Square Foot Gardening Thread

[Kassaundra]

I have been waging war for the last week or so every day I go out to the squash w/ a spray bottle of tobacco tea, others on here swear by dish soap water (but be careful w/ that on the leaves it can burn them) a container of soapy water for drowning and thin (medical gloves) I spray the base of the plant w/ the tobacco tea, grab the adults and put them in the drowning container and smoosh every sub adult I see, remove the eggs and smoosh or put them in the soapy water too. My plants look healthy and are still bearing I still have a few (squash bugs), but not many. The first day or two it will seem over whelming and like you can't make a diff. but stick w/ it.

 

[ContessaKris]

Okay, tobacco tea. I'll look that up. We tried the soap and water with the worms on the cauliflower but it made the leaves all brown and brittle. I guess burned them? Although we sprayed them in the cool of the night... but the worms are gone and the cauliflower keeps growing. It was just hard to pull the brittle leaves up over the cauli so they wouldn't purple anymore. Oh well, it's all an experiment I guess...

Pics of our tied cauli (and our slow growing okra shoots, in the 2nd pic in front.):

 

[CluckyJay]

A few plants from our SQFT garden.

Yummy!

 

[NanaKat]

Beautiful gardens. We love our raised beds...used them 14 years so far.

Here is help for catepillars.
Bt is Bacillus thuringiensis and will kill any catepillar that eats it. Check out the information on the site below. It is totally organic. I get mine at the feed store.

http://www.bt.ucsd.edu/organic_farming.html

 

[krcote]

Quote:
Suddenly I was crawling with the buggers yesterday! Since then, I've been drowning away!

 

[krcote]

This is my first year growing Swish Chard. Can anybody tell me what's going on with my Bright Lights? Some leaves appear perfect and then some have this mottled look.

 

[ContessaKris]

When I looked up your spotty spots on the chard, it looks like it could be Cercospora leaf spot. I found one thing that said this: "Cercospora leaf spot is a fungal disease that causes light brown patches surrounded by purple halos to form on leaves of chard, beets and sometimes spinach. Warm, rainy weather favors outbreaks. Keep plants properly spaced to promote good air circulation and promptly remove any affected leaves."

I would read more on it.

Here's another article:
http://www.ehow.com/about_5095314_cercospora-leaf-spot-disease.html

But I'm a gardening newbie, only a couple years, so don't take my word for it. Just helping...

 

[NanaKat]

If it is fungal, you will need to spray with a fungicide. Sometimes, baking soda works on some fungus strains....like powder mildew. I mix it in a sprayer with a little Soapshield to help it stick to the leaves.

Your chard could also be under attack by flea beetles. They are tiny little bugs that you will see hop away when yourun your hand over the leaves. They also love eggplant. 5% Sevin dust will help.

 

[Kassaundra]

I have some pics of another type of evil bug that attacks squash. This one is the squash vine bore. This bug is a moth / wasp looking bug in mid June when it emerges to mate and lay eggs, they bore into the vines and there grow and stop up the plants plumbing killing the plant, the they pupate in the ground over the rest of the year.

This is the stem of an infected plant, if it has this narly orange/yellow frass you can bet there is a worm in there.

In the center of the vine you can see the worms butt

builds up the frass in the center of the vine too

 

[Carols Clucks]

What are you all doing to get your cucs to do well? Ours seem unhappy both in the shade and in the sun.

I think we will have a wicked crop of pumpkins this year and hopefully those giant light green looking squash are actually spaghetti squash. But seems our bumper crop of butternut squash from last year is not going to be repeated. Have to try and put some in some where else. On the other hand, the acorn squash are doing well!