I love it when a plan comes together

The garden is going well. I would say that it's going exactly according to plan, but if that were the case, the squash would be ready for planting by the time their bed was, the sweet potatoes wouldn't have to wait for their bed to settle, and I wouldn't have earwig damage on the okra. But all in all, things are going very well.

The tomato plants are, for the most part, lush and healthy. The laggards in the middle are finally starting to shoot upward, while the best bed (this year, the southeast pair next to the fig) is up to three courses of twine already in an attempt to keep the wall of green in check. I have a Neve's Azorean Red which has a fasciated* main stem; it's already a vigorous variety, and with the quadruple stem it's standing up like a small tree. Some people are adamant about cutting out fasciation -- I've never seen a biological need, and in this case it makes the plant sturdy and even larger.

I was pretty sure that regular feedings with alfalfa tea in addition to the high-N amendments wouldn't be a problem, and I was right. The fermented tea is doing its magic -- the laggards and runts get it most often, of course, and they put on a huge growth spurt every time -- but every plant is blooming, and the first flowers are setting. I think that it may not be possible to give these guys too much nitrogen without resorting to urea. The organic matter in the beds seems to even out the nitrogen levels, too, which is a good thing.

So they're growing, and I have an ever-increasing number of little green tomatoes. Dr. Carolyn was one of the first, as cherries always are; Vorlon wasn't too far behind, but Kellogg's Breakfast beat it there. But in the lead for most prolific, earliest full-size: amazingly, Woman's Name Starting With A. When I sowed it, I knew it was red. When I planted it, I knew it was a regular-leaf red. It's turned out to be a sprawling, enthusiastic thing, covered in green marbles which get bigger by the day. I can only hope that the flavor is decent, and it looks like I may find that out by early July.

What I'm taking comfort in is that the plants were almost all three times as large as mine usually are when they started blooming, and they've continued to grow at a furious pace. They look like the plants in Bruce's garden, not my skinny runts. Even the ones without fruit yet look like they're catching up and flowering; I should get fruit from all of the plants this year, and if this keeps up it'll be a decent amount from each. They're all heavy bearers, so we'll see.

I sprayed for Pacific mites already. They're out there -- I've seen a little webbing -- and I want to get a jump on them. So I bought a little 12oz bottle of Neem, and killed it before really getting the last row properly (I have since found a store that carries the concentrate). I have a light oil for next application, then I'll try insecticidal soap (it's the least effective, but might round up some adults). Then Neem again. If I do it right, they won't manage to get a hold this year, and I'll only have small numbers. I'm trying to spray water all around the garden every couple of days, rinsing the plants and getting the dirt wet to keep down dust; most spider mites dislike humidity and love dusty leaves. What I also did today was to clean up the bottom of each plant, taking off the lowest leaves -- particularly those dragging on the ground -- and any minor shoots I don't want. It filled a plastic bag, which promptly went into the trash can with any mites and mite eggs that might be on the leaves. It's kind of a one-shot deal, but we'll see whether it helps as a delaying tactic.

I have to say... my god, Neem stinks. Not in a chemical way. Not like the "liquid halitosis" which is the alfalfa tea. It's like food gone wrong -- not spoiled, but wrong. Alien food not compatible with Earth biology. I prefer the honest stench of manure; at least that's familiar, almost "clean" in a way. Ugh.

I wish there were more mite predators around. I will say, though, I was surprised this year... I have narrow-leaf milkweed in my garden. It's a native here, and a "weed", but I don't pull it unless I absolutely have to... so it grows in the middle of paths, next to veggies, in beds, everywhere. It's perennial, so at least I kind of know where it's going to be every year. Trouble is, it gets infested with a nasty yellow aphid known as the oleander aphid (so named because it likes bitter, poisonous things like oleander). And I mean infested. Nobody wants to eat them, so they build up to tremendous numbers and leak greasy honeydew all over everything. I end up hosing off the plants once or twice before cutting them to the ground in late summer -- that lets the monarch caterpillars have some fresh, clean sprouts by September.

This year, I saw the yellow aphids and resigned myself to the whole thing again... until one day I looked and saw a lady beetle on one of the plants. Must have been lost. Then I saw a few more, and some larvae, and a whole lot of pupae... and the aphids were disappearing. Quickly. There were a couple of syrphid fly larvae chipping in too, which was unusual, but the milkweed was almost covered in lady beetles. A closer look showed that there were a couple of no-spot ones, but 95% of them had seven spots, if you count the one at top-center. Dr. Nick confirmed that seven-spot lady beetles, imported from Europe, have a reputation for eating somewhat toxic prey, but he had never heard of them chowing down on oleander aphids. And did they ever... a month later, now, the plants are almost all totally uninhabited and squeaky clean; this is the best they've looked in years. There are a couple that still have aphids, but they're clearing up fast. At least I don't have to worry about the lady beetles eating themselves into starvation -- they're quite capable of eating other prey, and there's a decent number of thrips and aphids still out there. I hope they'll still have this taste for oleander aphids next year.

Isn't natural adaptation of predators grand?

In other news, the corn is growing well with its trench-feeding/flood-irrigation setup. I set the irrigation ditches on top of the trenches with the amendments in them, so they can get food and water in one place. They're not all growing at the same rate, though there seems to be no obvious pattern... and come to think of it, the second batch seems much more even. I had trouble with the first set breaking through the crusted mud, so things may be better with the later plantings. I did find earwigs in the fresh corn, though; I was thinking about protecting the silks when they come out, and it's just starting to show tassels, so I took a look and found them in the shoot tips. Sigh. I finished off the DMZ, then set a beer trap and saturated all the tips with insecticidal soap. That should take them down to low numbers, especially if I repeat the treatment every week. Damn forficulae.

The long beans have gotten hammered -- strange, given that they're not the beans furthest to the outside -- but I think most of them will make it. The popbeans haven't been molested at all. That might have something to do with the sticky-velcro effect of the leaves and stems, kind of like hops has. They're starting to vine upward; I put a cardboard baffle up, then did some calculations and took it back down. They don't see full sun until about 10 anyway because of two trees east of them; they're getting a little less than 11 hours of full sun right now, and the days are about as long as they're going to get. So they may decide that they have their 12 hours of daylight and flower for me. I have a daylength-insensitive one as a control of sorts, so I'm keeping an eye on it for flower buds. None yet.

The peppers are happy and dark green. The summer squash have been relatively untroubled, and are starting to make buds (though the rare white zukes are a little younger; they're still growing well). I'm waiting on more true leaves on the cukes, winter squash, and melons before I plant them, and the bed for the sweet potato starts is still a little raw. I did throw the oak leaves that have the nasturtium seeds mixed in onto the sweet potato bed, though; I may get a nice mingling.

I don't have a watering system in yet; it's not a big problem, as even the corn needs water only every two days, and the only water the tomatoes have needed has been the alfalfa tea every 10-14 days. I'll buy the bits tomorrow, though, and put it in. The cucurbits need it more than anything else, and they'll be big before you know it.

I finally did something I've wanted to do for years. I need a water source out there, since I do a dry-style garden which doesn't give any of the critters even beads of water to drink. Bees and other pollinators need water, as do birds (and cats). So I bought two Mexican terra-cotta pots, flattened deep bowls in two sizes. I set a plug in the large one and a stopper with a hole in the other, and tubing coming through the hole. Then I set the small one on the edge of the large one. Once I hook up the watering system, I'll have fresh water flowing into the top bowl and trickling into the bottom one... they're full right now, as I freshen them by hand, and after rescuing a ladybeetle from the lower one I set two large flat rocks in it so that insects can pull themselves out. Then I put a bunch of small rocks in the top one to conceal the stopper and tubing. I used all brown jasper, and it blends into the terra-cotta in a pleasing way... very nice.

I had discarded the idea of a true fountain because it would take electricity, and I object to the power drain as much as the extension cord that would need to be run from the house... but it occurred to me and my dad tonight that there may be such a thing as a solar-powered fountain pump. That would be ideal, taking no house power and requiring no long cords. It could run only during the day, no need for batteries... and it would give me a nice sound of running water out there. Now I just have to find one for less than a small fortune, or find the pieces to build it.

This year felt like it was going to be a good one when it started, and so far it has been. All that hard work prepping the garden, and my belt-suspenders-drawstring approach to fertilizing and pest control, seem to be paying off. Sure, planting the front strip has been delayed until fall because of the heat, but from the looks of things I'll need all summer to do weed control out there and rip out the suckering roots. I'm going to rake up the wood chips, supplement them with the last of the bagged leaves, and use them to weigh down cardboard from refrigerator boxes all across the front strip, even under the split-rail fence. It should take down the existing ragged weeds out there. Then I can rototill the planting areas, water them, and till them again. I should have the little acacia and privet seeds under control by planting time that way.

I did kill my pick-mattock -- the mattock is now bent at a 90-degree angle -- but my dad said he could straighten it and add a welded bead to make it stronger. I'll need it, hacking those roots out of the ground.

So... still busy, but things are falling into growing-time routine out there. I'm down to the usual gardener's combination of waiting and working. Not bad.

* Fasciation is an odd thing, a fusing of multiple flowers or stems. It can cause a ribbon-like stem, or a really large and abnormal flower, or both. Nobody really knows what causes it, and no one can replicate it.