Beneficial nematodes have arrived!

This worked the last time I had an invasion of Japanese beetles. Here's the picture:

The tub has 10 million of the little worms. You mix them with water and spray them in the areas of the garden that the beetle grubs might be. They eat the grubs.

In other garden news, I now have the late August tomatoes. This comes from roasting tomatoes and putting them through the food mill for sauce. I won't get as much as two years ago, but it's definitely enough that I don't have to worry about some of them going bad on the vine. And much better than last year's disaster. Speaking of which, I haven't seen any raccoons. That may definitively solve the mystery. I wonder why they moved out, though. Do they know something I don't know?

We're also getting lots of green beans, which is not so useful right now as we've been traveling. But at least it's a good crop. I made a small batch of dilled pickled green beans (and one jar of pickled mild hot peppers).

Tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers

Here we have a nice harvest:

Although the angle makes it look like less than it is. That's a quart of cherry tomatoes, about the same amount of "cocktail tomatoes," only one large tomato, three cucumbers, and a whole bunch of mildly hot peppers. Now that I've grown those peppers, I have to figure out what to do with them. I suppose I could try drying them.

Also notice the half cup of raspberries. I'm definitely getting the raspberries, although I think I have gotten more at this time of year.

I got a package today from the garden store, and I was excited. I had ordered beneficial nematodes. Alas, it had the other parts of my order, but not the little worms. It makes me feel good just to think about the nematodes munching their way through those Japanese beetle larvae.

Gardeners get their joy where they can.