Up and Down Week with the Veggie Garden

It has been and up and down week with the garden.  I had been having so much fun until recently, but now I am getting discouraged.

I still feel it was a good idea to start with a fall garden, because I have had lots of opportunity to focus on only a few types of plants at a time.  Unfortunately I forgot that the many different predators are more adapted to our backyard and its climate than the vegetable plants I am trying to grow.

I have not given up yet, but I am afraid the arrow on the success-failure dial is wiggling in the middle and starting to dip towards failure.  I am hoping that things will turn around once the weather gets cooler and the plants are happier, but here are the current problems.

Newly installed second trellis on Sunday, 7-31-16

First the good news.  The good news is that the tomato plants, peppers, and cantaloupe are all growing.   The cantaloupe is is especially doing well.  It is producing lots of flowers, including both male and female blossoms.

Cantaloupe flowers.  The male flower is on the left and the female flower (with a mini pre-cantaloupe fruit at the base of the flower) is on the right.

There are also lots of flying insects around the blossoms, including an occasional honeybee, all of which can presumably pollinate the flowers.  I have not yet seen any cantaloupes that are obviously beginning to develop, but I am hopeful.

At least one pepper on the Big Bertha pepper plant is turning red and is nearly ripe.

Finally, it is now August, so it is time for the next wave of plantings.  We added a second trellis (primarily for the pole beans) and on Monday, August 1, planted two squares of pole beans (8 seeds each), one square of bush wax beans (9 seeds) and one square of bush green beans (9 seeds).

Now the bad news.  The bad news is that every type of plant is under assault and having problems of some sort. 

High temps. The tomatoes and peppers are not setting any new fruit, presumably due to the high temperatures (typically around 100 F each afternoon and no lower than about 78-80 in the mornings). However, lots of posts online indicate they will begin to do so rapidly once the temperatures drop if I can keep the plants growing until then. 

Spider mites.  The lower branches of the tomato plants seem to have spider mites.  It was spreading rapidly across the four plants and up each plant.  Spraying with insecticidal soap seems to have contained the problems to the lower branches, but I am continuing to monitor the situation.

Paul Robeson tomato plant with spider mite damage on lower branches

Aphids and ants.  There were ants on the underside of some of the cantaloupe leaves, generally clustered around some small yellow things.  I think the yellowish things are aphids.  There are varying opinions about whether ants are a problem or not in the garden, but the aphids are a problem. The aphids live by consuming the juice from the plant leaves, which of course is not good for the leaves.  I sprayed the cantaloupe with insecticidal soap, which seemed to get rid of the aphids initially.  According to the web, the ants are only interested in the aphids, or actually the aphids' honeydew, and not actually the plants so they also initially disappeared.  To get enough protein, the aphids have to suck a LOT of sap.  The extra unused sap, which includes lots of carbohydrates (i.e. sugar), is excreted by the aphids, hence the interest by the ants.  There are suggestions that the ants actually bring the aphids back so they can collect the honeydew from them, i.e. they are farming the aphids.   Despite an initial decline, both the ants and the aphids reappeared with a vengeance.

There were so many ants that I thought their nest might be in the flower bed.  Even though some people think ants are a good thing in the garden, I decided to try and get rid of them since there were so many.  But how should I proceed to get rid of them?  After some considerable looking, including finding them ahead of time in their inventory online, I finally tracked down some boric acid at a Walgreens in Flower Mound.  Even then, the manager had to go digging around in the back room for their last two bottles.  Who knew it would be so difficult to find?!

I dissolved the boric acid in some orange marmalade from the back of the cupboard.  The marmalade had a "Best used by date" of 09-00, so it seemed like a good candidate for this project!  I put the boric acid/marmalade mixture into a larger jar and laid it on its side under the cantaloupe leaves.  The ants were definitely interested.

Within a day there was a trail of thousands (or at least hundreds) of ants which I followed out of the garden, across the yard and at least 30 feet away into one of the rat bait boxes left by ABC Pest Control.  Gently raising one corner of the box caused a massive flurry of ant activity.  Yes, I think this is their nest.  I did not expect it to be so far away from the garden.

I left everything alone, hoping all of the worker ants would transport enough boric acid back to the nest so it would kill the queen and hence the entire colony.  I am still waiting on that.  If they don't go away soon, I can probably take more action on the nest directly now that I think I know where it is.

In the meantime, there seem to be many more ants with aphids on the cantaloupe.  I am spraying yet again with insecticidal soap.

Squash vine borers?  Even worse than ants, aphids, or spider mites is the possibility of invasion of the cantaloupe by squash vine borers.   I am actually not sure this is the cantaloupe's problem, since the base of the cantaloupe vines don't quite look like the pictures I have seen, but I am watching closely since it could quickly kill the plant.

Some of the cantaloupe leaves are wilted and the stem looks a little weird, but I don't know that I see the frass (sawdust like droppings) described everywhere when discussing squash vine borers.

I thought I was coping with all of these various problems, but then things got worse.


Night-time invaders.  After planting the various bean seeds on Monday morning, I put the white shelving (i.e. makeshift cages) over dirt where the beans had been planted.  They have some fairly wide openings, but I thought they were overkill since I figured everything would be ok until the beans actually sprouted.  I thought they would provide more than enough protection until I could get new chicken wire cages constructed in a day or two.

Monday morning, August 1, with white cages over squares of planted bean seeds

Unfortunately I was wrong.  Tuesday morning was a very sad day.  When I went out to check on things the white wire cages were not moved, but there was a sizeable hole in the location of one of the pole bean seed plantings and multiple seeds scattered along the top of the dirt.  I quickly covered the seeds up with dirt, but I did not have any idea how many of the seeds were still in the ground.   Were they now all eaten except for the three I had found?  Why would predators dig up the seeds and then leave them?  Maybe they only ate some of them?  Even worse was the fact that the white cages were not moved.  It was not a rabbit, oppossum,  raccoon, or armadillo.  Whatever had done this was very small.  It likely had to be a mouse or rat.  What was even more distressing was that either of those might be able to make it through 1 inch chicken wire, which I would prefer to use for cages rather than something with an even finer mesh since I have a lifetime supply of the chicken wire.

It gets worse.  Whatever was roaming around in the garden Monday night apparently did not like the bean seeds, but it did like bell peppers.

What was left of the small bell pepper on Tuesday morning after being chewed on by the night invader.

OK, at least I can try cages made out of chicken wire.  I made two of those and put those over the four bean squares.  I did not know if the critter would be able to make it through the 1 inch openings, but I did not have much to lose at this point.

Tuesday morning with green chicken wire cages over the bean squares.  The red bell pepper is in the center of the pic behind the marigolds.

I went out on Wednesday morning.  There was no evidence of any disturbance under the cages in the bean squares, but another bell pepper was eaten.  I only had one bell pepper left and it was almost ripe (i.e. mostly red) so I went ahead and picked it before the night invader could get it.

By Thursday morning things were beginning to look up a little.  Several of the bean seeds were sprouting...at least not all of them were eaten!  There was no evidence of anything having been inside the cages.  Maybe the chicken wire cages will work after all.

Separate from those issues, the cantaloupe, is growing like mad up the new trellis.  Even if we never get any cantaloupes, at least the plant is making pretty yellow flowers.

Thursday, August 4--the cantaloupe continues to climb rapidly up the trellis

Even more exciting was the unexpected appearance of a hummingbird at the hummingbird feeder.  It was the first one we had seen this year, despite the feeder being out all summer.

First hummingbird of the year

Even better was the fact that he visited the red flowers on the turk's cap plants in the yard, one of the new perennials we added this year with the new backyard landscaping.

Turk's cap plants in our backyard

These were chosen for their potential to attract and feed hummingbirds, so it is good to see the little beasties actually checking out the flowers.  Apparently turk's cap plants are edible for humans, too, but I think I will leave them for the hummingbirds.


Things seemed awfully bleak earlier in the week, but perhaps things are turning around now.   I am cheering for the bean sprouts to sprout and for them to grow without being chewed on by the neighborhood wildlife. 

Captive Cantaloupe

Not much new is happening on the home front.  One of the main activities continues to be the garden and all things associated with it.  It may be a matter of wishful thinking at this early stage in the process, but I have begun researching various canning and pickling processes that I want to try if and when I get some veggies later this fall.

It is a bit of a struggle to grow things this time of year with the extreme heat and high winds, as well as some unexpected thunder storms several weeks ago.  The pepper plants in particular are showing the stress of these non-ideal conditions--plus the stress of my good intentions but poor treatment due to my inexperience.  I have especially been agonizing over whether I am watering them too much or too little.

Although I look at them multiple times a day, I was surprised to see how much the plants had grown when I looked at before and after pictures this morning.

Garden on Fourth of July

On July 4 the pepper plants were newly staked to help them stand up to the wind, but they reached to less than half of the above ground height of the stakes or less than 18 inches.  The tomatoes were also doing fine, but small.

This morning--July 14

As of this morning at least one of the pepper plants is two feet tall and one of the tomato plants (Super Sweet 100 cherry tomato) is already taller than one of the shorter pepper plants.  Despite their droopy leaves, I guess the plants are doing better than I thought.

However, the biggest difference is in the size of the cantaloupe plant.  It started out under one cage to protect it from the neighborhood bunnies.  After it quickly outgrew that cage, I replaced it with a larger and taller cage (another inverted old wire shelf). The original cage was next to it to block the large opening on one side.  Even this larger cage was very quickly too small.

Overnight growth of the cantaloupe through the cage

Last night the cantaloupe leaves were all inside the cage and not that close to the edge.  This morning the end of the vine had grown enough that the new leaves that had developed overnight were outside the cage.  These garden cages are clearly no longer sufficient for this cantaloupe plant, which has world domination, or at least garden domination, on its mind. 

The next step up was a 2' x 2' by 18" high cage made from pvc coated "poultry netting", the official name for what I and probably 99% of the rest of the world call "chicken wire".  I found the pvc coated chicken wire on the web and FedEx delivered it earlier this week.  This morning I cut the roll into the appropriate sizes with tin snips and wired everything together with zip ties.  I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was not hard to cut and the pvc coating made it relatively easy to handle.  Chicken wire has a bad reputation for being nasty to work with.  That was not the case with this stuff.  I didn't even have to use gloves.

Finished chicken wire cage over cantaloupe plant

This is the first of multiple garden cages, although the others will likely be much smaller.  My plan is to protect the plants while they are small from the rabbits.  Hopefully by the time the plants outgrow their respective cages, they will be less interesting to the bunnies. 

We have not seen the rabbits in the yard recently, but we assume they are around since we have seen more this year than anytime since we have lived in Texas.  We walk about 3.5 miles each morning on one of two loops through the neighborhood.  In the past two weeks we have seen at least one rabbit every day and as many as six, although a total of 3-4 is more typical.  They are not grouped together in one location.  If we are seeing this many as we walk through the neighborhood, I can't imagine how many are actually out there.

By the way, rabbits are not the only critters we see.  The rabbits are usually too far away for a picture, but we did encounter a large (at least it seemed large to us) snapping turtle along the edge of the sidewalk on one of our recent walks.  You can't tell from this picture, but his shell was over a foot long.  We did not get too close, but I expected him to retract into his shell when we got closer.  Instead he turned toward us.  According to this educational video, snapping turtles cannot pull their legs into their shell. 

Turtle next to the sidewalk.

The birds are too numerous to count, but Mississippi kites are frequent right now.  We even see the occasional waterfowl.

Ducks in the median

It is clear there is no shortage of wildlife in the area and most of them are hungry.  A Facebook group I follow, North Texas Vegetable Gardeners, has had reports of many different critters helping themselves to garden produce including squirrels and birds attacking the tomatoes and opossums eating the cantaloupe.   I just hope I can keep them out of my garden.

To Parsnip or Not to Parsnip

When I came up with the original plan for the vegetable garden, I was focused on relatively simple things to grow (since I have no idea what I am doing) and things which we would use.  Somewhat unusual among the chosen plants were parsnips.  However, I had stumbled upon a roasted veggie recipe at Thanksgiving time last year.
 

Recipe from 11-18-15 Dallas Morning News

It was easy to fix and was really good.  The only major challenge was finding the parsnips.  Tom Thumb did not seem to have them, at least when I first fixed this recipe.  I found them at Whole Foods, but knew they were unusual when the checkout clerk at Whole Foods was stumped and had to ask me what they were.


Based on that experience, I thought they might be a good candidate for growing in our garden.  Of course, I did the appropriate Google search before making a final decision.  Multiple sites indicated they are easy to grow as long as fresh seeds are used.  I even found someone in Denton that had had success.  They take a VERY long time to mature, 95-105 days according to the seed packet I have-but could be 50 or 60 days longer for some varieties.

Planting of parsnips in Texas is in fall with harvest in March.  That is important for the total length of time, the cooler weather in general, and finally the need for some really cold weather (frost or freeze) that causes some of the starches to change to sugar, producing the sweet nutty flavor. 

Although I did not see mention of this on the other growing sites, I did note the following disclaimer on the blog post from the grower in Denton:

Warning: The leaves and stems of parsnips contain a juice that can cause Phytophotodermatitis in some people. Phytophotodermatitis happens when the sun interacts with the juice on the skin causing a reaction that resembles sunburn spots. These spots can also develop blisters. This is much less of a concern for garden parsnips compared to wild parsnips, but just to be cautious I wear rubber gloves while harvesting parsnips and do not wipe my face or eyes during the process.

I did not think a lot about that other than to plan for gloves and long sleeves when working with the leaves.  How bad could it be?  I routinely survive poison ivy outbreaks after hiking in the woods.

Yesterday I stumbled across this post on Facebook about a woman in Iowa and her run in with wild parsnip that required a trip to the emergency room.  Admittedly this was "wild" parsnip, but I thought I would do some more investigation.  Googling "burns from parsnip" produces hundreds of hits.  Hmmmm...I might need to look into this some more.

The best discussion I found about what actually happens was this article in the North Woodlands magazine.  Although many different plants besides parsnips (e.g. poison ivy, poison oak, nettles) have developed chemical defense mechanisms, parsnip poison and the phytophotodermatitis that it causes is fundamentally different from poison ivy:

The toxin in parsnip sap is different from the toxin found in poison ivy or poison sumac; the reaction your body has to it has nothing to do with your immune system, and everyone is susceptible. The harmful chemical compounds – specifically, psoralen and its derivatives – are photosensitizing, which means they’re activated by ultraviolet radiation from the sun. (Smear yourself with parsnip sap in a dark closet, and nothing will happen.)

When you get some sap on your skin, the sap absorbs solar energy, then releases it in the form of heat. On a micro level, the psoralen molecule lodges between two strands of DNA, and sunlight fuses the strands together. “You can imagine what this does to an insect that tries to eat the plant,” says Vogelmann.

The chemical reaction damages skin cells and feels very much like a burn. This is a key difference between the phototoxic dermatitis caused by poison parsnip and the allergic contact dermatitis you get from poison ivy. Parsnip burns feel like burns, whereas poison ivy rashes are often more itchy and irritating than painful.

While the pain from a parsnip burn is relatively short-lived, an encounter can leave long-lasting scars. As part of the recovery process, the body produces dark pigmentation that is thought to serve as a protective mechanism against further UV injury (sort of a super-suntan). These dark splotches can linger on the body for years. In an interesting twist, people with psoriasis and similar skin-pigment disorders sometimes turn the toxin to their advantage and use psoralens to help increase their skin’s sensitivity to ultraviolet light.

A variety of plants in the carrot family (parsnip, parsley, celery, hogweed, carrot, and wild carrot) can cause phytophotodermatitis.  Some of these are not much of a problem, but some can be quite serious.  The worst is giant hogweed, which can grow up to 14 feet tall and is very dangerous, causing severe phytophotodermatitis and even blindness due to its large amount of sap.  Fortunately giant hogweed does not grow in Texas!

So what does all of this have to do with parsnip in the garden and is it dangerous?  Apparently some field workers picking domestic parsnip and even produce workers in grocery stores have developed phytophotodermatitis from domestic parsnip greens.  Yes, it can leave lasting scars.  Could I work around the problems?  Yes, I am sure I could.  It is far less dangerous than many of the things I dealt with in the lab.  However, I am not sure it is worth it this first year when so many other things are new.  There are also additional hazards of working with such a plant in the crowded environment of a square foot garden.  I think I will pass this year.  I am only out the $1.69 for the packet of seeds.  Maybe in another year or two, when I know more about what to expect, I will give parsnips a try.