Fighting the Squash Borer

Well, I tried avoiding it... but it's a lost cause. Alas, the squash borer bug found my squash plants. No big shocker.

This year I've decided to try to fight the squash borer.

Sawdust mush is a sign of the squash borer

So yesterday I went out to my garden and inspected my squash plants.

I found that several of them had signs of squash borer infestation.

Signs to look out for include a hole in the vine where the borer entered.

There's also usually mushy sawdust looking stuff on the vine, or the vine itself is mushy.

To check for signs of the borer, start at the base of the vine and inspect it all the way up the plant.

Squash borer in squash vine

If you see these signs, there's probably a borer in your squash vine.

To remove the borer, carefully slice open the vine the long way and pry it open.

The borers are white worms with black heads.

Remove squash borer with a needle

Once you see the borer, pluck it out with a needle and either squash it (pun intended!) or drop it into a bucket of soapy water.

Even if you remove a borer from the vine, it might not be the only one in there.

I found three borers in one vine.

Once you have removed the borers from the vine, bury the vine in dirt.

The plant should grow new roots at the points where the vine is under the dirt, allowing your squash plant to continue to grow.

Squash borer about to take a bath

Some of the vines I inspected yesterday had holes that suggested a squash borer might be present, but when I opened them I didn't find a borer.

There may be one in there but I didn't find it.

Or maybe my attempt at avoiding the borer worked to some degree and several of my vines were borer free.

I will cover them again next year, it was easy so worth a try. As for this year, I'll continue to monitor my vines for signs of more borers.

Hopefully my efforts will be rewarded with a hearty squash harvest this year!

This Week's Flower Arrangement

Last week I started posting my weekly flower arrangements. This week's flower arrangement is very full of flowers. I got carried away on the flowers and didn't add enough foliage accents, but oh well!!

Here's what's in this week's flower bouquet:

• Zinnia mixed colors (bright red on left, dark red bottom center, pink top center and orange/yellow painted one in middle)
• Black eyed susan (yellow flower with dark center)
• Purple cone flower (purple flower with yellow center)
• White swan coneflower (white flower, yellow center)
• Silver mound foliage (hanging off left side)
• Hydrangea (big white-ish/green flower poofs)
• Baby's breath
• Daylily 'Route 66' (dark orange flower with yellow center)
• Bee Balm (fuchsia flowers)
• Lamb's ear (silver spike on right)

If you want to join in and share a link to pictures of your flower arrangements and current blooms, please do! I love to see creativity from others!

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Japanese Beetle

Theeeeey're heeeeeere... They are nasty bugs and their sole purpose in life it to decimate your beloved plants. They are the Japanese Beetle.

Ok, ok, I'm sure that technically they have some other purpose in the circle of life... but it doesn't seem like it.

Japanese beetle on cone flower

Right now, they are everywhere, it's hard to miss them. The adult beetles are oval with an iridescent brown/green body. They are 2-3 times the size of a lady bug.

Japanese beetle on hibiscus leaf

They cause major damage in the gardens and can decimate a small plant in a short time.

The plants I've seen them on the most this year are roses, hibiscus, zinnias, canna lilies and beans.

These seem to be their favorites, but I've seen damage on other plants as well. I know they love grapevines, and that's part of the reason we covered our grapes this year.

This time of year, I try to get out in the gardens at least once a day to do damage control.

I pick the beetles off and drop them into a bucket of soapy water. The other day, I had eleven of them in my bucket when I was done... Gross!

Japanese beetle and damage

It sounds easier than it is because they hold on tight to the leaves, and they can fly so this makes the task a bit more difficult.

I find it easier to pick the leaf they're munching on and drop the whole thing into the water, bugs and all.

I do this in the mornings and evenings because that's when I see them the most.

They also seem less active during these times, so less of them escape my wrath.

The key to controlling the Japanese beetle is to stay on top of the problem. If you have a major infestation, you could spray them with a strong dose of soapy water, or use a pesticide. But as always, I don't recommend using pesticides because they kill the good bugs too.

It's a bit of work to pick the Japanese beetles off and drop them into soapy water, but it's easy enough that pesticides shouldn't be necessary.

Two Japanese beetles and their damage to bean foliage

Update (7/25/2011 @9pm): Tonight we caught about 50 of these nasty things in our bucket. I've never seen more than a dozen in a given summer. Wow!

It's HOT! This Might Cool You Down...

I don't know what the weather has been like where you live, but here in Minnesota we're currently in a heat wave. Today's forecast was for 100*F with 115*F heat index. This heat wave has been going on for several days and people have been doing a LOT of complaining.

To help ease the pain of this heat wave a bit, I thought it would be fun to put together a slide show with pictures from my gardens this past winter and now. What a difference a few months can make, it's amazing!

Enjoy and think cool thoughts (but not too cool). And remember to enjoy summer while it lasts, because in a few short months... well, you know, I won't say it.

What's the weather like in your next of the woods?

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Weekly Flower Arrangements

I bring a bouquet of flowers I've picked from the garden to work with me every Monday during the summer. It helps me not miss my gardens so much while I'm at work. Last week I posted this picture of my flowers on Facebook...

Fresh picked flowers from the garden

I had several people ask me what types of flowers were in the bouquet, so I thought it would be fun to post my arrangements every week (well, at least most weeks) and list the flowers that are included. Kind of a supplement to my What's Bloomin' posts.

Last week's bouquet (picture above) included:

• Orange daylilies (tallest orange flowers)
• Peach blossom daylilies (shorter peach flowers)
• Hydrangea (big white flowers)
• Loosestrife 'Firecracker' (dark purple-ish foliage w/tiny yellow flowers)
• Dragons Blood sedum (small pink flowers around bottom)
• Gaillardia 'Goblin' (daisy like flower with redish-orange center and yellow tips)
• Blood banana leaf (out the right side)
• Tall sedum (no name, variegated foliage)
• Spike Speedwell Veronica (tall purple spike)
• Loraine Sunshine Sunflower (yellow flower)

Here is this week's arrangement...

Garden flower arrangement

There are a few of the same flowers in this one as last week's, but I tried to mix it up a bit. This week's arrangement includes:

• Orange daylilies (tallest orange flowers)
• Daylilies (no name, yellow flower with purple tips)
• Hydrangea (big white flowers)
• Gaillardia 'Goblin' (daisy like flower with redish-orange center and yellow tips)
• Spike Speedwell Veronica (tall purple spike)
• Loraine Sunshine Sunflower (yellow flower)
• Baby's Breath
• Bee Balm (fuchsia flowers)
• Yarrow (darker purple on top right)
• Lungwort leaves (spotted leaves)
• Lambs ear flower spike (tall ligther color purple)
• Silver mound foliage (silver colored filler around the bottom)

I think I got them all, I wouldn't be surprised if I missed something though.  It's so nice to have fresh flowers all the time during the summer, and they smell nice too.

If you want to join in and share a link to pictures of your flower arrangements and current blooms, please do! I love to see creativity from others!

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July What's Bloomin'

There are so many things blooming right now that it was hard for me to choose which ones to share. The lilies are definitely the stars of the show though! Here are a few of my favorite blooms from my July gardens...

Asiatic lily (hot pink)

Asiatic Lilies (orange)

Hens and Chicks

Bellflower

Zinnia 'Polar Bear'

Orange Daylily

Asiatic lily (pink)

Daylily ('My Kohos'

Daylily

Dragons Blood sedum

Yucca

Water Lily

Asiatic lily ('Landini')

Butterfly weed

Bee Balm

What's your favorite thing that's blooming in your garden right now?

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Planting a Garden Path

Planted Garden Path

Garden paths are very welcoming and they help to guide visitors through your gardens.

Garden paths can be created from any material; including mulch, pebbles, brick, formal pavers... the list goes on and on.

Using pavers or brick will add a hard and more formal feel to the garden.

If you like the idea of using pavers, but want a more relaxed, softer look, try creating a plantable garden path.

Irish Moss to plant between the blocks

Irish Moss planted in path

The added bonus of creating this type of path is that you won't have to worry about getting your pavers lined up and perfectly level.

You'll want to leave space between the pavers to allow room for planting.

I wanted a "broken path" look to my path, that's why there are large open spaces.


You don't need that much room between the pavers, an inch or two will be fine.

Filling dirt in the cracks around the moss

For plants, you'll want to use a low growing ground cover.

Be sure to choose a type of plant that will handle light foot traffic

Stay away from ground covers that have an aggressive growth habit, those will end up overtaking the stones.

For my path, I chose to use creeping thyme and irish moss to fill in the larger spaces.

I also added some naturally occuring moss in the smaller cracks and crevices, I hope it will take them over!

I just planted my garden path recently, so it looks a little sparse right now. In another year or two, the cracks and open block areas will be filled in with green.

If you want a fuller path now, you can add more plants to make it as full as you want.

Welcome, come on in!

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A Cheap Alternative to Coconut Liners

Beautiful new planter with coconut liner

I have a few of those beautiful metal planters that came with a coconut liner when I bought them.

The coconut liner always looks so beautiful when you first get the planter and plant stuff in it.

But after a season or two, it looks dingy and gray.

Or it gets torn apart by the birds to use for building their nests.

Yuck!

Coconut liner faded and torn apart by birds

You can buy fresh coconut liner every spring, but that gets to be pretty expensive.

I wanted to try to figure out something to replace the coconut liners, that wouldn't cost me an arm and a leg.

So I racked my brain and pondered over it for a few weeks. I tried to find pots in the garage that would fit into the metal baskets. But no luck there, the ones I found didn't match each other let alone fit. I figured it would look tacky even if they did fit.

Use landscaping fabric for liner

While digging in the garage for pots, I came across a bunch of leftover landscape fabric just collecting dust.

Aha!

I figured I would try using that as a liner for my metal planters this year.

This option won't cost me a cent, and I think it'll look pretty nice.

Since the fabric isn't stiff like coconut liners are, it was a bit more difficult task to get the liner looking good.

Cut off extra fabric around top

It took some trial and error to figure out how to get the liner to stay in the basket so the dirt wouldn't spill out.

I decided to use a thin metal wire to attach the fabric to the metal planter baskets.

I poked the metal wire through the liner and wrapped it around the top of the metal of the basket, filling the liner with dirt as I went.

I also worked to bunch and straighten the liner as I went around each basket so the liner wouldn't bunch up in one spot.

Once the fabric was attached to the wire basket all the way around, I trimmed off the extra fabric so it's level with the top of the metal basket.

Planter looking new again!

Once I filled the baskets with dirt, the liner took shape and I think it turned out great.

We'll see how it holds up, I suspect the landscaping fabric will last longer than the coconut liner.

It's a bit late for planting annuals, so I decided to fill my planter with perennial succulents.

It should fill in pretty good by the end of the summer.

I'm going to try to overwinter it in the garage and see if the plants will survive. If they do, this will be beautiful next summer!!

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More Ladybugs!

Last year I released 1500 ladybugs in my yard and gardens to help in my fight against pests. I could definitely tell the difference, so I decided to do it again this year. If you don't know the benefits of ladybugs, read my post from last year... Ladybugs, natures pesticide

Container of Ladybugs

The packaging the ladybugs came in was different than last year's and it didn't say how many ladybugs were inside, so I'm not sure how many I release this year.

Ladybugs in container

Since I am practically a pro at release ladybugs (cause I've done it once), it only took me about an hour to spread out the ladybugs this year. Last year, part of the reason it took me so long was because they came in a mesh bag and it was difficult to get them out. The plastic container they came in this year made it much easier.

I was thrilled to discover a few ladybug larvae around my yard as I was releasing the new ladybugs. I've never noticed one of these guys before. Hopefully this is the spawn of some of my ladybugs from last year. How fun! 

Ladybug larvae

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Protecting Grapes from Birds and Bugs

We have two grape vines in our backyard, one of them is two years old and the other one we got last year. We finally have our first grapes growing and we're very excited about it!!

Beautiful tiny grapes

I know that birds and bugs can be a big problem for grapes and I wanted to avoid that if I could. So I set off to do some research about how to cover them to protect them from birds and bugs.

Grape vine

I didn't find much information about it so I used my gut instinct and decided to do it my own way.

I did see several pictures on the internet that showed grapevines covered with what looked like a fine mesh cloth.

So I decided to use the same tulle material to cover our grapes that I used to cover the squash plants.

This is a lightweight tulle material that you can find at any fabric store. It was something like $1.40/yard. I bought 3 yards for each vine, which will allow room for growth.

Tulle fabric used for protecting grapes

Our grape vines are growing on a tall pergola structure, so that made it a little more difficult to cover them. I have no idea if there is a "right" way to do this, so I improvised.

Hold tulle together with clothes pins

I stapled the tulle at the top of the post and then wrapped the tulle loosely around the vines.

I used clothes pins to keep the tulle closed.

I wanted it to be easy to open so I can train the vines throughout the summer and adjust the tulle if necessary.

It didn't take too long once I figured out a plan.

Grape vine protected with tulle

It doesn't look too bad out in the garden either.


My husband thinks our pergola looks like it's been decorated for a wedding now.

Ha, maybe I should string some lights in with the tulle.

I hope this fabric will do the trick to protect our grapes because we want the harvest all for ourselves.

Sorry birds, no grapes for you!

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