Cutworms?

I think I’ve got cutworms in the bean patch. I keep seeding, and they keep germinating, and then something comes along and cuts the stem at the base. It looks suspiciously like cutworms, something I’ve never dealt with before.

Cutworms are the larvae of, you guessed it, cutworm moths.

Kinda cute little guys. But I am not happy. I am tired of reseeding beans, just to have them cut down in their new growth. It’s lucky that I have a generous stash of bean seed saved up from last year to use, because I’m going through it like crazy.

UC IPM says to dig through the soil and search for the pupae and larvae, and remove by hand. So I did that. I want you to picture me, digging through brown dirt, for brown pupae. You see the futility, right? I did not find cutworms. I did find some slugs, though, so my search wasn’t completely in vain.

What I might do, the next time, is plant for a two-fold defense: I will plant very densely (hoping that the sheer volume will cause some to succeed), and I will place little ‘collars’ over the germinating seeds. I was thinking maybe cardboard toilet paper rolls (the inner part) for these, cut into smaller portions, would work. What do you think?

Have you dealt with cutworms? How did you manage them?

'C' is for Chicken Coop, Catching Critters, and Concurrent Cooking

If you've been reading my posts for any length of time, you know how enamored I have been with using sand in the hen house. Not the coop itself, and not the run - both of those are dirt, with many feet of wood chips, sawdust, and leaves as a thick litter layer. This allows all the waste from the chickens to compost naturally; it's a great mix of carbon and nitrogen. But the hen house is a different matter. The chickens lay eggs up there, in their nesting boxes, which have a deep layer of timothy hay. But they also roost up there at night. And while they are roosting, they are shitting. 

I used to line the floor up there with straw; I would let the poop build up until Saturday, and then take all that straw out and replace it. It was a fine system, and the hay was a great boon to our compost piles, but I really didn't like the chickens walking through all that mess whenever they were in the hen house. It also drew flies. It also smelled pretty bad by Saturday.

So then I switched to sand, and this worked great for years. I bought a long-handled scooper, and every morning, I would scoop out the solid wastes and add them to our compost pile. No more mess, no more smell, very little trouble with flies, and a perfect solution, I thought. But after several years of this, the amount of sand in our compost, and therefore in our vegetable beds, has grown considerably. It's only a little every day, but it sure has added up. And the more I study soil composition in my soil management class, the clearer it became that I would need to come up with a different solution.

Enter rice hulls. A waste product from California's huge rice harvests. And as you can see, you can even get organic hulls. The permaculture group from my college uses these to improve soil structure, and home gardeners can use them in place of perlite in potting mixes. I started to wonder if I could use them as a replacement for the sand.

So I ordered a 50 lb bag from Peaceful Valley Farm Supply in nearby Grass Valley. The hulls aren't as cheap as sand (a 50 lb bag of play sand is about $6.50 from my local Ace Hardware; the hulls were $35, and the shipping wasn't cheap either), but they are extremely compressed in the bag, and you're getting a lot of product for the money - probably at least six months worth of product, and I've been buying a bag of sand once a month. It sort of equals out, price-wise. 

Ecologically, the rice hulls are far superior. First of all it's a product that we're taking out of the waste stream. Secondly it improves soil structure, as it can break down fairly quickly into humus, and meanwhile provide pockets for aeration and soil biology (and as you know, sand takes thousands of years to break down). And thirdly it provides a carbon source to offset the nitrogen of chicken waste.

Plus, there is the issue of sand-harvesting and the environmental costs of that.

The chickens don't seem to mind the change. The material is lighter than sand, but since I have it in an enclosed space, it doesn't blow around. There's very little dust. It doesn't clump as well as sand, and it takes a bit more shaking of the scooper to separate the solid materials out, but that's a mild complaint. I feel good about this new system.

While I'm home today studying, I'm working on several concurrent cooking projects. I'm baking bread, which feels good. Over the summer we seem to eat less of it, and it's often too hot to justify turning on the oven so high for so long. But with our significantly cooler nights, my thoughts turn to beans and toast. So today I'll make the toast and tomorrow I'll make the beans. 

And what goes best with freshly baked bread? Soup, of course! So dinner tonight will be Italian Wedding Soup (which is basically, for me, chicken stock with meatballs and greens, and a dusting of shaved parmesan). Luckily, I had a chicken carcass, a shoulder blade bone from a pork roast, and a parmesan rind sitting in the freezer waiting for a broth-making day. 

And when I checked the piano for ripe tomatoes this morning, there were six pounds to contend with (if you don't know, I bring the tomatoes in just after they 'break,' or blush into color, so that the squirrels don't get them, and they ripen on our piano). I have not yet made tomato paste, so that is another all-day project that I began early this morning along with the broth and the bread. I chop up the tomatoes, add a few red peppers, and simmer them for an hour with some garlic and salt. Then I run them through the food mill, and continue simmering (or put in the oven on a low temperature) for several more hours until they reach the desired thickness. I think I will freeze this paste in quarter-pint jars rather than can it.

the beginning of paste...

And as for the critters, well. It has been a banner year for yellow jackets. I don't mind a few buzzing around, but when they arrive in hordes (and yes I do mean hordes), it's time to thin the herd. We've been hanging these traps (the only ones that seem to work) and replacing them every week, and each week every trap is completely full of dead wasps, and we don't even seem to be making a dent. They are hassling the chickens, the honeybees, the cat, and us. They are EVERYWHERE. It's a real problem. 

There must be a nest nearby, but it's not on our property, so there's nothing I can do about it.

Speaking of which, if you ever run into my dad, ask him how well a bee-suit works when digging up a yellow jacket nest.

Message in a Pepper

Just now, cutting Calabrese peppers for drying, I noticed this:

I took it in a Forrest-Gump-follower sort of way, and decided it's going to be a good day. 

Another sign of good luck is this guy, hanging upside down under an Hooker's Evening Primrose leaf:

S/he didn't mind me taking pictures at all, just looked at me calmly. 

However, just to even things out a little bit, there are signs of not-so-great luck in the garden, too.

Squirrels are getting into the melons...

... and deer hop the fence, once in a great while, even with our tall deterrents. This gal didn't eat much other than some pumpkin leaves and some cosmos flowers.

The Labor Day chores include harvesting basil and making pesto for the freezer, fixing drip lines, turning the compost, seeding flats for the winter garden, and definitely some book reading, preferably in a very comfy chair. Grilled pork tenderloins with an herbed cornmeal rub and herbed focaccia are on the menu for tonight, making the most of our current herb garden bounty. 

Happy Labor Day!

An Unwelcome Guest

I've been seeing these guys occasionally in the garden. I figured it was some sort of grasshopper, but I wasn't sure what kind. So I did some research. Turns out it's a female Schistocerca americana or American Grasshopper or Bird Grasshopper. These guys can do a lot of damage to crops. But curiously, the ones I've seen (and there have maybe been three over the course of the summer) have all been green, and apparently nymphs raised under solitary conditions are green, whereas in a period of outbreak, they turn brown. So at least I don't have an outbreak.

I didn't eliminate this grasshopper, though I suppose I would be within my rights to do so. In line with my newish philosophy of 'just wait,' I shall give it some time. Let's see what creature shows up to prey on these grasshoppers. I imagine the millions of Western Fence Lizards I see in the yard might take care of them.

one of many basil plantings in the yard

August is the time of year where not much needs to be done in the garden - it's all about the kitchen and preserving what comes in. We've had lots of cucumbers - Tom makes all kinds of pickles from these, and we enjoy those all winter. I eat a lot of cucumbers fresh, chopped with tomatoes, a little homemade red wine vinegar, a splash of olive oil, and a sprinkle of salt. We also really like tzatziki which is a good way to use up the thinner-skinned bush cucumbers. I did grow lemon cucumbers for the first time this year; I have to say they weren't our favorite, and the chickens have had the lion's share of those.

a bee in the cucumber blossoms

At the moment I am in a tomato 'lull' - lots of green ones on the vines, but not a lot ripe. I sure did get a lot at the beginning of August, so I can't complain. The cherry tomatoes are still producing, as always. I expect my tomatoes to go along just fine until November, unless we get an early frost (unlikely) or I finally rip them out to put in the winter garden.

Speaking of the winter garden, I've already got my onions in the ground. It's quite early, but I put them in a cooler spot in the garden and I hope they'll do well there. 

I also ripped out the pole beans. This year, I grew Missouri Wonder, and I didn't like them at all. First of all, half the foliage was always yellow.

Or brown and dead.

Plenty of flowers, plenty of fruit, but the beans went from tender to tough in (what seemed like) a 24 hour period. I like tender beans, not stringy. I think next year I might go with bush beans rather than pole and see if that's better. 

pretty bean flowers

In place of the beans, I planted snap pea seeds. It might be too warm to start them, but I thought I'd give it a go.

Elsewhere in the garden, the gourds are delightful to look at.

The pumpkins are all doing nicely, too. And the winter squash has overcome powdery mildew, and is starting to fruit.

acorn squash

delicata squash

And we're still getting peppers, both sweet and hot. Tom made his first 2016 batch of hot sauce using Jalepeno and Maule's Red Hot, and he also pickled a jar of Jalapenos. I planted many more plants last year and we had more peppers than we knew what to do with, but this year I only planted one of each of three kinds, and we're finding we don't have as many as we would like. Somewhere in the between is the right amount. I've frozen several batches of roasted sweet peppers for winter meals, and we've eaten plenty fresh in fajitas. 

Chocolate Bell, still green

I think next year I'd like to try a sweet red frying pepper like 'Carmen.' I love Jimmy Nardellos and I grow them every year, but they are very thin and small. I'd prefer something larger. Any recommendations?

The potatoes are going gangbusters, I have five kinds growing in pots in the shade of the chitalpa tree. I'm starting to notice some yellowing leaves, so it won't be long now till we have a harvest. 

And it's also time for melons. I've been harvesting very small cantaloupes for weeks now (delicious, but tiny - this variety was 'Sweet Jenny' so I'll try something bigger next year), and the watermelons are getting big. But the watermelon stems have not withered yet, and that's how you know your it is ready, so we'll have to wait a while longer. Sigh.

can you find the bee?

Our son Adam has begun his first year of High School, and our daughter Kate begins her 8th grade year at a brand-new charter school next week.  You may remember that I resigned my job working with autistic kids, and wanted to find something to do outdoors, or somehow in nature. I've applied for all kinds of jobs and am waiting to hear. The French Laundry is advertising for a farm hand, which makes my heart swell, but I don't think I can commute all the way to Napa every day. That would very definitely NOT be sustainable. :) A reservation might make it almost worth it.

Trap Crop/Tomato Paste

Above is a bed I had originally planted to cucumber. Not all of the plants germinated; therefore I went ahead and planted cucumber seeds in other places in the garden (and oh my we can't keep up with them!), and added collards to this bed. I hoped to have both crops do well in this place, but the cucumbers grew far faster and the collards never got enough height. However, I left them in place for quite a while, because I noticed something:

Can you see them? This collard's stem is covered in aphids. Here's a closer look.

Yuck. I am not a fan of the aphid. However, I am very pleased that these collards became something called a 'trap crop' for the little buggers. 

Trap Cropping is a part of Integrated Pest Management, or IPM for short. What is IPM? Here, let UC Davis (our agricultural giant of a school about an hour north of us) explain: "IPM is an ecosystem-based strategy that focuses on long-term prevention of pests or their damage through a combination of techniques such as biological control, habitat manipulation, modification of cultural practices, and use of resistant varieties."

The bottom line is, you can't keep aphids, or other plant-eating insects, out of the garden. It's not like you can put up an insect fence. So how to manage them? IPM is a great defense.

As I've written about before, in the last year or so I've started simply doing nothing but waiting and watching, because pest insects in turn attract predators that will feed on them. In the time since I adapted this philosophy, I've seen numerous stages of ladybug around, from nymphs to larvae, which are voracious predators of aphids; and lately I've been seeing dozens of mantids in every growth stage as well, and the lizards have been reproducing like mad, if seeing baby lizards at every turn is any indication. If I poisoned the aphids, these predators would not come to eat them, and the balance of the garden would be upset. I want my own little 'Wild Kingdom' playing out in my garden. (I'm hoping garden snakes will be next. I could use some snakes around here.)

Another approach is trap cropping. Instead of planting a whole bed of broccoli, for instance, knowing that aphids are attracted to brassicas (like my collards), why not plant a few in various areas of the garden? Why not plant more than you could possibly eat? That way, a few of those plants can become 'sacrificial' plants. The aphids will attack some, but most likely not all; if you leave these plants with aphids in place, they will hopefully stay contented with their patch of broccoli and stay out of other plants.  

This is what happened with my collards, though I can't say I did this on purpose. It was a happy accident. I care more for cucumbers than collards. I care more for the nearby romaine lettuce than I do collards. The collards became a sacrificial plant so that I could enjoy my lettuce and cucumbers bug-free.

Today, I decided to pull the collards up as they had served their purpose. I collected them and threw them to the chickens, therefore insuring the birds of some extra protein, and therefore the aphids served yet another purpose.

I'll be using trap cropping on purpose in the winter garden. I'm done with planting just one crop in each bed - the insects just find that one crop they like and decimate it. Each bed will be a hodgepodge of different plants, hopefully insuring that at least some of each crop will make it to harvest. 

The only place I don't have to worry about this is with garlic, onions, and herbs. The plant-sucking bugs such as aphids tend to leave the smelly stuff alone.

In other news, my new food mill arrived. After reading many reviews, I got one made by Oxo. It comes with a bowl that has three folding legs, the crank and shaft, and three different discs for different sizes of milling - fine, medium, and coarse.

It cost just under $50 at Amazon and is incredibly easy to use. I didn't even have to read directions to put it together, unlike my other fancy food mill which was like an engineering project every single time I used it. Best of all, all the parts are dishwasher safe. 

I processed 8 pounds of tomatoes into tomato paste, using the fine disc on my new mill. It was time consuming but very easy. The crank turned easily. I decided to dry the tomato paste outside in the 100 degree sun, and it took just one afternoon.

I added absolutely nothing to the tomatoes, and I wish so much that I could describe the taste of the finished paste. I've read in cookbooks, by authors whose recipes and skills I respect so much, that the flavor of homemade paste is inferior to what you can buy at the store. I could not disagree more. The taste is like the pure essence of summer tomato. It's sweet, and yet it has that bite of acid, and a hint of smokiness (from what? I don't know), and it's rich, rich, rich. By far the most delicious tomato product I have ever made. 

However, those 8 pounds of tomatoes made only 18 cubes for the freezer. So it's a luxury.

I figure I won't use these for recipes that call for two cans of paste or whatever. Rather, I'll use them when a recipe calls for a couple of tablespoons. There, this homemade paste will shine. 

When our daughter Kate was oh, about ages 5-8, one of her favorite things to eat was tomato paste. I'd open one of those little cans for her and she'd eat it with a spoon. I thought it was the strangest thing, and yet at the time, we were so glad she liked any kind of produce at all! Think of all the vitamin C and A she was getting at the time! How I wish I had been making this homemade paste then. This is pure summer in a cube.