2020 Season: sharing experiences and a Q or 2

[taboule]

Greetings, Hope you're all doing good.

I finished planting my main garden this past weekend and have been enjoying the lettuces for the past two weeks. Here's how it looks now.

done-31may20.jpg

The near two beds have tomatoes (16x plants, right) and various squash and cucurbits(left). The farther two beds have greens on the right (lettuce, cabbage, kale, chard, herbs...) and peppers and eggplants on the left. The L shape against the fence contains mostly onions and herbs, and also a few leftovers of various things.

Past few days I noticed some small cabbages wilting, although that bed is well watered. Without much diagnosis, I gave them a bit more water, at the root, and they perked up a bit. But that didn't last long, and other specimens started wilting again. I finally got close, handling one and it came out lose, with hardly any roots. Picked a few more, see this.
dead-root-cabb.jpg

The roots were dried up stubs, and showed small scars as if chewed by tiny teeth. I suspect some kind of worm, but didn't see any grubs at close inspection. No other varieties in that bed have been affected to date. I've been growing cabbages for many years now, and that's the first time I run into this.

Any info, ideas or advice would be greatly appreciated before I apply any bug dope.

Thanks

[Labradors2]

Lovely veggie gardens!

How heartbreaking about the cabbages. I suspect cutworms. The solution would be to grow the seedlings with collars or a stick or nail planted very close to the stem to prevent them from being able to wrap around. I use sticks on all my little tomato seedlings, but wouldn't have thought to use it on cabbages.

Linda

[Father'sDaughter]

That is heartbreaking. Any chance you have voles? They will tunnel under gardens and feast on roots without you even knowing they were there...

[KarenO]

I think most likely culprits are cabbage root maggots,
KarenO

[taboule]

Good morning,

Thank you Linda, Father's Daughter, and Karen. I haven't seen any of the critters you mentioned, but I think Karen's suggestion is the most likely. I'll take a closer look and treat accordingly I'm very surprised as it's the first time for me, and this garden has been free of pests since I built it 2 years ago-I guess I've been lucky so far.

I also started a new batch of cabbages, in pots. I can say this is my fall crop, and I'm ahead this year;>)

[bower]

We always had to use a stick for brassicas, because of cutworms. But I have to say, I've never seen a big cabbage root cut right through like that! For us, it was the small seedlings that were most vulnerable.

Cabbage root maggot is a scourge, I recall one year it was really bad at my friend's farm and suffered serious losses. The maggots are small and they eat off all the small roots, but afaik they don't cut through the main root or stem.
One thing for sure, plant your brassicas in a different bed if you're doing a fall crop.


Nice to see you are well Taboule, and your garden looks lovely as always.

[taboule]

Nice to see you Bower, and thanks for your kind words as always.

Good tip about growing the next batch in a different bed. I hadn't thought of that yet, and I'm running out of room -but will find a way.

So I made more rounds yesterday to check everything. Noticed quite a few cucumber beetles on my cukes, the past couple of years they did serious damage before I noticed them (I had zero experience with them.) So I sprayed all around, the earliest ever for me. I'm definitely seeing more bugs this year, and earlier. They finally found me, and the warmer winters probably have something to do with it.

I hope everyone's garden is doing well. It's one the few things keeping me sane in these crazy times.

Charles

[taboule]

Been away for a while dealing with some garden issues and would like your take on the latest.

Saturday before last (June 6th) around 9pm, DW and I were alarmed by a loud thunderstorm and crazy noise on the siding of the house. We looked out and were shocked to see major hail with high winds buffeting the place. It lasted a few minutes, covering the decks with a thick layer of ice. It felt like we were pelted with buckshot. In the morning we could still see thick ice in various places. Veggie garden was a mess, with lots of shredded foliage, blooms from tomatoes and other on the ground. Very small transplants were totaled -done. I was so bummed out and avoiding it, that I only took these few pics 2 days ago.

Onions, I was hoping to gradually cut a few of the leaves to use in salads, no more.
hail-onions.jpg

Eggplants, some new leaves are growing so I've since cleaned them up.
hail-eggplant.jpg

Lettuce was hit the hardest, although this pic doesn't show the worse -plants were totally flattened. New foliage growing, but we lost at least 50% of the edible material. It's not appealing to eat (or serve) lettuce with brown holes.
hail-lettuce.jpg

continue...

[SteveP]

I am sorry to hear this. I don't think there is much we can do when Mother Nature flexes her muscles. I hope you can salvage enough to enjoy from all of your hard work. It sure makes a person appreciate the good growing years.

I feel your pain!

[taboule]

So this year my dear wife thought it was OK for me to grow the second, old garden that I kept at another remote property. Past two years we wanted to cap our garden time investment, so we could enjoy other summer activities and travel. With the virus situation and travel restrictions, and to complement our food supply, SWMBO agreed to the second garden.

Been cleaning up the mess and the weeds, and grew 3 rows of mostly tomatoes. Then earlier in the week, I found this.
stub-GQ.jpg

Also decapitated was a small pepper plant, nothing left. Also the top shoots of a potato plant.

There were two possibilities: although the town is now getting very congested and busy with people, I know of a deer that travels the property and even beds there behind some bushes. I can see their trail, and my neighbor has seen it. But they never bothered the garden in the past. More recently, we also see a tiny rabbit who made the place their own. Those guys have given me grief in the past, eating the lettuce.

So I spent a couple of hours building a makeshift fence using T posts, rebar and chicken wire. Ran out of on-hand material so made a run to the Depot to get more. They were out of so many things, and low on fencing material.

I finished the job, tucked the edges tight against the ground, all around the perimeter, sprayed with some stinky repelant stuff all around, and left for the evening.

Came back the second morning and found more cuttings. Spent a few hours inside the house, working, then back to the garden mid-day and found 3 more plants had been severed.
massacre1.jpg

This was in broad daylight, in a matter of a few hours. Some plants had the top missing (eaten?) others were left there. I went around double checking the bottom edge of the fencing, it was tight to the ground. No holes either.

So the next thing I did was to dig out some mini cylindrical fences I built a while back to protect individual plants against said rabbits. They're 2ft tall (width of wire fence roll) by 1.5~2ft wide in diameter. I slip them over the plant, and secured the bottom with U wire clips into the ground. I built a few more and covered all but the largest plants,and left for the weekend.

Went there yesterday Sunday and found this.
inthecage.jpg

I dont think those bunnies could have (or would have) gone through 2 layers of fencing to chomp on these plants -and still not eat them. Neither would a deer with so much better food around, and with dogs on adjoining properties. Only thought left is cutworms or such, but how would they do such a fast job on several plants in a couple hours? and how about the plants where the entire top was cut and gone.

This has been driving me nuts. Now more than half the plants are gone, this entire row below is empty, and I have no good idea what to do next. I'll add aluminum collars around the remaining plants to eliminate the possibility of cutworms. Any thoughts?
massacre2.jpg

[crankyoldfart]

Taboule,
I would bet a lot of your money that the culprit is the dreaded Massachusett’s Hamster, Marmota monax. The daytime raids are a dead giveaway in my (very painful!) experience.

[taboule]

Steve, thanks for your kind words. Agreed that nothing to do about that hail. I was soliciting some thoughts to the second (third?) problem I'm having with plants being eaten by some pest -post 10.

Take care, I hope your garden is fairing well.

[taboule]

Crankyoldfart -now that's a catchy name ;>)

Thanks for that thought, i didn't consider it. Yes a groundhog would have been a definite possibility, i've experienced their damage before. However, in this case there's the fence, 3ft high and tight. And in the last picture, there's the second individual "cage" surrounding the plant, and neither appears to have been breached. No holes in the ground -and most of it got covered with the black weed barrier.

Now thinking about setting up some wildlife cameras, but not sure I'll have enough plants left at this rate.

[crankyoldfart]

I use five foot tall, 22” diameter CRW cages with 18” of “rabbit guard” fencing around the bottom for my maters. Last year I watched one of the basTURDS nimbly scale the structure and harvest fruit from the four foot level. I will no longer underestimate their resourcefulness.

[hovermother22]

OMG, please keep those hamsters out of Chicago 'burbs. I have had enough trouble the last four years or so with the gosh darn hornworms. I never knew that hamsters would go after tomato plants, and, for that matter, I never knew hamsters are outdoor animals???But, then again, I don't know much, especially when it comes to shrewd and sometimes devious Mother Nature.