What did you do in the garden today?

[CatInTheHenHouse]

Do any of you with the SVB problem spray your squash with BT? It's supposed to be effective at killing the caterpillars when they start eating the vine.

There are SVB resistant varities of winter squash too, butternut and cushaw for example.

I thought that needed to be injected? I admit I’m getting that from Youtube not personal experience:

 

[Minanora]

Gopher ate another pumpkin vine. Bleh. One of my traps went off but it was a mole.

Also I was watering this morning and watched a good sized rat run out of my tomatillo bed! I've never had a rat in the garden. Going to go get the corn Muffin mix and baking soda, plus some snap traps and other non poison traps. I've only ever had mice that hitchhiked from the property, so I have no rat traps.

I picked a bunch of tomatoes!

Look at the size of that Amish paste! All of them are huge this year.

That tomato plant is about 7ft tall. I'm on my tiptoes.

Got a 2 minute rain shower.... Not even enough to wash the dust off of the windshield.

I mowed my clover last week before it got tall. I'm loving how it's filling in.

 

[Molpet]

I leave possums alone, they eat ticks & we have plenty with that awful Lyme disease. Maybe you could relocate all next time? Our villains here are deer, which are pretty to see, but darn they are so destructive & there are way too many. DH is talking about venison these days lol.

https://www.homestead.org/outdoor-lore/why-opossums-are-good-benefits-of-opossums/

https://www.fieldandstream.com/conservation/possums-dont-eat-ticks/
In the 2021 study, Hennessy and Hild used a dissecting microscope to look for ticks or tick body parts in the stomachs of 32 Virginia opossums from central Illinois. They found absolutely no evidence of ticks and concluded that ticks are not a preferred diet item for opossums.

 

[chicken opey]

I had to put on a poncho to let chickens out. It’s still raining. They ran out into the rain then back in
They don’t like my yellow poncho much.
The garden will have to wait till the rain goes away.

 

[jerryse]

https://www.fieldandstream.com/conservation/possums-dont-eat-ticks/
In the 2021 study, Hennessy and Hild used a dissecting microscope to look for ticks or tick body parts in the stomachs of 32 Virginia opossums from central Illinois. They found absolutely no evidence of ticks and concluded that ticks are not a preferred diet item for opossums.

I was always skeptical of the tick eating claim.

 

[igorsMistress]

@igorsMistress Hope everything is ok.

Thanks Sueby, just a lot happening at once. When it rains it pours as they say.

 

[CatInTheHenHouse]

I didn’t think the bees had found my herbs, but there was what I think was a Golden Digger Wasp on my basil yesterday and it came back today. Not what I was expecting, but I’ll take it! Hummingbirds are also happy with the bolted herbs.

Memo to myself I need to trellis the beans better next year. The stakes I’m using now are too short. I might try an A frame trellis.

 

[CountryCuratesWife]

So much rain over here in coastal NC.
But I was able to grab a few flowers between showers today!

 

[fuzzi]

I pulled the zucchini plants and put them in the burn barrel. Wow, did they have SVB larvae up in the stems. I'm surprised the plants were dead. The larvae can stay in the barrel and chomp on whatever they find, and then they're going to die in the next burn. Take that!

I got 4 zucchinis from 4 plants. Not what I was thinking/hoping I'd get. I have 2 plants coming up in a different bed. We'll see if the season is long enough to get anything off them.

I slit open the squash stalks and fed the SVB larvae to my chickens.

 

[fuzzi]

Yes I am and they are! I remember the SVBs from years ago when I was in Kansas. Not fun.

Do any of you with the SVB problem spray your squash with BT? It's supposed to be effective at killing the caterpillars when they start eating the vine.

There are SVB resistant varities of winter squash too, butternut and cushaw for example.

I injected BT one year. No SVB, but no squash fruit, either.