The first frost

Last night was the first frost

Garden value vs. cost of vegetable garden

Calculating the value of the vegetable garden has been an ongoing project this summer, though it's been difficult to keep track of every last bite we pull out of our yard. For the purposes of pricing what this stuff might be worth at the market, I'm using prices for regular commercial produce at the regular chain supermarket. The stuff I'm growing is organic, but I'm ignoring that to just focus on the basic price of vegetables at the store vs. what I can "save" by growing this things myself. I might consider revaluing this when I tally everything up at the end of the season.

The local farmer's market and whole food, for example, are charging an arm and leg this season for field tomatoes - compared to what the Shaw's charges for its hothouse tomatoes. To date, we've harvested:

• 8 lbs green beans (pole beans and haricot verts)
• 10 lbs of tomatoes (heirloom, yellow and regular red)
• 4 pints of red and yellow grape tomatoes
• 16 cucumbers (mostly marketmores, with some persians)
• 10 jalapeno peppers
• 2 sweet peppers
• 1 green bell pepper
• 8 bunches of carrots
• 3 lbs of snap peas
• 5 pints of strawberries
• several bags of bibb lettuce, spinach and mache
• 4 bunches of basil

That's $131 worth of food from the garden. Balance that against this year's cost of $208 for soil amendments, seeds and plant starts. It's difficult to calculate capital investments from years past for things like shovels, trowels, wheel barrow, etc., or for things like water and time.

We still have the corn, zucchini, leeks, red onions, pumpkins, more beans, chard, more lettuce, eggplants, more peppers, more cucumbers and loads more tomatoes yet to come....

The winner in terms of value of crop vs. total space and time consumed has been the green beans, particularly the haricot verts, which have taken very little effort, very little space and produce quite a lot.

Tomato disease - spots on leaves

Late blight has plagued tomatoes across the northeast this season due in large part to the very rainy June and blamed on poor quality tomato starts sold at home stores like Home Depot and Lowes. (These stores don't have the same quality concerns as local nurseries and will sell you any diseased plant they can offload on the unsuspecting!) So when my tomatoes took a turn for the worse back in July, I assumed I was having the same tomato blight problems as the rest of Boston.

Spots first appeared on some lower leaves of a Yellow Girl plant - black spots with white centers and yellow rings. The spotted leaves eventually withered and died and the disease moved up the plant, browning and dying as it went. Then quickly spread to neighboring tomato plants.

Patient Zero - the yellow girl - offered up 6 perfectly beautiful tomatoes before dying completely.

The other affected plants have similarly had no problem yielding delicious, healthy looking tomatoes, even while the plants themselves are slowly browing and dying.

I did what I could - I clipped off the affected portions, pruned heavily to try to lighten the plants and increase air circulation, but the infection continues.

I began to wonder if tomato blight was really my problem when I read that tomato blight produces black, greasy looking spots.

Now I think my problem is either bacterial leaf spot or septoria, but I continue to be puzzled by the fact that the fruit itself doesn't appear to be affected by whatever disease is killing the plants. Despite the problems, we have gotten many pounds of tomatoes out of our six plants. Ironically, the Black Krim Tomato, the single heirloom variety I'm growing, is the one plant that seem to be fending off the disease somewhat successfully.

Growing leeks from seed part 5

The leeks were painfully slow to get started, but they are growing rapidly now - almost twice as thick as they were 2 weeks ago.

I continue to mound the dirt around their stems - hoping to increase the white areas at the bottom of the plants which is the best for eating.

The leeks have been disease free and haven't been bothered by any pests. The only drawback to growing leeks is that they take their sweet time. Leeks are not a fast-growing crop!

Black beauty eggplants

The eggplants are on their way. I have 2 black beauty plants, which are about 24" high. The eggplants themselves are about the size of a softball and growing quickly. Despite the many problems of the adjacent tomato plants (also nightshades like the eggplants), the eggplants are doing well and showing no sign of any disease.

Planting vegetables in August

On a 1 week vacation, my grandfather would enjoy himself for 3 days. Then, on the 4th day, he would start packing up to go home.

Don't write the summer off already. Early to mid-August is great time to plant a 2nd crop of cool weather plants. The first frost in Boston isn't usually until sometime in early to mid-October, which leaves just about 60 days for some lettuce, spinach or radish to be ready to eat.

This August, I've planted cilantro, parsnips, and bibb lettuce. Having seedlings emerging in the heat of August, is an entirely different game. Make sure everything gets enough water and watch out for rabbits who've been breeding like...well rabbits...all summer and have lots of hungry mouths to feed.

Growing corn in small gardens

The corn is tasseling, and with the tasseling comes the little aphids along the tassel. Last year, these did not cause any. Apparently, these are only a problem if they interfere with pollination. Corn pollinates by banging their tassels against each other, usually in a light breeze, though I do this manually to ensure pollination.

If the problem gets worse, I will start by washing the aphids off with a hose.

Growing Pumpkins in Small Gardens

The first pumpkin makes an appearance by early August. This is my second year of growing pumpkins in our small garden, and while I had a success last year - one good size pumpkin ready in time for Halloween, several others were nibbled by squirrels and destroyed before the vine wilted and died entirely.

We have 2 good vines growing this year, winding their way down through the corn and along the stone wall, and already have several little pumpkins forming. But the wet summer has not been kind to our pumpkins, and I'm already seeing signs of yellowing leaves.

I took a hint from a gardening book and pruned off every few leaves on the pumpkin vine to try to improve air circulation. We'll see if they make it to October

Growing parsnips

A parsnip seedling coming up. I planted these about a month ago. Fewer than 5 sprouted, and it looks like some critter is eating the seedlings as they come up. I reseeded them.

I also sowed more cilantro in the area where I had pulled up carrots.

Growing bell peppers

A bell pepper almost ready. 2 other peppers were felled by critters during our vacation.

Growing leeks from seed part 4

These better be the best vegetables ever, because they are taking for ever. The leeks are now about as fat as my fat little finger. At the rate they're growing, I might have some skinny leeks by the end of September. Add to that the fact that I only have about 12 in the 3 square foot space, and I'm not feeling like the leeks have worked out this year.

Growing haricot verts

The beans (haricot verts and kentucky blue) are doing well growing up the teepee. We pulled plenty off before we left, and another 2 lbs when we returned.

The beans have been a great crop planted in their 3'x3' area, plus the ones that I interplanted with the corn are fruiting. They're providing several dinners worth of vegetables each week.

Untended vegetable garden

Two weeks of vacation left the vegetable garden pretty ravaged. The bunnies have had a field day munching the basil and squash flowers. The tomatoes grew 2 feet and collapsed under their own weight, taking the stakes down with them and smothering the peppers and eggplant. G built a new contraption to hold them up. (Apparently it rained a lot while we were away, plus we had the sprinkler setup on the timer to go off everyday for 30 minutes.) The blight is taking over the tomatoes. I'm hoping that having them upright and better air circulation will help with the blight, but I've lost the yellow tomato altogether.

Still, we pulled about 2 lbs of beans, buckets of grape tomatoes and a dozen cucumbers out of the garden when we returned. I pickled up the green beans with rosemary and lemon

Vegetable Garden Layout

Vegetable gardens can be laid out any number of ways. The single most important consideration is sunlight. Choose a spot that gets AT LEAST 6 hours of sunlight a day.

The size and the design will depend on how much space you have, how much space you can reasonably tend and what you want to grow. No matter how you lay out your vegetable garden, remember that you can only reach about 3 feet with your arm - remember to leave ample foot paths so you will be able to get to your veggies once they are growing.

Our vegetable garden is in the front yard - the only place where we get sufficient sunlight. It's about 14'X21'. We have a single 8'X8' raised bed in the center, surrounded by 3' deep beds, with 3' wide grass pathways (wide enough to allow the push mower and the wheelbarrow through).

Last year, we tried the Square Foot gardening method which suits our small space well. Square foot gardening lays out your vegetable garden of 4'X4' raised beds in 1 foot blocks, with different crops planted densely in each area. I found this worked well for some vegetables - carrots, lettuce and radish thrived in our square foot planting. The tomatoes, beans and cucumbers which were growing vertically using a trellis did not do so well. The tomatoes, particularly, seemed very susceptible to blight.

This year, we tried a variation on the square foot method - maintaining the principle of dense planting, but giving some of the bigger plants more room to grow. Rather than 1 square foot, each tomato enjoy abouts 15"x20". The beans (about 24 plants) climb a trellis in a 9 square foot area, another 30 plants share space with the corn. The cucumbers (about 14 plants) cover about 18 square feet. The carrots and lettuce are planted densely in 1 foot rows. I think the tomatoes are still too close together this year.

The only other consideration in layout is adding beneficial plants to the mix. Onions, garlic, basil and marigold all deter pests. In our small vegetable garden, simply having these plants somewhere in the garden helps.

Growing tomatoes

The tomatoes were struck with blight (tomato blight: Yellowing leaves with black spots). I have pruned off all the parts that were affected - huge swaths of undergrowth. The yellow tomato was pruned almost to death. All this wet weather naturally caused the spread of mold and spot diseases. I believe the blight has spread to the nearby eggplant.

Growing leeks from seed part 3

Leeks started indoors in early March. Here they are at 18 weeks. They are finally beginning to look like leeks and are a little fatter than a pencil. Onion varities are a good addition to the garden since they deter a lot of pests, but so far leeks have been slow and painful. In another 3-4 months, I think they could get there.

Growing Persian Cucumbers (part 2)

After an inauspicious beginning, the cucumbers are looking good. The marketmores that I bought as seedlings are larger, but the persian cucumbers started from seed are no less vigorous. The only effort has been keeping them growing along the trellis. A little bit of string and little bit of bending their tendrils did the trick. There are loads of flowers and many wee cucumbers already forming. The cucumbers were not growing earlier in the season.

Knee high by the 4th of July

In massachusetts the saying for corn is that it should be "knee high by the 4th of July." These stalks, planted May 21st are knee high at 6 weeks. The plentiful rain has been fueling their growth as well as every other week feeding. I've planted pole beans at the base of each stalk.

Growing tomatoes

The tomatoes are out of control. Despite my ongoing efforts to keep them pinched and pruned and growing in the right direction, they are running wild. I have lopped off 1/3 of the plants, but they just keep growing. The rain. The rain. The rain.

They are also lightly infested with a diverse ecosystem of insects. So far, they don't seem to be suffering too much from it. I've been feeding them about every 2 weeks with Neptune's garden. Each of the plants have loads of tomatoes growing.

These were planted May 10th from seedlings.

Growing spring vegetables

Despite the cool, wet weather, the spring vegetables were done by early July. The snap peas grew so tall they toppled over. The lettuce, mesclun and mache went to seed.

We've pulled the first round of carrots planted April 5th and ready from 11-13 weeks. There is a second crop of carrots still growing.

I've pulled the snap peas and lettuces. I've replaced the mache with parsnips planted July 3rd, and the snap peas with swiss chard. I'm leaving the lettuce section free to replant with lettuce in late August.

How to grow snap peas

The sugar snap peas from Renee's Garden grew to almost 7' tall (about 16 plants) in our 40"x14" plot. They were planted April 5th. From 11 to 14 weeks they produced delicious sweet peas - about 2.5 lbs worth.

We've had a wet season, but they required very little special care, other than the teepee wound with string to support them. I pulled them down on July 5th because they had grown so tall they toppled over in the wind, but I think they would have easily kept growing and producing peas! See snap peas grow.

I chopped the plants and composted them, but chopped up the roots and left them in the soil. The roots of peas fix nitrogen and pull it into the soil.

I have seeded the area with more swiss chard.

Growing hops

This hops vine found its own way into our vegetable garden this year. It is growing like crazy with all the rain we've had in Massachusetts in the month of June.

It popped up in the middle of the strawberry patch, and since the strawberries are done for the season, we gave it a trellis to climb.

Squash at 4 weeks

Squash plants at 4 weeks

Growing haricot verts

The beans are in!

I planted haricot verts and kentucky blue beans 11 weeks ago. The haricot verts came in first. We had the first of them for dinner tonight.

They were slow to get started, but so far they've been pest free and very little trouble

Carrots ready to eat

The nantes carrots planted 12 weeks ago are ready to eat. About 8" long and delicious. We had some the other night in a carrot ginger puree.

We have about 30 carrots growing in a 14"x20" space. They have been low maintenance and pretty easy to grow.

Value of the vegetable garden

Our vegetable garden is a 17'x14' area in our front yard - small but easy enough to tend in 1 or 2 hours a week.

I've been wondering if it's really worth it. I mean, other than the pleasure I get from toiling in the dirt and the smallish chance my children will be inspired by the sight of vegetables growing and actually want to eat one of them.

So, part of this project is keeping track of the cold hard cash value of what we're pulling out of our garden. So, far, we've gotten about 5 pints of strawberries, 1/2 lb of snap peas and several bags of lettuce and spinach. I'll forget that what we have is local and organic and that that combination commands jaw-dropping prices at the local Whole Foods, and focus on the price of these items as if they were plain old vegetables from the regular grocery store. Current price are $2.50/pint of commercially grown California strawberries, $4.99/pound of snap peas and $4.99/box of mixed greens - bringing the total value of our garden to $24.99, (and it's only June 19th!) and that's ignoring all the snips of chives, basil, garlic scapes, oregano, parsley and cilantro for which I can't begin to calculate the value.

Black bugs on Nasturtiums

These little buggers are kind of aphid and they descend with ferocity on my nasturtiums. Nasturtiums serve 2 purposes in the vegetable garden. Firstly, they're delicious. But I'll discuss edible flowers more when I actually have some flowers to eat. Also, they act as a "trap crop" which draws little haters like these aphids away from my more valuable vegetable crops.

My first course of action has been to pick them off by hand. If the assault continues, I have heard of some pepper-based organic insecticides that might keep them away.

Growing cucumbers in Boston

We've successfully grown marketmore cucumbers from commercially grown starts in our garden for years, but buying the starts doesn't seem nearly as efficient as starting my own cucumbers from seed.

Last year, I direct sowed cucumbers in the garden and got nowhere. We got 1 or 2 cucumbers from the 20 or so seeds I planted. The few seeds that sprouted never really grew. This year, I started the seeds indoors in newspaper pots (persian cucumbers and an asian variety) in late April. My first problem was that a sunny south-facing window sill does not provide enough sunlight to start seedlings. I need to get a grow light. The seedlings emerged quickly enough, but they grew tall and spindly and not thick and strong. Nonetheless, I planted them out where I knew they would get a lot more sun and hoped for the best.

Late May and early June have served us a hearty helping of cold, rainy weather - which is not a curcurbit's best friend. My seedlings languished. Several died (hey, that's why you plant so many!). Facing the terror of another summer without cucumbers, I went to the greenhouse and bought 2 well-established marketmore seedlings ($3.99 for both), and started feeding everything regularly.

There is some sign of hope amoungst the seedlings I started myself, but can you see the difference between the vigorous 4-leafed marketmore in the bottom left and the other plants in the picture? These cukes get sun from about 12:30 until 7:30 or so in the evening and 2-3 inches of water per week. I'm hoping the weather warms some more, and we get some cucumbers this summer!

Growing leeks from seed part 2

Growing leeks from seed has turned out to be a tedious venture. These leeks were started indoors in early March. Here they are 14 weeks - finally starting to add some girth!

The ones that I direct sowed in the garden in early April are even smaller - barely more than a blade of grass!!!

I have been feeding them every other week with Neptune's Harvest, and the regular feeding has really helped.

I have maybe 12-14 more weeks before there is a frost in Boston. I wonder if the leeks will be ready before then....

Growing green beans

The green beans (a combination of Kentucky Blue and haricot verts) are finally looking happy.

-some of these beans were started indoors in newspaper pots in late April
-some were started in plastic bags in early May
-some were direct sown in the garden in mid-April
-some were direct sown in the garden in early June

There is very little difference. OK, the ones started 10 days ago are definitely smaller, but the rest of them are about the same size. The ones started indoors in late April struggled for a long time after I planted them out in mid-May.

It seems the warming summer weather has perked them up.

Three sisters garden (corn, beans, squash)

When the corn was up 4 inches or so (around June 8th), I thinned the corn to about 12" and planted 3-4 pole beans seeds at the base of each stalk (a mix of Kentucky blue and haricot verts). 10 days later, the corn has survived a rabbit attack and the beans are starting to sprout.

I also planted pumpkin at either end of the corn bed. This is the "three sisters garden", a supposedly beneficial planting arrangement where the beans climb the corn stalks and the squash, in this case pumpkins, fill in around the base to form a natural mulch. Greg normally does not go for such promiscuous co-minging of plants, so I've never tried this approach before.

Vegetable garden in Massachusetts

It's been about 10 weeks since the garden was started with some of the earliest seeds - bibb lettuce, mesclun mix (spinach, blood beet, mustard greens, lettuce), carrots, snap peas and mache.

The bibb lettuce and mesclun is in full swing. We are eating salads exlusively from the garden right now and have been for about 10 days. Unless the weather turns suddenly hot, I think we'll have lettuce for a few more weeks. The mache never really took off, though. I'm thinking it needs more water...?

We are also starting to get snap peas - which are delicious snapped right off the vine (so delicious I've been eating most of them before they make it to the kitchen).

The carrots are almost, but not quite ready.

Growing strawberries

Growing strawberries in the garden is one of the most rewarding food crops I've ever grown. We started our strawberry patch last year with about 6 plants donated from our friend Gus.

They spread like crazy last year. Every plant sent out 5 or 6 runners for new plants. This spring, I rearranged them in their 3'X5' area. They are planted pretty densely - spaced about every 6 or 8 inches. I threw down a sprinkling of composted manure - about 1/2 inch deep and mulched them with pine needles. Strawberries prefer slightly acidic soil in the 5.5-6.5 range and pine needles will help lower the pH. That said, the pine needles had no immediate affect on the soil pH. The soil in the strawberry bed is still just over 7.

I watered them 2-3 times per week with the rest of the vegetable garden, and I put netting over them once the berries started to set to protect them from critters. (It's important not to put the netting on too soon, because the bees were not too keen to go through the netting to the flowers, even though the holes were plenty large enough for them to fit).

Now, in early June, we are pulling in a bowl of berries every day! 3'x5' feet is just enough for everyone in our family of 4 to have fresh strawberries in the morning, but not enough to justify making jam.

The total cost for our strawberry endeavour was about $2 for netting and maybe $1 in compost, and it will yield several pints of strawberries over the course of 2-3 weeks. And WOW! these strawberries taste like... STRAWBERRIES! I've gotten used to the giant, red, flavorless variety that comes from the grocery store. These taste like strawberry candy - they are so intensely strawberry-flavored and so juicey.

After the fruit is finished, they will again send out runners, and we will have more strawberry plants than we have room for. Anyone want to start a strawberry patch???

See more of our strawberry growing adventures in Boston!

Grubs in the Chard part 3

Suck it grubs! Chard victorious.

Growing mache from seed

Mache is a delicate, sweet green sometimes called "lambs lettuce". The mature heads are only about 2 inches across. This mache was direct sowed in the garden April 5th. At 8.5 weeks it is ready to be eaten. The problem is that not a lot of it grew from my seeds. I did not get enough mache from my 36"x18" plot to make a full salad, but I'll still enjoy the little bit that I got! If the mache had grown thickly in this area, I would have gotten several salad.

Mache is a cool weather plant and it's thriving in this cool June weather, but as soon as the days turn hot, I will pull the mache and replant with something else for the summer. I'll give the mache another go in the fall!

Cilantro at 7 weeks

At 7 weeks after directing sowing on April 15th, the cilantro is ready to eat.

First June strawberries

The first strawberries are in, and they are sweet and lucious and smallish. Mmmmm.

Don't let those fools at the grocery store sell you on that nauseatingly sweet spongey yellow cake and instant whipped cream. Real short cake is more like a biscuit, sweet and a little bit tender, and it's super easy to make.

Strawberry Shortcake Recipe:

2 cups flour

1 Tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

4 Tbsp. sugar

1 stick cold butter in 8 pieces

2/3 cup half and half

In food processor combine w/ several pulses:

2 cups flour

1 Tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

4 Tbsp. sugar

Add butter and pulse several times

Transfer mixture to bowl and add enough half and half to make dough moist

Transfer to counter and knead 3-4 times.

Flatten dough to 3/4 inch thickness and cut with bisquit cutter or drinking glass.

Bake 10-15 minutes at 425

Serve with fresh, halved and hulled strawberries and cream whipped with bourbon and honey. (The secret to great whipped cream is having the bowl, the beaters and the cream really cold.)

Picture of snap pea flower turning into pea

Picture of snap pea flower

Snap peas in June

The snap peas have grown another 12" in the last week, AND we have peas!

Corn has sprouted!

The second time was a charm! The corn from the second sowing sprouted like clockwork 2 weeks later. The trick this time was keeping the soil very moist and keeping the bed covered so the birds couldn't eat the corn.

This is Silver Queen corn - a silvery white sweet corn. I spent my childhood summers on the Maryland shore, and the road to get there wound through the farm country of the eastern shore of the Chesapeake bay. Farm stands dotted the route where you could buy peaches, watermelons, tomatoes and the unbelievably delicious Silver Queen corn.

Not sure if this southern transplant will succeed in Massachusetts. We tried it last year and, while it grew well, the corn itself was tough and inedible.

Once the corn is an inch or two taller, I will add bean seeds around the base of each stalk.

Ripe strawberries

The first strawberries are starting to ripen!

Growing Snap Peas

The snap peas are really hitting their stride. They've grown nearly 12" in the last 8 days. While the ones that I started inside 2 weeks earlier are not bigger than the peas that were seeded directly in the garden, they are starting to flower already.

Here they are - 7 weeks after direct sowing.

Carrots at 7 weeks

At 7 weeks after sowing, the nantes carrots are a dense forest. I thinned them this weekend. The carrots themselves are about the size of a toothpick. It will still be several more weeks before they're ready for eating!

How much does a vegetable garden cost?

Costs to date are $208 which includes all the soil amendments, seeds, fertilizer and the seedlings (tomatoes, eggplant, peppers and a few perennial herbs). I won't need to spend as much next year on soil amendments.

• Costs for seeds, seedlings and fertilizer: $107 (recurring annually)
• Costs for soil amendments (compost and spaghum moss) and tools: $101

I hope to have more homemade compost for next year's garden, but will probably still spend about $50 on soil amendments.

Will we get $208 worth of produce out of our little patch (about 150SF)? Stay tuned...

Check it out, we got mentioned over at Public Radio Kitchen.

How much water do vegetables need?

Vegetables need a lot of water. I know this should go without saying, but I always think it just rained yesterday. You definitely need to water your Boston-area vegetable garden.

Vegetables need about 1-2" of water per week - more when it's hot and dry! Average monthly rainfall in Boston in the growing season is only about 3". You can provide the additional water in 2-3 watering per week, preferrably in the early morning and directly to the roots.

When the temps top 90, it's time for daily watering.

What's happening in the vegetable garden

After nearly 2 weeks, I resowed the corn last Thursday (May 21), and covered the whole section with clear plastic. I've been taking up the plastic every other day to water. If I leave the plastic up for 5 minutes, the birds get right into the bed.

The peas are doing well. The carrots are doing well. The second seeding is starting to emerge.

A little bit from the second sowing of mache, but not much.

The lettuces are coming in well now. Looking forward to a garden salad one night soon.

The cucumbers are suddenly ailing. The seed leaves have mostly fallen off, and the second leaves are emerging, but the stalks are weak. Several of the plants have fallen over. I think we may have lost about half, and those remaining do not look strong.

The beans are doing a little bit better, but they don't seem to really be thriving. The seedlings haven't grown much since being planted out. Some of the leaves are getting brown and papery. No sign yet of the beans directed sown.

I fed everything this weekend. Did I mention the $40 spent on fish gut fertilizer? It stinks, but I've had success with it in the past. Vegetables need a lot of nutrients, especially in a densly planted urban garden. The leeks, especially, should benefit from some additional nutrients.

Sunlight is looking good this time of year. The tomatoes, eggplant, peppers and basil get 10 hours of sunlight. The lettuces, leeks, carrots and peas get 8 hours. The strawberries and herbs get 8. The cucumbers get 6.

Grubs in the Chard part 2

Many grubs have died under the blade of my trowel. I've dug up the wilting chard and picked them off. Dug them out of the soil around the chard too. The chard seems to be recovering!

The outer leaves are wilted and dead, but there is new growth!

What's eating the mustard?

After further investigation and consultation, it seems very unlikely that ants would be devouring the roots of my mustard green. (Not sure what the ants would be doing swarming in and out of the roots.) But the root damage combined with the little holes in the leaves of the mustard point to flea beetles as the culprit.
These can be a big problem and may get into other plants (like the eggplant) once they're done with the mustard.
There are options for controlling them, including diatomaceous earth, which absorbs lipids from the exoskeleton causing the critters to dehydrate. (It's also useful for removing DNA). That link there is about all I know about diatomaceous earth.
Will see how this infestation progresses before taking chemical intervention.

Frost damage

So we had a minor frost here two nights ago. I thought I was OK as long as temperatures stayed above 32, but apparently anything in the 30s is too much for the heating-loving plants. The eggplants looked wilted, the basil was burned black. The good news is that both seem to be doing fine after temperatures rebounded.

Pictured: Frost damaged on basil

C brought home some beans from school, so I planted those into the mix on the bean teepee.

The peas that I started inside are no bigger than the peas I planted directly in the garden. It seems there is no advantage to starting peas indoors.

Still no sign of corn. (Damn turkeys!)

When I plant the lettuce again in the fall, I will plant much more thickly so I get a blanket of lettuce coming up. When it comes time to thin, I can just eat what I thin. It should give me a few nights of salads of baby greens and allow a few heads to develop to full size.