The Praying Mantis & Your Garden

image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

If you thought the title was the name of the new Nora Roberts book, you'll be disappointed. Nonetheless, the story of how praying mantids benefit your garden is certainly a story worth making the Bestseller List.

But before I tell you the tale, let's just first get a few cards on the table. Some of us have fond memories of playing with "stick" bugs and "leaf" bugs, and letting them crawl up on our arms as we laughed with the joy of being a kid. I was not one of those kids. So, when my brother called me up and said a friend has a bunch of baby mantids for your garden, the last thing I wanted was more bugs, let alone bugs that are super big.

Admittedly, at first I declined, but upon doing some research I found that the praying mantis has some really good qualities that made me second guess my initial response.

Mantids, despite getting as big as they do; two to three inches long, thankfully don't bite nor harm humans. And here's the real kicker: they eat spiders. Last year I had kind of an issue with big spiders, and I noticed this year I had a lot more than last year. A lot more. And to be honest, if getting a praying mantis or two allows me to not have to carry a jug of soap water wherever I go, I'm all for it. In fact, I will take a dozen.

And that's just what I did.

Controlling the Pest Population

For those of you who are big into natural and organic fertilizers, this is the perfect solution to a bug problem in your garden. Mantids eat nearly anything, including wasps, aphids, grasshoppers, moths, worms that eat your seedlings, and can help reduce the impact of the impending cicada apocalypse. Full sized mantids can consume even two bees in one sitting, and are continually looking for their next morsel. In fact, should you purchase mantids from your local gardening or agricultural store, make sure to remove them from their container rather quickly as going too long without food they will begin to eat each other.

Lastly, should you have a problem with cucumber beetles, cabbage beetles, or any such beetle, mantids are excellent predators to cut down some of the issue.

Do They Bite/Sting/Harm?

image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

Absolutely not. They are gentle creatures that just look scary! Despite their sci-fi look, mantids are generally at peace with humans. If you dislike bugs, this is definitely the bug that you want in your garden. If threatened, though, the mantis may swat you with their forearms, however this will not hurt you. They do have excellent camouflage skills, so if you go to grab a "stick" and find it's just a mantis, the worst that can happen is you have a gasp.

*Where To Buy

I was fortunate to have mine given to me by a friend, but a one time purchase at one of the following featured sites can give you the opportunity to breed them in your own garden. Although, keep in mind that if you do plan to breed them you should keep them indoors depending on your climate through the winter.

Gardener's - Sells both Ladybugs and Mantis Eggs
Grow Organic - Mantis Eggs and other beneficial bugs
Amazon - For a host of sellers and to check their feedback
Arbico Organics - Has great instructions on how to release and keep your mantids


*This list is for reference only. In no way has any of these companies paid me nor do I have any relationship or tie with them to advertise on this blog. I have not tried out any of these companies and cannot vouch for your satisfaction with any of these sites or the products they sell. This list is for reference only.

The Importance of Pruning Your Tomato Plants

Image adapted from freedigitalphotos.net

Introduction | Determinate or Indeterminate?

Tomato plants are broken down into two categories, determinate and indeterminate. Determinate tomatoes bloom all at once and usually do not continue to fruit after the bloom. These types of tomatoes require no pruning above the first set of clusters, so any of the information in this post is generally not adequate for determinate tomatoes. Sources suggest to not prune determinate tomatoes, as pruning will stop potential fruit from blooming. 

Indeterminate tomato plants are plants that grow many vines and bloom pretty consistently until frost. I have found in my experience that these are the best kind of tomatoes for what I am looking to plant, and so I predominantly use indeterminate tomato seeds. If you prefer determinate, go for it, no one is stopping you! I have also read, and I am not sure if this goes for determinate or not, but it is possible to keep indeterminate plants indoors during the cold season in a planter and keep them outside during the warm months for continuous fruiting. I have successfully kept cherry tomato plants in our hydroponics garden this way for about 1 year now and it is still fruiting. 

Why Prune Indeterminates?

Since last year was my first year with a garden, and since certain social media sites were not as established as they are today, I had a hard time finding adequate information on how to care for a garden. One of the things I learned very, very late in the season was about pruning tomato plants. I had one plant in the garden that was about 10 feet tall and 4 feet wide; it was bushy and monstrous. The vines were so long and wild that it was useless to have the cage around it, and the tomatoes that were coming off this supposedly large tomato plant were far from large. What should have been a 1lb fruit was no more than a large cherry tomato, and there were about 50-85 of them on the plant at any given time.

The remedy for this is something called pruning; a technique of trimming unnecessary stalks from the plant in order for it to produce more energy into the fruits than into growing the plant. One of the most beneficial points of the pruning is to allow all of the leaves of the plant to gain sun exposure and to prevent disease that is rampant in damp, dark spaces.

Since a plant that isn't pruned gets to be wild and huge, pruning also gives the plant good shape to well support itself during the growing season, and wont be destroyed by bending stems and by caving in on itself due to its massive size.

Sucker Plants

When pruning a plant, the first stems to go are any that are touching or very close to the soil, as well as something called a sucker plant. Sucker plants are the stems that grow in between the main stem and the first off-shoot of the main stem. A good way to remember this is to hold up your thumb, index, and middle finger. The thumb is the off-shoot, the middle finger is the main cane, and the index finger is the stem you would chop.

Sucker plants often do provide some buds for fruit, however the energy used to create the cane saps the energy necessary to produce large fruits. Overall, it is not worth the effort to keep them on the plant.

How And What To Prune

As mentioned before, any leaves close to the base of the stalk that are touching the soil need to be pruned. Sucker plants can be picked off when they are small, and do not necessarily need pruning shears unless they are larger than 3" to avoid splitting down the spine. Some sources suggest pruning any leaves below the lowest cluster or tomatoes, and always prune any yellow leaves.

I have also read in some sources that suggest keeping 4-6 stems of fruit, which allows a small number to grow, but larger fruits. Nearly all sources suggest keeping stems closest to the fruits to prevent burning while capturing energy from the sun to grow the plant.

Pruning stems require the use of shears and should be on a slant to avoid disease. Always prune dry plants, never prune when the plant is wet or right after a rainstorm. Also, pruning should be done before the plant gets overrun and wild; last year I pruned late in the season and over-pruned my wild plant. It withered and died shortly after due to the shock from pruning so much so quickly.

Conclusion

Pruning is beneficial for indeterminate tomatoes to keep fruits large and the plant healthy. Use shears to cut large suckers off and any branches below the first cluster of fruit, but make sure it's done while the plant is dry and do it early. 

Garden Update 5/21/13 Part II [Photos]

As of this week, I do believe the garden has been up and running for a good 8 weeks now. I'm sure it should be doing a lot better than it is, but we have had a lot of crazy weather patterns. The garden does look a lot better than this time last year. Some progress is still good progress, right?

If you've read one of my previous posts about 8 Things I Never Do In My Garden (Again) then you are aware of the fact that I am implementing some pest control this year, as well as weeding the garden a lot more. I'm not 100% with the weeds, especially since it seems the more I pick, the more pop up, but this time last year it was difficult to distinguish what was a seedling and what was a weedling. Part of the problem was that I had no idea what the seedlings were supposed to look like.

Here's how things are looking this week, week 8 of the growing season:

Broccoli  crown starting to form; yellow stuff is cornmeal to ward off worms.

Baby Black Krim Seedling

Grape Plant growing nicely; bean plants

Red Grape Plant, back from the dead!

Tomato Beds

Onion sets and carrot plants

Lines of Cucumbers, celery, brussels sprouts, cabbage, and cauliflower

Onions, parsley, eggplants, mint, and other seedlings.

Garden Update 5/20/13

I've been a little bit M.I.A. the past 2 weeks in the garden, and was able to get back into the swing of things with a little surprise. And not necessarily a good one, either. I watered my plants a couple days ago and while walking around to just check on things to see how they were doing and noticed a rather large hole in the middle of the green beans. I peaked inside to find something with a large body crawling in, and after running out shrieking like a little school girl in a panic I grabbed my computer to figure out what on earth it could have been.

Much to my dismay, it appeared to be a nesting wasp that feeds on cicadas and buries a hole in the ground. While there is a lot of talk about an impending cicada overload, there's not a chance I'm allowing a wasp in my garden. When I was 9 years old I stepped on a yellow jacket nest in the middle of the summer and needless to say bees (or the like) are not my favorite of God's creatures. Not even close.

A day or two later I grabbed my dad, also not a fan of bees, and he grabbed himself a little smoke contraption and we planned to take care of business when I peaked in and found it was definitely not a wasp or anything with wings at all... It was the mother-load of millipede-like creatures cramped into a small hole in the middle of my bean bed. We packed up our smoke set and a little research said that millipedes were great for the garden; the bugs were spared to live another day.

That is, until today.

I went back in to check on things and to give the garden another water and found that not only was the hole still full of worms, but now the worms were taking over the beds. And, as if that wasn't enough, the last straw was finding some bite marks and a lost brand-new bean sprout. I checked on the other plants and noticed bite marks on several of the pepper plants, too, which happened to be very near to the ground.

In anger, I marched back into the house, pulled out my computer and read on another site that said they can be destructive to seedlings, especially if the garden is over-crowded. I also read that baking soda is a way to kill most any bug, including ants, which was great because the cornmeal I dusted over by the onion plants made them move to another box across the garden. After a cup of soda dusted across the problem areas and a mix of cornmeal and soda sprinkled on the ants' nest, I took another good look around to see what else needed tending to.

I did a little weeding today, pulled out most of the sprouts that had popped up almost overnight and planted a bunch of seedlings my mom bought over the weekend. Our local grocer had a super cheap sale on plants, and while I was out she went on a spree and bought cauliflower, red cabbage, 12 seedlings of eggplant, brussels sprouts and celery plants... pretty much all of which happen to be cold-season crops, aside from the eggplant. It ought to be interesting to see how they fare in the heat of the tent.

Ok, so here's a quick recap of the past two weeks:

• Found a thieves hideout of millipedes and dumped a cup of baking soda in it
• Found some of my pepper plants and bean plants were chewed
• Looking like 1-2 of the heirloom tomato plants didn't make it through the transplant (mostly due to me not allowing it to sprout large enough before planting
• Planted a ton of cold-season veggies in a hot tent
• The green grape plant is looking pretty good, and I'm pleased to think I'm getting grapes this year. Win!
• The red grape plant kind of exploded with new foliage. Last year nothing really happened. it was just pretty pathetic all season long and sprouted a half of leaf. Today I walked in and it has 4 nice canes growing, so while I can expect no grapes from it this year, I know it's still alive.
• Broccoli has a floret! Not sure how that works or how to pick it, but there's one there!
• Bean plants are growing so well. Pretty excited about this since they bombed last year.
• Cucumbers finally sprouted. Actually, the organic ones I bought online sprouted, the big-box chain home improvement store ones did not. Not-a-one of them.
• Onions are getting pretty tall, at least a foot on them so far. They're actually starting to stink up the tent, so I guess it's a good sign that they're fragrant. 
• Carrots are growing! I had a hard time growing them last year. Lots of greens and no carrot, so hopefully we have some roots growing in there this time. 
• Tomatoes have grown a lot. Eggplants, not so much. they haven't gotten worse, they just haven't done much.
• Tomatillos I've been having a heck of a time with. One of the cups was eaten by something, and the other two cups sprouted like 5 sprouts each. I managed to plant 3 total holes, so we shall see how this works with them.
• Jalepenos are showing progress, they've about doubled since their planting. 
• Zinnias have sprouted, so that's exciting. I hope that's a zinnia sprout.
• Really have to plant my cantaloup plants and my squash, however I found that our local stores do not carry chicken wire anymore, and I am currently trying to find another solution to how I'm going to trellis them without an actual trellis. Also something that doesn't cost a million dollars.

That's all folks. More next time. 

DIY Bowling Ball Lady Bug Tutorial [With Templates]

I saw this online, so I'm not taking credit for it, but there were no plans or print outs to help make it. So, while it took me quite a bit of cutting and planning, I've taken it upon myself to make some plans to help you on your mission of creating your own lady bug bowling ball!

Here's what you need:
1 Bowling Ball (I'm not sure what size mine was, I'm pretty sure it was a 10# ball, so if you have larger ones, you can increase the size of the templates to fit.)
2 Cans Spray Paint (I used outdoor gloss in pink and black)
White Paint
Black Paint for touch-ups
Paintbrush
Pencil
Masking tape
Something to balance your bowling ball on while you spray paint it (I used a metal rod that was a 2" cube
Scissors
Plans (Below)


Step 1: Sand the bowling ball just to get the surface rough. My bowling ball was pretty shiny, and I wanted to make sure the paint would stick to the ball and have as less of a chance of chipping as possible. I also sanded the finger holes, too, since they were even more smooth and wanted to ensure the paint would stick.

Step 2: Spray paint the entire globe black in a thin, even coat. Make sure that you really mix the paint and don't worry about a couple drips here and there. Also make sure to spray inside the finger slots at this point. Once painted, it's important to let the globe completely dry for a full 24 hours before spray painting again. I had originally let it only set for about 3 hours before painting it over and it was still a bit tacky. When I sprayed the pink coat, the wet black paint bled through and it looked like a mess. So just to be safe, let it sit for a full day, preferably on a day that is not very humid. 

Step 3: Print out the pieces below and cut them out. The back piece is not long enough to be printed out on one sheet of paper. It says "12 Inches" on it, but just do it the length of your standard printer paper. You may need to adjust it to fit within the margins. I used about a 15 inch piece, but you can use however long of a backstrip you like. I included an extender to print, just tape the extender to the main backstrip and cut as needed. 

Step 4: Once everything is cut out and your bowling ball is completely dry (and really has sat for 24 hours) you can now stick all the pieces except for the eyes to your bowling ball with masking tape. Try and tape it so that there are no cracks in between the ball and the template. You're going to have some of the colored paint seep through, but taping it as much as possible helps avoid heavy spot touch-up later on.

Step 5: When all of your templates except for the eyes are taped, spray paint the entire bowling ball that is exposed the color of your choice. Again, let sit for a full 24 hours. This sounds like an excessive amount of time, but there's nothing worse than spending all this time on a project and then smudging it with your fingers. So just sit tight and forget about it until it's dry!

Step 6: Carefully peel back all the templates. The masking tape did not chip my paint, but just in case you have some heavy spots of the top coat on the tape, you don't want to peel it off.

Step 7: Put the eye template evenly between the finger slots, and set it where you think it will look best. Make sure to center it! Using the pencil, outline the template. When you take the paper off, you should see a faint pencil line to paint. Using the white paint, paint the eye balls, but leave the finger slots black. 

Step 8: Do any touch-ups with the black that are necessary and let dry. Then you're done! Enjoy this little guy in your garden! 

Download these to your computer and pop them in your word processing software, or software with a ruler guideline to measure.

 

 

8 Things I Will Never Do In My Garden (Again)

Let's face it, I'm still pretty new to gardening. A "noob", so to speak. While I admittedly do not have all the answers (to gardening, that is) I do know a couple things I will not be doing ever again. Some are a "duh" response, and some just come with experience, but hopefully this will help any other fellow "noobs" in their gardening journey. This list is kind of one of those lists where you should hold your left hand up and have your right hand on a Bible and speak the words written. If you're not one of those people, just read on and skip the solemnly swear bit--but at least keep it in the back of your thinking when your out among the beds.

1. I will not avoid weeding the garden. This is number one, and I thought to myself last year these exact words: "The beds are deep, there's no way a bunch of tiny weeds and grasses can suck that much life out of my plants." Lies, people. Lies. What am I doing to combat this? Taking things in stride. I'm not out there every day 24/7 picking weeds, but I do break it up into sections. I weed one section a day so I'm not feeling like a slave to weeds and it gets the job done in between my busy schedule. Also, You might see on my tomato plant picture below that I laid paper bags down on the beds to cover up unused space. My irrigation system is underneath the bags so I don't have to worry about the soil getting too dry. 
2. I will not underestimate beetles (and bugs). I thought they were ok last year really only because I hate bugs and didn't want to touch them. The repercussions? ruined corn, beans, squash, watermelons, and potentially the cause of why my eggplant didn't boom. The solution? You got it, simple soap and water mixture, and maybe even a dash of vinegar in a spray bottle to ward off vicious beasts. It's worked amazingly with the giant nasty spider I encountered on my strawberry plants. In addition to the soap mix, I've dusted the beds with cornmeal to take care of the insane numbers of ants and to ward off broccoli worms. Crushed up egg shells alongside tomato plants were also another way of me taking down any potential hazards.
3. I will not "turn a blind eye" to the soil. While I still need some more research on the pH levels of soil and what to do if it's too alkali or base, I'm definitely taking a look into it this year. In addition to this, using natural fertilizers and compost is another must, which leads me to number 4...
4. I will not go another year without compost. This is kind of one of those things that shouldn't ever have happened in the first place. I knew better than to not compost. Rich nutrients in broken down plants and scraps is the best thing for growing veggies. It's an age old nugget of common sense to compost. For some newbies, it's become a sort of taboo. But this year, things will be different. I'm getting back in touch with my "roots" and doing it the old way. Now if only rain barrels didn't attract a serious amount of mosquitos...
5. I will never ever ever EVER plant any vegetable upside down. If you have ever seen those sneaky Seen on TV growing containers that promise your tomatoes will grow heavy yields upside down, steer clear. Trust me. All the plants were confused when growing, as they all tried to grow right-side-up. Watering them was difficult since most of the water ended up on the leaves, and out of the 13 plants I planted, only 4 produced fruit. The crops were very tiny, perhaps giving me only 20 cherry tomatoes the entire season and one poorly sized "large" tomato. 
6. I will never automatically assume plants need to be spaced a full 2 feet from one another. And by that, I'm talking the tomato/pepper/eggplant family. I recently read that the suggestion was so that you could have space to work around the plant. But what I found last year, was that even though i planted my tomato plants about 1 foot apart, they did great and produced a ton of fruit. With adequate pruning and long arms, 6 plants could easily have grown in each of my 4'x3' sections. There is actually a blog that I have followed who plants easily 15 tomato plants in a 15' row and gets heavy yields of tomatoes. 
7. I will never use the compostable seed starting containers again. We all love being green, and no one wants to disturb the roots, but it is very difficult to plant something in these pots and expect them to keep their shape when watering. In my experience with this, the pots would soften, mold, fall over, and cause more harm than anything else. Not to mention it sucks the water out of the soil and requires a lot more watering than necessary. My solution: using plastic cups with holes punched in the bottom and letting them sit in a shallow bath of warm water and a bit of epsom salt solution.They grow like crazy, and the constant access to water and non-competitiveness of the plastic cup allows the seedlings to have the perfect environment for germination. As for it's recyclability, plastic is very much recyclable if you don't find other uses for it. 
8. I will never go the route of watering my plants by hand again. For a garden the size of mine, it would take about an hour to an hour and a half to water it, and doing so nearly every single day in the heat of the summer. I honestly began to resent it and would avoid doing it if I could. But, neglecting to water your garden is detrimental. In addition to its nuisance factor, the leaves of all my low-growing herbs began to sprout disease and were eventually unusable. This year I have opted for an irrigation system that sits on the soil and waters the plants right at the roots to avoid any splash up. And the best part? I can water my garden in the privacy of my own lawn chair without lifting a finger. Well, once I flipped the switch, that is.

Now you've seen my list of 8 things I will never do in my garden again. What about you? What have you taken oath to never do again?

I will never let my beds become "weed tolerant" again.

Update On The Garden 5.6.13

It has been a few weeks since my last post, but here is a quick recap:

• Since it's been quite cold so late this season, I have put off planting the tomatoes until last week. My plants are all snuggled in a greenhouse, so one night of frost isn't going to bother them, but I have waited until the average temp has been about 60 degrees inside. I've planted 6 black Krims, 6 big boys, and 2 san marzanos in the beds, and am waiting until the tomatillos are a little bigger before I transplant them.
• I had read online that it is best to plant the tomato plant stems deep in soil, so this year, since the stems were already nearly 2 feet tall, I planted them about a foot deep, leaving just enough room to let the bottom set of leaves droop without touching soil. In each pot I planted 1 egg shell, 1/2 cup used coffee grounds, and about 1 inch from the top of the soil I planted a banana peel. I had made a really great Dominican Banana Bread that week and had plenty of peels to plant. 
• With any extra egg shells I've had from cooking I let dry and crushed at the base of my tomato plants. I don't have enough for all of the peppers/eggplants/tomatoes yet but I'm working on it. Last year we had a heck of a time with slugs in the garden; they were not really ruining anything, they were just everywhere. Thankfully, after it rained, a hungry gardner snake would come in and have himself a buffet and leave. Unfortunately, two people in my family hate snakes and want them banned from the garden. I don't feel this way because they help out tremendously. If you can manage to let them in, you'll be surprised on how much good they can do.
• My squash is still inside for now. I'm waiting until they reach a decent height to be able to rest on chicken wire, so maybe another week and we will be fine.
• The cantaloupe plants are taking over the sunny window i n my kitchen, but it's still been a bit too cool for them to take a chance of transplanting them outside. Better safe than sorry.                  
• The cucumber seeds have not sprouted yet. I seem to remember having this problem last year, that they waited to sprout, and then when they did it was crazy with cucumbers. 
• The 100 onion sets I planted are doing great, and no one has plucked them (thank God we didn't have a repeat of last year when someone thought they were weeds. Not me, someone else.).
• Carrots are finally sprouting. It took them quite some time, but I read that they take on average 3 weeks to sprout.
• The broccoli plant has doubled in size but nothing has been produced yet.
• I planted an entire packet of green beans in one bed based on last year's growth rates. Last year about half started to grow before stopping and dying suddenly. This year, every single one is popping (75 of them so far) (wow) and they're doing great. 
• Debating whether or not to plant strawberry plants in gutter or reuseable grocery bags. 
• Decided to plant mint in the pots that the san marzanos were going to be in, however I have yet to do this yet. Yes, I am being super lazy.

Also to note, we have put in the first half of a DIY irrigation system. Last year it would take on average a good hour at least to water everyone, and then doing it nearly every day. Not only was it obnoxious and taking up way too much time, the hose was knocking everything around and nearly took out my sweet little grape plant. In a later post I'm going to show how I did it inexpensively so that you can do it, too. This one we hit a few bumps in the road, but the second half of the system will be 100% better and "kink" free.