We live in zone 6a and I have been gardening and cooking for years. This blog is an opportunity for me to share with you my success and those failures that come about on occasion. Plus, I want to hear from all the gardeners and bakers and cooks out there and learn from you. Feel free to share your ideas.







Sunday, May 6, 2012

Weeds and Pests: The Life of a Gardener

I just came in from about an hour and half of weeding. Nice to have that completed.

What I noticed yesterday was the cabbage worm was going after  you guessed it--my cabbage. So I picked off as many I could find and they went for a dive into soapy cup of water. I then saturated the cabbages with neem oil. This is the first year that I have used neem oil and I went out this morning  and could find only one worm. Hopefully that is doing the trick.

I also noticed yesterday that the flea beetle was enjoying the leaves on my eggplant. So they were sprayed with neem.

The rest of the garden looks good, but I am concerned about my peas. They were planted March 11 and now some of the bottom leaves are turning yellow and I have only one flower. Usually it is 60 days to harvest these. We will see how this goes. They were looking great and this week they seem to have stopped growing. I hope it is not wilt.

Would love to hear from you on how you manage insects and other garden pests.


4 comments:

  1. Sorry to hear about your peas, mine start to do that when it gets to hot for them.

    Some insects I spray insecticide, others like squash bugs I can never control so I just plant early and try to get what I can before they take over.

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  2. Wish I could finish all my weeding in an hour and a half. :)

    Let's see, last year I cut and chopped fresh thyme and sprinkled it all over my cabbages. It seemed to work pretty well for awhile, but a repeat was necessary. I've never tried neem but have heard good things about it. I'll be curious as to how well it does for you.

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    Replies
    1. Right now the weeds are not too bad, so I am hoping that if I get a head start on them, perhaps they will not be aggresive this year. Plus I used corn gluten meal and that seemes to have been efffective so far.

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  3. Our garden also under attack from flea beetle, slugs and leaf drillers. I didn't cover it in time so it's too late now. Might have to pull out all my greens and toss them. I never tried neem oil so will try and see how it works.

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