kindergardens - week 6

It's rather ironic, I think, that Kim's kinderGARDEN post this week is about pests in the garden.  In my humble opinion, we've had more than our fair share this week.

You can read about our latest adventures with the deer earlier this week here.  That problem has been temporarily solved with bird/deer netting over anything remotely attractive to deer.  We've got it draped over everything, including the sides of Kiddo's morning glory house:

(which, as you can see, is recovering nicely a mere five days after being ravaged by said deer.  Here Kiddo is measuring himself against the morning glory - he is temporarily taller, but by tomorrow night the morning glory will have surpassed him).  We originally had the sides of our nets pinned down with earth staples, but the plants were getting cramped, so now the nets just sort of float on top.

1.  floating net over monster broccoli and cauliflower that aren't producing heads yet
2.  weeds - particularly the evil ground ivy - that are threatening to take over the world
3.  a barn cat (of course)

So far the nets have worked, but we're hoping to use some sort of deer repellent or CHEAP fence soon (Shayne's fishing line fence is a possibility).  One half-tempting solution?  A dog.  A big dog.  Actually, come to think of it, that would probably take care of the barn cat problem, too.  Hmmm...

We had a horrible problem with cucumber beetles last year, and they also showed up again this week.

 

Apparently they like hyacinth beans in addition to cucumbers, melons, pumpkins and squash.

We don't have many yet, so I am trying to control them without spray if I can.  I am surely probably being optimistic, but for now I am just hand-picking them and squishing them to death.  It's disgusting, but strangely satisfying.  The problem is they are speedy little buggers, so they are hard to catch.  Enter the dishsoap.  Does anyone else use this trick?  I fill a bowl with water and dishsoap and stir it up until it is nice and sudsy, then head out to the garden.

 Then I look for the enemy.

Once I find one, he gets doused in suds.

I don't know all the science behind it, but they can't fly when they're trapped in the bubbles, and they seem to get pretty confused trying to crawl, too.  So they get squished (I didn't take a picture of that part.  Sorry).  We'll see if this method works, or if we eventually have an epidemic like last year [groan]. 

Despite all the pests we've dealt with this week, not all of our visitors have been unwelcome.  We are having fun hunting for our goldbugs:

And this cute little guy showed up yesterday.  For all I know he could grow into a menace with a voracious appetite, but yesterday he was innocuous and cute.

And, probably to someone's shock and dismay, I planted our parsley half-hoping these guys would show up:

For a caterpillar, they are kind of pretty, and we love watching the swallowtail butterflies later in the summer (now someone will comment about what a terrible scourge they are and I will regret my naivete).

Besides lessons in pest control, this week we have also learned that 8- and 9-year-old seeds that you happen to find buried in the back of the shed (with mouse-y teethmarks on the corners of the packets) probably won't germinate.

We got some much-needed rain this weekend (much to our neighbors' dismay, who were trying to hold a wedding reception in their backyard).  I love our garden after a good rain - everything is so green (and the weeds are easy to pull)! 

We are hoping our garden really takes off as the sun comes back out this week.  Unfortunately, I probably won't get to see much of it, as I am frantically trying to get things done before Kiddo is out of school (Wednesday) and our week of Vacation Bible School starts at our church (next week).  Hopefully there will be time to run out and at least pick some lettuce for dinner - and squish a beetle or two while I'm at it. 

P.S.  Speaking of lettuce, we still haven't learned the concept of staggered planting, which means we have four rows of lettuce, all ready at the same time.  So if you need lettuce, feel free to come over and grab some....please? 

(linking up to KinderGARDENS)