Recent Articles
Deterring mystery pest from eating my tomatoes: New Updates
13.2 years ago organic, pests, tomato 9 Comments
This is not the first time visitors have stolen tomatoes from my garden, but this year the mystery pest has gotten every ripe tomato I have grown this year, which given out cold/wet summer has only been about a dozen ripe tomatoes. I normally go with the philosophy of this land is owned by my neighborhood animals first and I am fine sharing a tomato, some lettuce, and a few blueberries, but with the end of the season coming closer and less tomatoes left on the vines…I am going to war with the hungry critter.
This evening I applied a liberal amount of Critter Ridder from Havahart following the directions on the packaging. Instead of trying to describe the product I will defer to marketing material to describe products I use since that is what they get paid the big bucks for.
This powerful combination of active, all-natural ingredients work together to irritate the animal immediately if it smells, tastes or touches the product. This unpleasant experience drives the animal away unharmed but unwilling to return to the treated area.
Our patented formula effectively repels groundhogs, skunks, dogs, cats, squirrels, raccoons, chipmunks and other nuisance animals.
So hoping my pest happens to one of the animals that hates the stuff. I applied this per the directions around my tomato beds and the lawn surrounding the bed. For good measure I also applied a little on a tomato they were too full to finish on their last visit. From previous observations I have found they are good about cleaning on the previous nights meal. Given the active ingredients contain black pepper oil and capsaicin (what makes peppers hot) given we are the only known species that will voluntarily eat these spices pretty sure the animal will not appreciate my seasoning of their leftovers from the previous night.
To once and for all confirm the pest I am dealing with I have setup my OutbackCam night camera to catch any returning visitors on film…hopefully I only catch them once after they have a taste of my spicy tomato I cooked up for them.
Nightly Updates
Night #1: Mystery pest returned, though moved the tomatoes around but did not eat much of his leftovers. Was a bit of a ninja and not captured on camera.
Night #2: Again the mystery pest returned and ate a little more but again did not trigger a picture
Night #3: Got a picture triggered but mystery pest must have some sort of invisibility cloak on because I do not see it in the picture. Planning on moving the camera back a little farther from the fence (or possibly turn on an outside light) since the IR LEDs seem to a little intense at that distance. Again the pest played with the tomatoes but didn’t seem to eat much (if any) and has not bothered any of the other tomatoes in the vine.
Stealing natures free blackberries
13.2 years ago Uncategorized 3 Comments
Normally blackberries are in their prime in early August, but with our cold winter they are just starting to come around now. After a little bit of hunting my partners and I found a few good stretches of bushes and had out one gallon bucket of blackberries filled in no time.
In the past I have created the following with these seemingly never-ending supply of free produce:
| Blackberry Pie |  |
| Blackberry Jam |  |
This year I went with something with much less sugar and made a great low-carb blackberry ice cream recipe. At just 188 calories per serving, 7 grams of carbohydrates, and 4 grams of sugar…this is a good alterative to other desserts in our freezer and much more tasty.
using used tea bags to cover pot drainage holes
13.3 years ago Uncategorized 1 Comment
I saw this interesting suggestion I thought I should share. Instead of putting your tea bags in your garbage (or compost) place them in the bottom of your pots before planting. This helps keep the soil from draining out when you water and allows some nutrient to seep into your soil.
Via LifeHacker
All About the Tomato Hornworm: From How to ID Them to Best Tomato Hornworm
13.3 years ago organic, pests, tomato 8 Comments
Tomato hornworms are common garden pests. This post will show you how to identify them and the best tomato hornworm control methods.
About the Tomato Hornworm
The tomato hornworm becomes the five-spotted hawk moth. In its caterpillar form, it is incredibly disastrous to gardens and landscapes.
How to ID the Tomato Hornworm
The tomato hornworm is 4-5 inches long, once full size. Typically they are the largest caterpillars you will see in your garden. Green in color it has white V-shaped marks. Their color and markings help camouflage them in your garden. In fact, you may see their destruction before you see the actual caterpillar.
Tomato hornworms have enormous appetites, destroying entire leaves, stems and immature fruits.
Given their name, many incorrectly assume they only attack tomatoes. However, they also attack eggplants, peppers and potatoes. In a matter of days they can completely defoliate a plant.
If you don’t recognize their damage or spot one, you can ID these vicious pests by their black droppings, called frass, found at the base of plants or on leaves.
How to Control Tomato Hornworms
One of the simplest ways to control tomato hornworms is to pick them off whenever you see them. They are large and easy to grab when you spot them. Either squish them or spray them with organic pesticides.
Handpicking, however, can be time-consuming. Only best for very small gardens, handpicking will ultimately leave behind some of the caterpillars. And because even just one caterpillar will cause extensive damage, handpicking is often not the most effective way to end their infestation.
Beneficial Insects
There are insects that eat the tomato hornworm, such as the praying mantis. However, beneficial insects may not be in your garden. If you add these beneficial insects, they will end up leaving for other food sources once they can’t find pests in your garden anymore. Thus, relying on them as your sole form of pest control gives the pests another chance of infestation.
Applying BT
BT, or Bacillus Thuringiensis, can be used to treat a tomato hornworm infestation. However, it only works on small larvae, leaving the plant-destroying adults behind to continue their extensive damage.
Best Organic Tomato Hornworm Control
They make really effective organic pesticide products. They are easy to use and kill the tomato hornworms at all stages, ensuring you a healthy organic garden.
Available as sprays and powders, the most effective ones:
· Kill 45 different insect species
· Exterminate them at all stages, from eggs to adults
· Are ready-to-use
· Are OMRI Listed, which means they’ve been reviewed and approved for use in organic gardening.
Guest Author Byline This guest blog post is written by Michelle Anderson who specializes in insect control, including organic pesticides and insect killer.
How to cure garlic
13.3 years ago Uncategorized 3 Comments
Last year it was raining when I pulled my garlic and it almost seems like it hasn’t stopped running up to a couple of weeks ago. So unfortunately I was unable to properly let my garlic lay out in the sun for a few days to completely dry out. I did the best I could and braided the garlic and hung it up in my garage to keep the vampires away and to provide some awesome flavor to my cooking. Given my garage has some moisture and varying heat many of the cloves still were moist enough to start sprouting though I did have a good supply most of the winter.
Fortunately this year with out mild summer the garlic grew great and was able to pull them out a week ago and strangely enough there even was some sunshine to get them dry this year. I have taken a spare length of wire shelving and use it to move them in the garage at night and out to bask in the sunshine during the day.
Now they have a good tan off to braid them up and find a drier place to store them and should have garlic to eat for at least 6 months.
As for the sprouting garlic…will put that in the ground now for next year.
Trimming the raspberry bushes
13.3 years ago garden maintenance, raspberries Leave a comment
This weekend I decided to clean up the yard a bit and do some of my later in the season chores a little early. One of these on the list was trimming my new (second year) raspberry bushes. The first step was getting these bushes under control, if I had a larger space I probably would build a more stable construction for better airflow and make picking easier…but given my small space I simply took a couple nails and a couple of lengths of twine and loosely supported the stems to keep them from falling over into our lawn. Finish by tying the twine around the nails and task number one is done.
The production of raspberries goes in a two year cycle. The first year you get vegetative stalks (all green no flowers or berries) and the second year these previous vegetative stalks become flowering stalks and produce nice delicious berries. During this time more vegetative stalks develop and the process repeats itself. Once a flowering stalk completes delivering all of its berries it will turn brown and die off. Taking care of these was my first task. All this requires is finding the flowing stalks and cut them at their base, easy way to go is to cut anything brown and then pull them out (using gloves is advised)
This part was pretty easy since I only have a few flowering stalks the first year but you can see from the picture above I should get a decent crop of raspberries now the plant is becoming more established.
Now I simply let the plants do their thing and when the leaves fall off I will trim them to a height of about 5 feet, next spring given them a healthy scoop of alfalfa pellets and wait for the bounty of sweetness to come in next summer.
