First Aid for the Garden

Sharon's watercolors make Trowel & Error an even more charming book!

Cucumber beetles, those dastardly, yellow, ladybug-sized pests that don't stop eating a plant until it is dead, have arrived in our garden. Last year they were in such great flocks, clouds really, that control was useless. The alternate host is said to be the corn rootworm larvae but information is murky. I've tried everything with these pests including yellow sticky traps with little soil-soaked cottonballs (soaked with oils of allspice and bay rum, which is claimed to attract them to the sticky trap, see below). Last year someone suggested that I call an exterminator and spray the entire garden. I try to be ORGANIC, so no thanks to that. Someone suggested a vacuum cleaner. Imagine trying to suck up a dust storm with a vacuum cleaner!

This year we're starting early. First, the sticky traps with allspice and bay rum oils. A few pests hatch from the soil early, breed like rabbits, then lay eggs and die, which means the main bug crop is coming, coordinated with the sprouting of cucumber, squash and related plants, which they attack near the base of the stem and eat. So I'm turning to Sharon Lovejoy's amazing book, Trowel and Error and using some of her suggestions.

Sharon's books are always a delight to read. She has a charming, childlike amazement at every living thing and translates those wonders through her joyful books and art. In this book she gives a recommendation of items every gardener should have in their garden first-aid kit (or as Sharon dubbed it, "The Gardeners Apothecary" which sounds much more gentle than First-Aid).

Sharon suggests several methods of attack. One, a basil sun-tea, which you brew up in the sunshine, combine with soap (not detergent) and spray on the cucumber beetles.

On the next page of Sharon's Dispensary, you'll read how fermented salmon repels deer and chipmunks, and how flour (white but not self-rising) sprinkled on plants deters grasshoppers. Other household ingredients such as honey, rubbing alcohol, petroleum jelly, liquid soap, vinegar and many others are important to have in your arsenal for protecting your garden plants.

You'll learn why soap makes a good insect control for certain pests in the garden.

Here's a formula from Sharon's book that makes the entire rest of the book worthwhile, IF there was nothing else in it!

One of our methods we use here at Long Creek Herb Farm to help control the early cucumber beetles are sticky traps, baited with allspice and bay rum oils. The cups are covered with Tree Tanglefoot, then the oils added. (Yellow sticky traps attract and trap flea beetles from tomatoes and egg plants, too, and with the addition of the oils, the cucumber beetles think it's tasty - until they are trapped, that is).

Yellow cup, covered with Tree Tanglefoot, baited with allspice and bay rum attracts insect pests.

For some really good, inexpensive and organic methods for pest control in your garden this year, you need this book. And if you haven't found Sharon's blog yet, visit her there, as well (or on the Lowe's Garden Blog, where she also posts). You can order Trowel and Error, as well as her other books on her website.

Sharon Lovejoy's fanciful watercolors reveal her sweet spirit, and bring her books to life for adults and children, alike.

Happy gardening, and may your garden be free of cucumber beetles this season!

Alien Invasion

When I say aliens I'm not talking alien people. Nor even aliens from outer space. I'm talking about something much more frightening to a gardener. Cucumber beetles! Hoards, flocks, waves, masses of the yellow spotted devils. So many that just walking through the garden, I have them on me like flies. (Wonder if they'd eat me if I stood still?) hmmmm.

They arrived about a week ago, or actually, hatched out. They were already here, hiding in the soil like those pod people from the movie, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Just like the pod people, cucumber beetles have shown no emotion as they slashed and burned their way through my garden.

The cucumber beetles have attacked the okra, and in just 4 days have defoliated the plants and are finishing off the flowers and small okra pods.

And those beautiful loofahs on the gazebo I posted a week or so back? The beetles attacked the leaves and flowers first, now they're eating the baby loofahs.

The tomato vines are pretty well wiped out. The beetles bore into the tomatoes, too, ruining them as they ripen. Controlling these pests are a serious problem. If you want to know more, follow this link. There is no easy remedy to these pests, but ATTRA has some reasonable suggestions (including building bat houses, because bats are one of the several predators of cucumber beetles).

Remember those wonderful peaches I showed you about 10 days ago? That bountiful crop, the tree having to have limbs propped up to hold the heavy burden of peaches? They're not quite ripe yet, but here's why I won't get any. First, the beetles bite into the peaches.

Then, when the peach's sweet sap starts to ooze, everything in the insect kingdom moves in for a feast. You'd think I'd put up a sign, "Free Salad Bar, come on in." Notice the butterflies, a beneficial wasp, several of Matthew's bees, and lots of 12-spotted cucumber beetles.

So, we picked as many of the not yet ripe peaches that were mostly undamaged. I'll let them ripen indoors and they won't be as sweet and peachy as tree-ripened ones, but I want to salvage some of the crop at least. And to use some, I made a pie. It contains 4 not nearly ripe peaches and 3 Granny Smith apples. 1 cup of sugar, 1/4 cup tapioca and a bit of butter. I topped it with a thick, crumb crust, recipe below.

Funny, it looks scorched. It wasn't, it's just the photo. It was actually a tasty golden brown. No matter, it was really good! Crumb topping: 1/3 cup butter, 1/3 cup flour, 1/3 cup brown sugar, in a food processor and pulse process until the pecans are coarsely chopped. Pile it on top of the pie - it will be thick, that's good. Bake at 400 degrees F. about 45 minutes.

So, is there anything the cucumber beetles haven't eaten this week? They are tasting the Bellingrath  Gardens pepper, see that one hiding under the leaf at the tip of the arrow?

So far, they've left the lemongrass and the chives alone. Wish me luck, there may not be much of the garden left by next week!