We finally managed to spray our supply of predatory nematodes in the garden. We were going to use the garden sprayer we already owned, but after several tanks of water it still smelled of the insecticides we used in a past life. We’ll keep it around for other purposes, but it was clear we needed a new sprayer for organic controls. The one pictured on the right is by Stanley and I hate it. Why is it that product quality goes down every year? Having recently failed in a mission to find a decent gas can (turns out Oregon made usable gas cans illegal), I find myself staring at a selection of poorly made garden sprayers at the home improvement store. Joy.
Anyway, we sprayed the dilution of nematodes onto every garden bed, especially those hardest hit by the cucumber beetle infestation. They are a natural part of the food web, but at this concentration they should make a sudden and significant dent in the population of soil dwelling insect larva.
I woke up this morning with a sprained ankle, which is odd because although I remember twisting my ankle last night while walking the dog, it didn’t hurt at the time. Well, it hurts today and I’m limping everywhere and cursing my lack of productivity over this holiday weekend. Tonight I limped out to the garden to water my buckwheat patch, and upon looking up into the sky I saw this:
“Really guys, it’s not serious! I’m sure I’ll be walking fine in a day or two!”
Those are turkey vultures if you can’t tell from the grainy picture. We have a small flock of them living in the trees by our house, but I’ve never seen 15 at once before. Obviously there was something delicious nearby. I just hope they didn’t think it was me.
Our blueberry plants are doing pretty well, considering how rarely we remember to water them (and the deer munching they endured). You’re supposed to pick the berry buds off the first year to encourage plant growth, but we couldn’t bring ourselves to do it. There might only be a few, but they are delicious!
Finally, I planted buckwheat a couple weeks ago and it has been growing. Gardeners often use buckwheat as a green manure / cover crop. I’d like to actually try harvesting it. I had visions of a glorious thick stand of buckwheat, but instead I have patches of plants and patches of dirt and grass. Admittedly the seed was a couple years old, but my imprecise planting and spacing didn’t help. I’m going to have to figure out a better solution before I start trying to raise any grains in earnest.
