Organic farm!

I revoke my previous posting about Darko Urban Farm going inorganic. I stopped by Stone Brothers last week to ask if I could use the cow pesticide on the alarming aphid infestation that took over the crowder peas. They assured me that I could, and in passing, mentioned that the cow pesticide (I call it that because it has a picture of a cow on the bag and states that you can apply said pesticide to livestock!) is pyrethrin!

I certainly abhor a broad spectrum pesticide, and I don't know what I will do once I have bees, but it certainly suits me just fine to use an organic broad spectrum pesticide rather than a synthetic chemical one.

Upshot: I am still killing bees, which sucks, but I am killing them with flower powder. And it really has done an amazing job of killing pests.

Shout outs

Having been away on vacation for a few days, I would like to recount some garden adventures. Driving through Richmond to avoid a traffic jam, I saw a beautiful urban garden. It may have been on the corner of Decatur. I am inspired by it to try and make a cucumber room similar to theirs next year.

I also passed through Pennsylvania Dutch country. The farms were so beautiful and prosperous. I am insanely jealous. Will and I stopped at a small dairy farm that has 50 cows and sells the cheeses the family produces out of a store located on the farm. The cheeses were excellent and the farm beautiful.

I also visited a farmers market that reminded me that I love Durham and that there is no place that can replace its primacy in my heart. I overheard someone ask (the farmer??) where his berries were from and he responded that they were from California. WHAT? I was in upstate New York! There was plenty of lovely, fresh and local produce! I love you, Durham! I love you DFM!

Pea aphids

The water blast method of getting rid of aphids is officially a failure. The crowders are COVERED in aphids-- more aphids than before. It appears that water blasting may actually cause them to multiply.

Here are the more useful things I learned:
Pea aphids overwinter on red clover, vetch or alfalfa. Awesome, since those are all great winter cover crops.

They don't, generally, lay eggs in NC, though they are capable of it. Instead, it appears that they have live baby aphids. Great. No pause to the sucking.

Apparently they are susceptible to a fungus of some kind that will kill them all pronto, but I couldn't find anything explaining how to introduce this dread disease, and when I tried, I discovered websites indicating that at some point in their evolution, pea aphids genetically morphed with some fungus and that is why they are green. Super great. Now the uugy aphids are kind of neat and interesting. . .

Tomato redux

I harvested so many tomatoes a couple of weeks ago, I thought I could never deal with them all. We canned and dried and ate and ate and ate. Then, one day, no more tomatoes. The plants didn't die or get sick, the tomato train just slowed WAY down. I was out in the garden scrounging for something to feed the bunnies (high summer may be even more difficult than February for collecting bunny food) this morning, and I think the respite may be over. There are a lot of green tomatoes and a wicked lot of flowers. Here's to round two!!!

August in the garden

July went by in a blur of weeding and canning. We have put up tomatoes, tomato sauce, corn (not from the garden-- I find corn hard to grow), crowder peas, lima beans, tomatillos, cucumbers, and we are harvesting peppers. We also have pie pumpkins, butternut squash and a mystery winter squash piling up in the kitchen.

The house reeks of garlic as I try my hand at making pickles the fermented way for the first time. There is a huge bag of tomatillos in the freezer as I wait for cilantro's fall season before making salsa. There are about 30 jars of potatoes in the pantry. So I haven't been blogging, but I have been busy!

Squash bugs recently attacked Alexis' bed of luffas, pumpkins and butternut squash. She applied the pesticide powder with a picture of a cow on it after a consultation with Merrill at Stone Bros. We also got flea beetles on the eggplant. I am not sure if they're why we aren't getting eggplant. There is only one fruit on five plants. The flowers keep turning gray and falling off. If I liked eggplant more, I would look into it. And the crowders have aphids. I sprayed them with water until they came off a few days ago. I need to get out there and see if they are back.

Amber and Alexis came out a couple of weekends ago when we had two lovely 75 degree days and we pulled a pile of weed so huge that I was too ashamed to throw it over the fence into Amber and Tom's backyard. So it is still sitting in my backyard!

Oh and here is a great story. I harvested a bunch of dried lima beans and was inside hulling them. It turns out that ANTS will live in the pods. Eeeeewwwww. I would crack the pods open and hundreds of ants would pour out. It was completely repulsive.

There is lots more news, but I will stop with this excitement-- Alexis and Will and I built a top bar beehive last weekend!!! Bees will move in in March or April!

Potato princesses dig!

Sunday, Alexis and I harvested 1/3 of the potatoes. Harvesting potatoes is great fun, even when it is 100 degrees. Which it was. But it is like a treasure hunt. Alexis even claims that she enjoyed it. Potatoes are the best!

Will canned 11 jars of potatoes and there are still more in the harvest bucket. Will says there are enough for 6 more quart sized cans.

Will helped me stake a bunch of the tomatoes on Sunday and we staked five more Tuesday evening after work. Twenty or so more and we will be done! And we will be drowning in tomatoes. They were so small and cute when they sprouted so I had to plant them all. And now I have a tomato jungle.

There are days when it seems like the bugs and weeds are winning. And then there are days like Sunday, when what appear to be dead potato plants covered in weeds yield up enough potatoes to keep us fed all winter long. Golden potatoes that appear like a prize as I swirl my hands through warm, dark dirt. I think that, aside from seeing baby seedlings appear in February, the gardening thing that makes me most feel like crying for the sheer amazingness of it all is the potato harvest.

Early on a Sunday

I woke up at 6 am and headed out to the garden. It has been over 90 degrees everyday for weeks and so I have to get out there early to avoid heat stroke! I weeded the front yard bed, which contains peppers and some volunteer potatoes that I missed in last year's harvest, also some tough parsley left over from when the front yard bed was the winter garden and today I noticed that kale has started coming up as well. Every day I learn more about how tough plants are! I used to baby them and cry if something bad happened. Now I cover them with mulch and tell them I will see them in a few weeks!

The peppers are doing better this year than in past years so far. They generally don't thrive until fall when it cools down.

I am a member of the Bull City Garden Exchange, a listserv/community group about gardening in Durham. We have been discussing two of my pressing questions of the summer--pepper difficulty and sterile squash family plants. Apparently Stone Brothers staff recommended calcium for the peppers. And someone said they hand pollinate squash family plants with a paint brush. Sigh. I guess it is time to enhance the sex lives of 30 or so pumpkin, luffa, cucumber and watermelon plants. Woo hoo!

And about those squash plants: I am very nearly holding my breath with hope; Alexis put a plate (made of corn!) under the first Moon and Stars watermelon yesterday!!!! I really hope the plants thrive this year. They got hit by some dread disease last year and the teeny melons rotted on sickly vines. Apparently the rotted melons decided they wanted another go at life and volunteered this year.

In other squash related news: I harvested the first Yamato cue yesterday!!!!!