Floating row cover (unknown origin) over beet bed and potato pots; so far Bintje only potatoes to appear

Beets:  Seeing all those leaf miner eggs on the chard, and remember all the grody leaf miner damage from last year, figured wouldn't it be nice to have pristine beet leaves.  So, the beet bed is now covered by FRC (unknown origin i.e. might be dollar store, might be Lee Valley).

Potatoes:  Similarly, remembering all the flea beetles from last year and while waiting for the kaolin clay to arrive, decided to try putting FRC over the pots.  Super easy to do since the containers are half-empty currently; just covered and secured with twine.  (FRC of unknown origin i.e. might be dollar store, might be Lee Valley.)

Speaking of potatoes, so far only the Bintje have appeared.

Aphid? on swiss chard

Not sure what this critter is.  Kind of pale, but moves pretty fast.  Rehomed.

First salad of the year: chard, kale, lettuce

Very nice!

Leaf miner eggs throughout chard (FOY); a small red beetle-ish insect hanging out on the eggs

Wow, those leaf miners waste no time!  While harvesting for the first salad of the year, found a ton of their eggs throughout the chard.  Removed all that I could find, either by harvesting the leaf or in other cases by snipping off that teeny part of the leaf.

On one of the egg batches, there was a teeny tiny red/orange beetle-ish looking insect hanging out right on top of the eggs.  Just hanging out there, even when I put that part of the leaf into a container to look at. After a few minutes came off the eggs to run around the container.  But hmmm, wonder if the red one might be eating the eggs?  Should I put him/her back into the patch?

Watered all outside in-ground plants

^^^

Minute pirate bugs hanging out on the tulle and floating row cover

Wow, there are like 4 or 5 of them just hanging out on the covers.  

Tulle and poly pipe placed over central broccoli

Got my 100 ft of poly pipe today (3/4 inches X 100 ft. 75PSI white stripe, from Home Depot), so rigged up some poly supports and placed the new white tulle (from the store that shall not be named) over it.  The poly pipe arches are supported by bamboo stakes sawed down to about 18-20", and also by some random long plastic stakes I had.  (Worth a try to save the cost of rebar stakes, especially since the only pre-cut rebar stakes I could find are $4 each -- that would add up.)

The tulle is definitely much nicer than the FRC -- can really see into it well!  The only thing is it wasn't quite long enough to cover the entire central broccoli, so the two northmost broccoli are now without cover.  The tulle size is 54" by 108" and cost $12-$13, so not cheap especially if it will last only a season or two.  Would like to find where to buy a big bolt of it for better cost.

Hardening: Group B (e/th else) - 3 hours shade (rest of daytime inside)

Outside in SHADE from 2:30pm to 5:30pm

As of this evening so far, nothing looks burned or sad.  Have not had direct sun yet.

Hardening - Group A (zinnias) -- shade only today (my timing was off) -- leaving outside overnight tonight

Will leave outside overnight for first (I think) time.  Going down only to 9 degrees and only for one hour.

Kaolin clay

Oooooo, can't wait to try this to deter flea beetles and cucumber beetles, two of the banes of my gardening existence!  Learned about it in Susan Mulvihill's new book.  Ordered some online today.

https://plantcaretoday.com/kaolin-clay.html

3 cups kaolin clay powder per 1 gallon. 

 

(That's 3 cups powder to 16 cups water, or 1.5 cups powder to 8 cups water, or 3/4 cup powder to 4 cups water.)

Use a mask and mix outdoors.

Best to put the powder into bucket, then gradually add water, to avoid clumping.

Stir with whisk.

Spray it in cloudy weather or after sun has left for the day.

Continuously shake the bottle.

Spray tops and undersides of plants/leaves.

Re-apply every 1-2 weeks or after rain.

Goldfinch at feeder! Bullied away by the song sparrow!

Oh wow, a goldfinch was at the feeder!  Briefly sampled the mix, then ate some of the black sunflowers -- until, that is, the resident song sparrow swooped in and off flew the goldfinch.  The sparrow then sat briefly on top of the cucumber structure, showing his muscles, then back to his tree.

Minute Pirate Bug! (FOY)

Oh cool!  Saw an interesting-looking fly I don't recall seeing before, landed on/around my chair.  Glanced through Susan Mulvihill's new book, and a-ha -- I'm quite sure it's a Minute Pirate Bug, a helpful garden ally.  Very neat! 

Hardening - Group A (zinnias) - 25-35 minutes in full sun (rest of daytime outside in shade)

25-35 minutes (full sun; 10:55am is when the sun started on the west side of the trays, 11:05 is when the sun reached the east side of the trays; moved into shade at 11:30) (trays were on chair/table in their proper place and on the two containers at feet)

Sun tracking (times it arrives and leaves the yard); only 3.5 hours direct sun!

 Thursday May 13^th 2021

• Sun arrives:

• 9:40am sun arrives at west edge of yard
• 10:55am arrives at east edge of trays (ie trays fully lit) placed on chair/table in their normal position
• 12:00pm arrives at west edge of bottom step
• 12:10pm bottom step fully lit
• 12:20pm top step fully lit (--> since shade on top step by 3:40pm, = only 3.5 hours of direct sun!)
• 12:20pm MAXIMUM AMOUNT OF YARD IS IN FULL SUN BRIEFLY (essentially whole yard just not quit the margin)

• Shade arrives:

• 12:15pm SHADE arrives a west edge of yard
• 12:30pm 16”of shade
• 1:00pm 56” of shade
• 1:15pm 72” of shade  --> So, the line moves at 72” per hour (that’s more than 1” per minute!) or 6 feet/hour
• 1:30pm:  I can move chair into west bed in front of peas and be in shade
• 1:45pm:  shade has reached west edge of patio stones
• 2:10pm:  shade has reached west edge of second row of patio stones, so about half an hour per patio stone.
• 3:40pm:  full yard is back in shade

So, the yard gets only 3.5 hours of direct sun in any one spot!  And yet a vast array of vegetables do fine here.  (Peppers an exception.)

The most-stressed forget-me-not bloomed today

The poor plant is so short, maybe 6".  It's still in its pot.  Cute little flowers appeared today.

Another forget-me-not will bloom soon.  The others hopefully are doing better and won't bloom until later.

Moved entire upstairs set-up (shelving unit and lights) into living room for easier hardening off

A bit of a pain in the neck, but will save a lot of hassle over the next few weeks with all the hardening off starting up.

I still do want another shelving unit for next year.  It would come in handy for the earlier plants that need to come in at night, and if I can also buy lights more one or two of the shelves it will also provide additional growing space now that my winter sowing experiment shows I probably won't do WS for the warm crops since they're so much farther behind.

Hardening off started today for ALL remaining indoor plants (= Group B)

Today = 2 hours in the SHADE (2:30pm to 4:30pm).  (Had planned on be 1 hour, but, oops.)  Then back inside under the lights, which I moved (shelf and all) into the living room since there will be a LOT of in and out while hardening.

Very warm today and awesome forecast, with highs in the 20s!  Nights going down to 8/9.

I will call all of these Group B (Group A being the zinnias, whose hardening off started a little while ago).

Group B includes...

- basil

- tomatoes

- ground cherries

- zucchini

- rondes

- butternut

- cushaw

- cucumbers

- sunflowers

- tuberous begonia

- and a few scattered slow-growing zinnias.

Cabbage butterfly possible sighting

Distant glimpse of a white butterfly leaving the yard at lunchtime today.  Glad the main broccoli patch is under cover!

Oh no! A broccoli struck down by cutworm Japanese beetle grub?

While in the yard today, I noticed one of the broccolis in the north bed, tucked in east of the peas, was all wilted / nearly dead.  Upon investigation the plant broke right off at ground level.  The most minute of looking at the soil revealed a curled up grub which I thought must be a cutworm, which would perfectly explain it.  However, it's actually a japanese beetle grub (white with orange head and dark grey butt).  They do eat grass roots so I wouldn't be surprised and it only makes sense!? that this little one chewed the broccoli stem.

I still have some backups in pots so will be able to replace this one at least.

Hardening off - Group A (zinnias) - ~1 hour

~ 1 hour (unable to track exactly due to meetings, but no more than 1 hour before I moved them back into shade)