WOW! Dig-and-drop composting works SUPER FAST!!!

OMG!  I dug up several of my dig-and-drop composting holes today, curious to see what they look like.  There is essentially no sign of the original material in holes that were dug as recently as July 25th, i.e. 3 weeks ago!!!!  Also the older holes that I checked, July 5th and July 11th, no sign at all.  They all held a full fridge-bin worth of scraps.

The most recent one, from August 8th, is definitely still there, still ample recognizable chunks.

But the others!  I would have sworn I wasn't digging in the right spot, if it weren't for the large rocks and ziplock bags with dates that I placed over the holes.

Oddly, the soil in the holes looks dry and boring, not the rich gorgeous stuff that comes out of the compost bin.

Lacewing emerged today!!

The lacewing larvae I brought inside a week or so ago cocooned within a couple of days, and emerged last night! Beautiful green lacewing. Released.

Pulled southmost zucchini which was killed by SVB

^^^

Caterpillar went wonky :-(

The black swallowtail caterpillar I was keeping inside went wonky, didn't pupate normally. For one thing, s/he attached to the stick only at tail, i.e. without the waist harness. For another, after 24+ hours of jerking around only a tiny part of the head had changed into pupa thing. Released outside like that. Good luck...

Powdery mildew: Gave up, no point since no squash/zucchinis etc. anyway

Up until last week or so, I was still applying water / white vinegar / oil mixture every few days and cutting off the worst leaves.  Now though I've stopped, what's the point fighting it, since there's still only ONE single winter squash (the vertical butternut), new winter squashes continue dying before flowering, and 3 of the 4 remaining zucchini plants look they are never going to produce anything.  There's only 1 zucchini plant I have any moderate hopes of getting anything else from; one of the rondes has some promising-looking fruit. 

So anyway, yeah, I'm going to let what will be, be with the squash.  (Though I'll keep monitoring the one half-decent zucchini for SVB)

Thimbleberries in full harvest

Nice little harvest along the Bb creek trail, north side.

Tomatoes stopped flowering, harvest will be over soon

Noticed recently that the tomatoes have all stopped flowering.  Still ripening nicely resulting in TONS of tomatoes over the past few weeks (lots of Bolognese sauce this year), but, no new ones coming along.  I assume it's because of whatever disease this is that's affecting so many things.

And for the record, they all taste the same to me!  Scotia, beefsteak (which were no bigger than the others), collected seed, all tasted the same.

SVB: First plant lost (one of the completely unproductive vertical zucchinis)

It hadn't started wilting yet, but while inspecting the stem I noticed the damage.  I had zero motivation to try to save the plant since it never produced anything and didn't look like it was going to.  So, I just pulled the plant.  Didn't go looking for the borers too much but did find one.

TIMBERRRrrrrrr! Central sunflower crashed down.

Oh my!  The huge central sunflower fell down today.  The stem snapped. Weighed the head -- 3.5 pounds.  That lower part of the stem was streaked with brown on the inside, my guess is those sunflower maggot flies' babies.

The site, so alas, no harvest from this one either.

Still a few more sunflower heads from which I can hope to get a harvest.

It left quite trail of devastation, like a tree coming down.  Ground cherry and squash banged up, but, likely will be fine (not that I'm getting anything out of those central squashes anyway!).

Cucumber plant kaput due to the disease

Yup, just a few last immature cucumbers on there that might make it or might not.  The leaves of the entire plant are crispy and diseased.  Oh well, at least there was a good harvest.

immature (nymph) spined soldier bug (predatory stink bug)

Cute.  Orange, with orange legs, and interesting horizontal stripes over butt area.  Black eyes.  Slow moving. Found on the volunteer ground cherry plant by the gate.

Potato harvest: Bellanita; started new potatoes in their place

Today's Bellanita potato harvest had the exact same amount as the Eramosa:  1.25 pounds.

^^^ font issues

 

Not highly impressive!

 

Most are very small, marble size or so, some bigger than others.  Definitely a small, salad variety as the website says.

 

Started batch #2 of the sprouted fridge potatoes.

Three goldfinches on sunflower plant (stem) while I was in chair

When I looked up from my chair today, what did I see but not one, not two, but three goldfinches on the not-yet-opened sunflower plant right in front of the chair.  Neat!  They flew away when they saw me look up.

 

I saw one or two at the birdfeeder (which I installed this year) last week.

2020 will be the year of plant viruses/diseases; insects not too bad this year

Or maybe it's because I'm not spending endless hours poring over all the winter squash etc. looking for vine borer eggs the way I was last year. (This year I'm not looking at the winter squash whatsoever for SVB eggs; the ronde de nice I'm doing brief inspections; the zucchini I'm looking at more closely but not obsessively (and yes have found quite a few eggs -- no larvae yet).

 

Still, I don't remember leaves of so many things last year having so many issues. disease

Black swallowtail caterpillar on parsley

A bit smaller than the one I brought in a couple of years ago. Brought in because there are so many wasps/hornets around, would be doomed.

Lacewing larva joining the feast on asparagus aphids

One of the critters who crawled out onto the top of the floating row cover was what turns out to be a lacewing larva.  So interesting!  Brought inside in a separate container from the ladybug larva.

 

Pretty sure I also see a lacewing larva pupa toward the inner area of the asparagus ferns -- a fluffy white ball.

 

 

Floating row cover had opposite effect for "protecting" ladybug larvae; and ladybug update

Today I tried covering the asparagus ferns with floating row cover, to keep the wasps out. Well that didn't work -- twice I saw a larvae walking around on the OUTSIDE of the cover. So, removed it. The good news is there are at least three good-sized larvae. One I brought inside today. The other good news is there's an adult red ladybug hanging around the plant. The more other good news is there are fresh ladybug eggs! (one batch) The bad news is while I was out there watching, another wasp/hornet dove in! I gently batted away before landed, didn't come back.

Sunflower OOPSY

While touring my garden, and seeing that big drooping head of the first sunflower that bloomed (west bed), my dad mentioned that sunflower heads get really stinky when they go bad.  I never could see any seeds on it, so I figured it didn't get enough sun or was a dud or whatnot -- so, I removed the plant.

 

While taking apart the head for curiosity's sake (after having removed the plant), I noticed it's FULL of seeds -- only they're white / not mature yet. 

 

D'OH.

 

So I ate the biggest ones raw, and put out the rest on the compost bin for the critters (which they appreciated).

 

Will let the rest of the sunflowers go to maturity.  (So far almost all sunflowers have opened (only the NE corner hasn't); the front-garden ones have heads forming but aren't there yet.)

 

Oh and there were larva inside the stems.  Presumably from all the sunflower maggot flies who were hanging around the whole summer.  No harm done really.

"Cucumber Yellow Vein Virus" or a Mosaic Virus -- I'm pretty sure this is what must be affecting my plants

Learned about Cucumber Yellow Vein Virus today from a post on the edible gardens group.

 

Quite sure this is at least what's affecting my cucumbers and maybe some of my other various plant issues.

 

Note to self for next year, these are the things that seem to be unaffected by this/these diseases:

 

NOT affected:

chard

broccoli

lettuce

celery

parsley

basil

zucchini

ronde de nice

carrots

beets

asparagus

zinnias

potatoes

 

AFFECTED, from worst to less bad:

 

bean* (especially west wall variety -- all of its leaves have by now dried up and crumbled away, plant did not grow to full potential)

cucumber (leaves looking bad now, but I had a good harvest, so all isn't lost)

winter squash (vertical plants worse than central bed, so far)

ground cherry (I predict leaves will start looking quite bad within a few weeks, but, I had a great harvest, so all isn't lost)

tomato (leaves starting to look badly affected by something, but might be a different issue -- anyway I had a great harvest, so all isn't lost)

sunflower* (they're all flowering nicely, and hopefully will produce mature seeds, TBD)

 

The beans and sunflowers might be a different issue, as their leaves look rusty.

Oh no!!!! Wasps are eating/removing ladybug larvae, even the big ones!!!!

Update on the ladybug larvae:

 

The outside-born ones it seems were mostly eaten / disappeared.

 

The inside-born ones:  Wow, do they ever grow FAST.  They did mostly* great, with new ferns added once or twice a day, and a wet cotton ball inside the jar, with cheesecloth lining (triple-folded).  Their shed skins were all over as they grew.  Gradually over the last ~3 days I've been setting a few loose into the asparagus each day.  It was tricky to get them take hold of a new asparagus fern and not fall off as it bounced into place, but it worked with some patience.  I could swear I wasn't seeing as many on the plants as I was releasing.  Well, sure enough, today as I was out to release the last two*, what did I see but a wasp/hornet in the plant wrestling with a balled-up ladybug larva, one of the bigger ones!!  The wasp/hornet flew off with it!  Noooooooooooooo........!!  Dang it.  One beneficial insect eating another beneficial insect.  *The last two or three seemed to have something wrong with them starting yesterday -- they seemed to lose their ability to move normally, just lying in place wriggling their legs around, unable to get up and move.  I tried placing things there for them to grab onto, but the same issue.  So today I just set them loose onto the ground near the asparagus plant.