HOT

(I saw this weather vane moved to a decorative salvage newel post as a focal point in a garden on June 23.)


Rise and shine all! It cooler earlier in the day.

On my Facebook page, a misguided friend commented there are a LOT of HOT women in Wisconsin today.

Misguided...ugh!

I woke up and was completely awake before 6:00 A. M. this morning. I walked outside to move my watering head so another small bed can be drenched in moisture for a couple scant hours. The humidity was down. So oddly as it seems, I still have lush green grass, so I decided to mow my grass at just after dawn. It was already 78 degrees. Luckily for my neighbors, my lawn mower is electric. It makes less noise than my room size air conditioner. As it is corded, I can't mow in the rain, but there are trade-offs. Who has seen any rain anyhow, lately?

Today the heat index is supposed to be 107 here in central Wisconsin. It's 11:20 now and I'm done with being outside for the day.

I dead-headed some Knockout roses, which typically don't need dead-heading, but had bloomed so heavily that when the heat hit it looked like they all went by the same day.

While the humidity was lower this morning, I also weeded a bit of the long border that spends a few brief morning hours in the shade. Right now I can hear the chirp of a hummingbird out my window in this section of border castigating me for pulling out an errant bit of deep red Jacob Cline bee balm. He probably intended it for lunch. Well, there is more, and water, and a deep red Princess Diana clematis in bloom. Move along.

(Not my Jacob Cline, but you get the idea.)

Last night here in central Wisconsin it was 88 degrees at 8:30 P. M. All the tall glasses in my kitchen were dirty. That's over 24. I was gone half the day out to my sister-in-laws. A lot of the short glasses were dirty, too. Handsome Son is obviously working hard at staying hydrated. I hope all of you are, too.

Yesterday, before it got beastly hot, I cultivated between the rows in the family garden, hoed a bit. Checked out the potatoes as they and the stuff that reminded me of a deer or rabbit repellent did battle with the Colorado potato beetles. Not sure if it is the stage in their life span the effect of the heat, or the spray; but the beetles are basically gone. Gone, without striping the leaves to nothing. Between this repellant, less desirable to the COB cultivars, the timing of the planting, is it a 100% success? Not sure, but a good outcome at this point, for sure. We'll see how the crop looks, which is the ultimate decision point for me.

Lots of basil ready for drying, freezing, or eating. Sweet corn is tasseling out. 'Contender' beans are in bloom. Dill and oregano to be dried in my potager. I still have a lot of lettuce, as I planted it in a bit of shade. With the heat, I expect it to bolt, though.

Stay cool all!

Colorado Potato Beetle on the Potatoes in the Family Garden

Like locusts, the Colorado Potato Beetle is again visiting our garden. We are in the heart of potato-producing country here in central Wisconsin. The beetles will come whether you like it or not.

Last year, I attempted organic method of hand picking them which I did every other day for a week, to the benefit of much of nothing. There numbers were horrific, my attempts meager in comparison.

Their ravaging of the top growth just as our spuds were starting to bulk up, resulted in meager yields. so off to the Internet to research the problem and a conversation about potato growing with my dad, a dairy farmer with a lot of potato growing on his past resume.

Some of what he told me I had not realized. In the village here, I have ample water available at a short distance and am not much bothered by the beetle; no potatoes are grown close by any longer. Some summers I see one or two beetles and it is a "big" infestation.

My dad related how potatoes were generally planted as a twice a season harvest. An early crop planted the minute the soil could be dug to take advantage of the early spring rains, the potatoes to be dug and eaten through the summer; and a second harvest planted to take advantage of the fall rains and eaten through the winter. This is not the way the big commercial guys do it. One season, one crop generally planted a week or so after Easter, probably a good three weeks later than my grandparents and their parents would plant potatoes here in Wisconsin.

I have know that there are potatoes in those hills a week or so after the plant blooms, even as a young child. There is nothing so delicious as freshly dug red potatoes boiled!

In my garden here, my blue potatoes have been in bloom for a week or two. This is a potato without a cultivar name that Jung's was selling early this spring. I'm not sure I will like the taste or how much of the blueness will remain through cooking. I'm not sure how the visual of blue potatoes will affect the process of tasting it. One thing I have noticed, however; is the beetles do not like the taste of the leaves and nary a one is lunching on those blue potatoes in the family garden.

The picture above is of the beetles on the Red Pontiac and Red Norlands, which my sister-in-law not realizing there could be two red potato varieties, unwittingly planted in the same row. In my research I came across the information that Superiors are not as much affected by the beetles and looking at them purely from a visual rather than scientific point of view, I would say they are half as tasty as the reds in our garden.

Now the potatoes in my own potager will be ready to be dug in just a week or so, while those in the family garden have not yet begun to bloom. If I had the beetle here, given the point in the production cycle it would not be as detrimental as in the family garden.

I have also researched what organic (although I hate that word as it is more a political affirmation of goodness than an actual approval of low toxicity of nasty petro-chemicals and hormone interruptors). One take-away was the beetle is increasingly resistant to any chemicals and the agri-chemical companies are constantly in a battle of one-up-manship with the beetle. The latest and greatest in the chemical arsenal in the battle with the beetle is Spinosad, which has the certified organic folks approval. It has been approved for use in the USA since 1997.

Reading the ingredients and warning, I'm not so sure it is a chemical I want to use, especially with my sister-in-law breast-feeding little guy number three. It affect the neural tube (spinal column, brain, nervous system in high animal speak; and is contact lethal to bees and lethal by ingestion to ducks and rats, although not other animals like trout. Any chemical that include warning about run-off into waterways and affects on aquatic life, though, hits me as a flag that this could be bad for an infant that a short while ago was living the aquatic life itself floating in the womb of my sister-in-law.

So no Spinosad, at least not this year.

So Sister-in-Law comes across this organic pest repellant that seems chemically very much like the stuff in home-made deer and rabbit repellants. It contains carrots, cayenne, canola oil, and the one chemical monopotassium sodium, which to me read as a salt. So yesterday when I went to till and hoe and battle the weeds and saw the beetle had returned, I sprayed all the potatoes with this organic pharma product. I'll be watching to see if the beetles take their garden of good eating roadshow elsewhere. I'll let you know.

Otherwise, it may be more of the, hopefully, tasty blue potatoes and Superiors, and early planting next year.

The Family Garden Plot

I'm sharing a picture of this wonderfully textured hosta with you this morning, because there is nothing much to see in the family garden plot which my brother, my sister-in-law and her boys, I, and occasionally Handsome Son garden. While this hosta was still in the process of unfurling its limey leaves, the rest of us were planting 'Contender' beans, which red-headed nephew called a "long process" with an emphasis only a just three-year-old can add. He and his twin were alternately lining up the beans about 6-8" apart in rows rather than hills at the the bequest of their mom with Happy Baby in a carrier up front. We also planted Kidney beans, three types of sweet corn ('Country Gentleman', 'Jubilee', and 'Early Sunglow'). We planted potatoes, 'Superior', 'Red Pontiac', 'Red Norlan', and 'All Blue'. Last year our potato crop was miniscule. About the time the potatoes could start packing on some weight, our crop was top-side being decimated by Colorado potato beetles. The family garden plot is a good ten miles from actually agribusiness type 100-acre plots of commercial potatoes, so I was a bit bemused by their ready arrival the first year on our family potatoes. I'm not squeemish, I went over the crop twice picking off every beetle and larvae I could find to no avail. I recognized the larvae for what it would become early on, and got right on the problem, nothing could be done. I was out-numbered. The timing was bad. Rain kept us from properly preparing the ground which had lain fallow for many years, and it was only rototilled-- a mistake. This year, the plot has been properly plowed and tilled. Our root crops will have a much easier time of it. Over the winter, I spent time pouring over the latest information on how to organically outsmart the potato beetle. The organic people are putting great hopes on Spinosad, a new naturally derived organic similar to Neem. The more I read about it, I'm not sure how it came up with its organic certification. I have my concerns, especially when anything is labeled not to use where run-off into areas with aquatic organism. That's a red flag for me. So I consulted with my dad, a long-time past potato farmer and son of a potato farmer. Varieties make a difference. 'Superior' seems to have some resistance. Also timing might be the issue. I didn't realize that before the advent of big business farming that potatoes were generally cropped as an early and late crop. Early crop were planted as soon as the ground could be worked in the spring, here typically Good Friday weekend. These potatoes were dug around the Fourth of July, just shortly before the beetle really raised havoc in our garden. Other potatoes were planted late May or early June and harvested in the fall. Additionally each crop typically had one of our two rainy periods to pack on the water weight before harvest in times before the big computer controlled walk-around "water monsters" irrigated them. So this year, different varieties, different timing, a location as far from the other as the small plot will allow, better soil preparation. No Spinosad. We'll see.