bugs bummin' me out

the grey cabbage aphid is destroying all my brassicas! the kale was hit the hardest, but now they are going after the beloved brussel sprouts, the young cauliflower, and i even saw a few on the arugula! it makes no sense. i had never seen them until this fall, and they came on strong. my russian kale was lush just a month ago. they attack the young, tender, new leaves, which basically stunts the growth of the plant, and eventually kills it.



since i garden organically, i am used to hand-picking pests off of my plants. it is one of the benefits of having a small, back yard garden--a person can usually notice and keep up with pest problems. i started by removing these vile creatures with my bare hands, sort of sweeping the leaves with my thumb. but now i just blast them with a strong stream of water from the hose.



it gets them off the plants, but i have to keep doing it, every day. i finally gave up on the kale, and pulled it today. i hope to save the brussels sprouts and califlower, but i don't have a whole lot of hope.

in other bug related news, fruit flies have found my worm composting bins--both at home, and at work. again, this is a new phenomenon for me, and started in the fall. at home, they migrated to the kitchen, too. we have tried everything, including removing any possible food sources cleaning meticulously (and drying everything), plus trapping them with vinegar. we have reduced their population immensely. lately, we "vacuum" them up with the back of a hair dryer. it is strange, but effective (and secretly satisfying).

so far though, i'm not really finding any answers about the worm bin problem. experts say to bury the food scraps in the bedding, or to wrap them in newspaper to avoid attracting fruit flies. i always do one or both of those things, and have never had a problem. now, i still do those things, and i have a fruit fly infestation, and it is not going away. it is especially problematic at work, as i am trying to get the vermiculture system established, and this is a huge set back.

your suggestions and/or commiserations welcome.

for the love of brussel

this is what i was dreaming about on february 12, 2010.



that's when i planted the brussel sprout seeds, under a grow light in the basement.



we finally had some for dinner, two nights ago--almost 9 months later!
how they made it into those little tiny, tightly-packed cabbage balls, considering all the pests and drought the season thew at them, is a mystery to me.



i have a few wasps to thank, for keeping the cabbage caterpillar population under control (plant dill & fennel to attract them to your garden).



they are so yummy when they're fresh, and i've heard that the ones that come from california aren't as sweet, because they never go through a frost. ours have, and you can definitely tell.

garden tour

i took a trip down memory lane yesterday, revisiting old posts on rake shovel hoe, my now defunct garden blog. i am so thrilled to have that record, especially the photos, of my early gardening days. what's funny is that my excitement has not waned in the least. if anything, it has grown. here's a sampling of what's going on in the garden so far:

the peas are up, and climbing the trellis i made for them.



i may have created a harvesting nightmare, but, as usual, i plunged into the planting and making of the pea trellis without a clearly thought-out plan in mind. at the moment, these are cosmo's most closely watched plants in the garden. he likes to observe their little tendrils griping the twine, and climbing. but, he is also looking forward to the peas, and keeps asking when the plants will make pods. he's also asking about the husk cherries, which i have now taken to calling ground cherries.



those have been started indoors (along with peppers and tomatoes), but won't go into the ground until mid may, or so.



has anyone eaten tender pea shoots? i recently had them on a dish at a fancy restaurant (pictured here, on top of yummy stuffed peppers that my sweetheart made), and was so impressed i had to grow some myself.



of course, i read up on how to grow your own pea shoots AFTER, i had already started mine. i did everything wrong, but they shot up in about 4 days anyway, and now, less than a week later, they are ready to harvest!

as much as i despise having a big white tent in my garden, i am pleased with how happy my cabbages, broccoli, brussel sprouts and kale are doing under cover. the cabbage moths just flutter about the garden, wishing they could get inside, to lay eggs on my lovely brassicas. they, too, want their offspring to dine on my broccoli. DENIED!



the arugula and cilantro that over-wintered out there (in the cold frame) is already bolting! no worries though, we have more of those started.



we've already begun to enjoy a few salads from our baby greens, and the butter crunch lettuce is starting to take shape. though the carrots and beets were planted almost a month ago, they still seem so tiny.



one of the beds of rye cover crop was getting so tall, i decided one evening to trim it. with some clippers. why? not sure. these things just occur to me.



the next day i turned it over, so i'm not sure what the point of trimming it was, but i enjoyed myself. i planted some hairy vetch in there a bit too late in the fall, so most of it didn't make it, but i did notice a few strands of it in there. now all the rye is turned under, and it will be ready for corn, pumpkin, and beans (three sisters) plus okra, cucumbers and dill in the other bed. some of these have already been started indoors, though we have run out of space under our grow light. a sunny window sill will do, at this point.



the onion sets i planted are up, and look great, as does the garlic, which is getting big. i planted a row of morning glories along the side of the woodshed, and a few sunflowers. it might be too early for those... guess we'll see.

remember the great wall of tomatoes last year? well, the bed they were in now has tomato plants popping up like weeds, ALL OVER! the rye is supposed to suppress seed germination for a while. clearly that window has closed!

our landlords have four large beds of perennials, mostly flowers.



while i enjoy them immensely, i just don't have the time to invest in weeding them. currently, they are over-run with weeds. i got a hold of some free wood-chip mulch in my neighborhood, so i've been loading up the trunk of the car, hauling it home, and spreading it all over the perennial beds. i'm not sure if it is exactly the right kind of mulch for them, but it's what they get. life is too short to worry about other people's flowers.

especially when there's a vegetable patch to endlessly fuss over.


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apologies for the lousy color on these photos. for some reason, all the photos are showing up in blogger over-exposed, no matter what they look like on my computer prior to being inserted in a post. go figure.

what spring looks like

i have missed this poor little neglected blog. i know it would be better if i posted everyday. but i guess i am just not that kind of blogger. plus, it's spring! who wants to be sitting inside staring at a computer screen when you could be outside playing in the dirt!?!?! not me. on these warm, breezy, sunny, spring days, i try to get all my required work out of the way, first thing in the morning, so i can head out to the garden. the last predicted frost date for our area is over a month away, but there's already plenty to do out there. so far, i have planted broccoli, kale, cabbage and brussel sprout seedlings, all of which i started from seed, indoors. well, that is not entirely true. i had broccoli and cabbage in the cold frame all winter. but i had started them too late in the fall, so they were tiny, and didn't grow much in the cold. i chose the strongest ones, and brought them inside, to get a head start under out grow light. they fared well, and are considerably larger than the brussel sprouts i started from seed indoors, around the same time.



because the cabbage worms decimated our brassicas last year, i feel the need to cover them all with row cover to keep those pesky moths from laying eggs on our lovely cabbage leaves. whether or not i can live with that hideous tent in my garden all summer, is another question entirely.



i have also planted out all the leeks i started indoors. their tiny threads look so fragile in the ground, it is hard to believe they will amount to anything. i've also planted onion sets, and direct-seeded bunching onions. peas are up, and sort of protected from hungry rabbits, with various-sized wire fencing.



the spinach is getting its first true leaves. mmm, i love spinach. luckily i have a few mature spinach plants that overwintered, with just a layer of mulch over them. cosmo has already started picking leaves off of those, for snacking. lettuce is coming along too. i started some indoors, and some direct-seeded outside. no one in our family is fond of radishes, but i love how fast they grow, and find them satisfying to look at as one of the first spring crops, so i planted a little row of those, and long rows of carrots and beets. cosmo and i pulled up the last of the fall carrots last week. they overwintered nicely with a layer of straw on top, and they sure are tasty.



garlic looks happy, and i've started turning the rye cover crops.
with the cool weather crops in the ground, the warm weather stuff is just beginning to germinate indoors. tomatoes and peppers galore! i also managed to build a new compost bin yesterday.



now i just need some nitrogen-rich material, to layer with my carbon-rich dry leaves. anybody got any extra nitrogen they aren't using? anyone??



ah, but there is more to spring than gardening. we get to play outside, and ride our bikes! we have a new trail-a-bike for cosmo, which is way easier than the baby seat on the back, and cosmo really enjoys getting to pedal, and honk his horn. he has also tried out his two-wheeler pedal bike, and had some sweet success his first time out. we'll work on that more in the coming weeks.



there are also balls to bounce on, and insects to investigate (studying a hole with sky and stephanie),



not to mention grain to grind and dough to knead.



on the spring equinox, cosmo successfully balanced an egg on its end!*



inspired by family fun, i crafted this sort-of advent calendar for easter. cosmo gets to break open one of the circles each day, to find a candy surprise. it's made with tissue paper, glued over a cardboard egg carton. i'm sure it feels great to punch a finger through. even more easter treats arrived in the mail, from nani!



in other cosmo news, they recently had a reach for the stars read-a-thon at cosmo's school. the kids commit to reading (or being read to) for a certain number of minutes, and collect pledges. to my surprise, cosmo got really into it. he was excited about going around to neighbors, and asking for money (unusually for this shy boy), and he wanted to do the reading himself. since we always read several stories at bed time, we did extra reading for this program. cosmo decided that all "early reader" books, which he mostly read himself, would qualify for reach for the stars. we got a stack of those from the library. he met his goal of 150 minutes in one week, and wanted to keep going. he gets to color a star for every 15 minutes of reading, which is his favorite part. in addition to raising money for his pre-school, he also earned $40 in free books! bonus!



dear friends came to visit, and cosmo and ida jane had a glorious three day holiday together.



they played so nicely, i regretted (for a second) not having two kids.



i was stunned to see cosmo climb to the top of the spider web structure (also known as the-lawsuit-waiting-to-happen) out at cascades park. most playgrounds are fairly uninteresting to cosmo, but that day, he was running around like crazy, trying everything.



i think he might have been having a good time. what do you think?


there's even more to tell than this, but i think i'll stop here. from here on out, i'll be blogging daily.

april fools!

how is spring looking in your world?


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*note, it is way easier to do this if you can find a slight divet in your floor.