, today I saw squash bugs!  Nymphs specifically!  They were on a SVB-doomed zucchini, so I just pulled the whole plant.  Didn't notice any squash bugs anywhere else, but also didn't go looking for them.

So many bees loving the scallopini flowers! SVB seen resting on a scallopini!

So many bees loving the scallopini flowers!  That's a fun part with not covering!

Saw a SVB resting on a scallopini leaf!  Not going to bother inspecting for eggs, especially since these are all show, no grow.

FOY Japanese beetle (in backyard, though others at GA have seen them there recently so I'm sure I will too)

GA: Insect update

GA insect update notes:

Colorado potato beetles:  Finding larva in the potato patch that I covered late; removing by hand.  Haven't found any at all in the other potato patch that I covered from day one.  Haven't found any on tomatoes yet but neighbours have.

Cucumber beetles:  Most of my squash is still tulled, but for the untulled ones they are definitely there.  And one of the tulled ones wasn't secure and had a bunch.

Squash bugs:  Found a pair mating on the outside of tulle over a squash!  Other than than haven't seen any, nor eggs yet on the two uncovered.

Three-lined potato beetle:  Surprisingly I've found hardly any eggs on the ground cherries so far, so stopped looking and will instead just look for larvae.

I think that's it so far.  No sign of the japanese beetle yet, but I'm sure it won't be long now...

So, so far it's been very manageable, nothing scary yet.  The scary part will come when more/all of the squash is uncovered......

Indoor stevia flopped due to many small flying insects! Moved outside

Yikes, tons of small flying insects!!  I had noticed one a week or two ago, didn't think anything of it.  Came back from camping and now there are so many!

So, moved all three indoor stevia outside permanently.

I wonder if they came in on the stevia that I bought -- that's my theory.  (Two of the indoors stevia were mine, one was from the store.)

The plants look happy, but no way in heck do I want to risk insects for the winter, so putting a stop to this now.

GA: OMG -- INSECTS ON DAY 1! Colorado Potato Beetle, and Three Lined Potato Beetle! Adults and eggs! On potatoes and ground cherries!

OMG!  Within like 30 minutes of transplanting the ground cherries, there were adults on them!  Some of them mating, no less!

AND -- fortunately I happened to notice bright orange eggs on one of the potato patches -- and saw several adult Colorado Potato Beetles.  Removed the eggs that I could find.

Here's a good page about CPBs, with suggestions for how to deal with them:  https://wholefedhomestead.com/organic-potato-bug-control-get-rid-of-potato-beetles-naturally/

And this article mentions some varieties that are resistant:  https://www.planetnatural.com/pest-problem-solver/garden-pests/colorado-potato-beetle-control/ -- "Yukon Gold, Russet Burbank, Caribe, and Norland, which are specifically designed to be less vulnerable to the beetle’s attacks"

I predict that a few months from now, I will look back and see that this was the day I realized that not drought, not weeds, not theft, not vandalism, not disease, but INSECTS will be far and away the biggest pressure at the allotment.

The pill beetles are the ones decimating the beans!!!!!! Not the slugs!

Yet again this year, the beans have been devoured by something, as soon as they came up.  I've planted dozens of pole bean seeds, yet only maybe 5 are actually growing, and they look not great either.

But anyway, I've been doing slug patrol nightly for the past several nights (soooo many slugs in the yard) and wasn't seeing a ton of slugs on the beans.  But tonight, my suspicions proved correct when I saw that the newest bean to pop out of the ground is absolutely covered by pill beetles!!  They are having such a feast!!  Sighhhhhh.

So, with the latest beans that sprouted inside in paper towels, today I put them into the pink rectangle thing with three rows -- with garden soil inside.  The tray isn't very deep, so I don't know how well this will work, but my plan is to let them grow there until they're a few inches tall with a few leaves on them, then transplant them, because the pill beetles don't seem interested in the older ones, just the newest ones.

Night crawlers a-plenty! Making babies, woo!

Today was very rainy and tonight while doing slug patrol, saw more night crawlers than I've ever seen in the yard!  Soooo cool!  Quite a few happy couples coupled up as well.  

First lettuce harvest of the year; chard will be soon; kale are small

The lettuce, which is all in the three grey rectangular planters, have sprung and are looking great!  Took a first harvest today, with falafel.

The chard aren't far behind.

The kale are looking pretty puny still -- the slugs have a clear preference for them over the chard (they share a bed).  I think the kale will get there though.