Squash Bug Alert!

Alas, the creepy-crawlies are once again beginning their assault on the garden.  Squash bugs infest, as you might have guessed, members of the squash family, to wit, Zucchini. Also pumpkin, but that's not a big problem for me because I don't grow pumpkins.

The life cycle of the squash bug is basically to come out of hiding when the Zucchini plants start to flower, lay loads of small coppery oval eggs in the wedges between the veins on the underside of the leaves, which then hatch into a load of absurd lime-green pinheads with black legs, which then molt into grey things, and then become the black thing you see pictured above, all in about 6-8 weeks. At which point they mate, restart the cycle, and any bugs that make it to adulthood by early fall then scurry away and hide in the underbrush until next spring/summer.

If you manage to kill all the adults at the start of the season, you should hopefully get a pretty good start on nipping the problem in the bud, or at least until the next generation flies in from the neighbor's.

Last week, I saw two mating on my plants for the first time, then the next day I found about 15, then 2, then 1, and today, none. So I would guess that right now is a good idea for people in Almaden Valley to be checking their Zucchini plants for these bugs.

The simplest way to find them is to water the plants in a decent shower; the bugs then like to climb the stems to get away from the water at ground level, and you get to see them more easily on the stems and under the leaves, and their movement helps too.  They are easily killed, and the name "squash bug" finds a double entendre in my garden. I have read that watering the plants with water including squashed bugs helps to repel others, but I have also read that you shouldn't squash the bugs because they release a pheromone that attracts more.  While it is true that they stink (I find it a slightly pleasant smell, but I can understand how others might consider it a "stink" bug), I have no idea if this affects populations. In the end, I decided that attracting more is not a bad thing, because it means I get to squash more of the population in the area at once. But the jury is out as to whether it makes any difference. If you don't like squashing, just drown in soapy water.

However, it is CRUCIAL to not let these breed. Once they breed, you have hundreds of these larvae things running everywhere, and these bugs kill the plants as they lacerate and block juice tubes in the plant. The leaves wither and die, and finally, the last few Zucchini are covered in these pests. So act with haste and pre-emption. Inspect your plants now, kill the adults, then continue to inspect the leaf undersides for masses (about 25 in each) of coppery eggs, and squash or cut these out and destroy. For now, every time you water the plants, look closely at the plants immediately after and look for these bugs.

My Zucchini season started today, when I picked a fairly small one. It didn't seem to be growing rapidly, maybe because it wasn't fully pollinated, or maybe because the plants don't have enough energy yet, so I just broke it off and ate it. I see more following. Cherry tomato, blackberry and apricot seasons are also at their start right now. So far, its only the early outliers, but it harbinges well. Is that even a word? Harbinges? If there is a harbinger, it must harbinge, right?

Free Potatoes

 

Last winter, a few potatoes in the bag were growing sprouts, so I thought, "Hey, why not throw these in the garden and see what they do". Not only are potatoes relatively easy to grow, but they help to clear the ground of weeds; however, my main though was simply filling some empty space, adding a little crop rotation, and seeing how well they would do in this climate.

At the start of May, the haulms (stems) were looking limp and fallen over, so I thought I'd have a look and see how the potatoes were doing underneath. Imagine my surprise when I found about 5 decent spuds under each one. Thats a 500% return in about 5 months - not bad.

Of course potatoes are cheap in the grocery store, which is why I never really bothered with them until now, but there are several advantages of growing them yourself; 

First, when I buy potatoes in the grocery store, I usually eat more than I want to simply because I dont want to waste them before they go green/bad/sprout. Even then, I usually end up throwing out the last few. Having them in the garden means I can harvest just as many as I need, leaving the rest in the ground for later, so there is no waste. 

Second, the potatoes I harvest are new potatoes, which you cant get in the stores here, other than perhaps as a specialty item, for which you pay through the nose.

So for those in the Almaden Valley and similar climates near here, I'd recommend growing potatoes as follows:

(1) In Winter - anytime in November, December, January, February - if you find any potatoes sprouting in your store-bought bag, simply dig a hole in the garden, about 4-6 inches deep, and throw the potato into it and re-cover. 

(2) If you have compost (not fancy stuff, just stuff from the compost pile that is reasonably rotted), throw over the surface when you are done. This is just a convenient time to be adding compost anyway, because you're not meddling too much with plants on the surface in winter.

(3) Plant more potatoes as they become available, until you have one for every 2-person meal you're likely to want, each about a foot away from the other. Allow about a foot and a half on either side as the stems will probably fall on top of anything growing there.

(4) If you want, you can plant other winter crops in between while the potatoes get going; you should be able to get a crop of lettuce in, for example, before the potatoes smother them.

(5) Harvest from the end of April onwards, as needed in the kitchen. Remember to throw the stems on the compost pile.

(6) As long as you dont grow too many and keep growing them in the same location, year after year, you probably shouldnt get too many diseases/pests showing up. It also helps to interplant with other crops. I had some spring onions, lettuce and parsley mixed in with mine (and the bed is bounded by herbs like lemon balm and oregano).

For 5 minutes work and kitchen waste, you get a meal for 2 of great-tasting potatoes.

Potatoes should also grow well in an old compost pile if you want to let it rot down a little longer or in buckets filled with just-finished compost; they are fairly greedy feeders, so they can handle younger compost than other plants, probably.

In terms of garden management, potatoes work well with compost and/or manure in starting off the crop rotation cycle, in improving the condition of the soil. By growing them in winter, there shouldnt be too many problems in water requirements either.