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.

Planting peas is bittersweet

I realized that we are now in the time period for planting fall peas, so I got out the trellis, planted the little dried up pea seeds. It felt just a little sad because it means that we've reached the stage where we are looking at the fall and the end of the garden. Even though we've just begun to get the tomatoes,we know what the future has in store for us. 

On a more cheerful note, it looks like at least some of the zucchini plants survived the squash borer. Also, I learned something new--squash can be slightly pregnant. What the linked article doesn't tell is how to get the pollinators to the plants. We have plenty of bees---I see them around the raspberry bushes all the time, and we have no problem getting raspberries. So why don't the bees find the squash flowers? Maybe I should erect a sign?

Onions and the year's tomato rant

The onions had fallen down (mostly, but what's with the 5% or so with flowers?) So it was time to pull them up.

That's about 60 onions, probably my best year ever. We'll see how well I can dry them. For the next two weeks, I hope for no or little rain.

Meanwhile, I was getting antsy about the tomatoes. This happens every year. The tomato flowers appear, the fruit sets...and I wait for what seems like far too long. This year was definitely longer than usual. I even checked my garden records, and, sure enough, the early tomatoes are usually ripening by early July. So I was getting a bit annoyed--I saw beautiful fruit set on all eight plants, but all green and appearing to stay that way. It was time for a rant on the blog.

Then I went out this evening, and,  yes, they are ripening. Oddly enough, the one early tomato I planted is only just starting to ripen, along with other varieties, while a Krim's Black I picked up at Home Depot because I had trouble starting plants looks almost ready to pick. But the reddening fruit just kind of took the wind out of my rant.

Beans are already sprouting

It's always very gratifying to see how fast the beans sprout. I usually plant them in the spot where I've harvested the garlic. Less than a week, and the plants have pushed up and are a couple of inches high.

I'm still picking raspberries! And picking Japanese beetles off the raspberry plants. Just wait till the fall when I set those beneficial nematodes on the beetle grubs.

Garlic, anybody?

Early July, and time to pull up the garlic. That's over 30 heads there, and there are some others because the garlic seems to have spread, and no matter how much I pull it up each year, a few bulbs survive in the pachysandra. The trick now is to dry it---leaving it outside  but putting in a place where it won't get wet in a thunderstorm.

And here's some beautiful swiss chard.

This has already provided for some veggies at a number of meals. It is gradually bolting, but there are still five or so plants, and they are growing nicely. Must look up some recipes.

One small cucumber now forming, and a few mild poblano chili peppers round out the vegetable side of things. On the fruit side, I've got enough raspberries that I'm thinking of making jam. Also some champagne currants, but not a lot of them.

Oh no! Japanese beetles are back

I got rid of those guys some years ago with beneficial nematodes. Guess I'll have to order some more.

But at least the Japanese beetles don't eat the raspberries. I got 30 oz (volume) or about 1 lb 5 oz (weight) in one night.