What did you do in the garden today?

[TJAnonymous]

Anybody use paper bags on fruit? They claim it drys out after a rain and is fine
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I haven't tried regular paper bags. With as much rain we've had, I was worried they would disintegrate. I purchased some Clemson peach bags which are supposed to be a coated paper. I don't know but they feel like regular paper bags to me... However they have held up just fine through all the rain...

FWIW, I used organza bags I purchased pretty cheap on Amazon for my apples and grapes. They seem to be working pretty fine for that purpose.

 

[TJAnonymous]

Sooooo.... Since the BT is unlikely to work on SVB larva, I've moved on to experimenting with another option... I sprayed the stems, stalks, and underside of leaves with All Season Horticultural oil (i.e. Mineral oil) and then coated the stems and stalks with kaolin clay.

My HOPE is that the horticulture oil will smother any eggs that I failed to find... And the kaolin clay slathered on the stems (adhering with help from the oil) will deter SVB from laying any more eggs.

While I was out there, an SVB was determinedly and furiously laying eggs on sections I hadn't gotten to yet... I tried spraying her away but she was very quick. I did find 2 or 3 squash bugs which I ended. I will be checking on my plants frequently to see if this new plan is working at all...

I have a different area where I have 2 more zucchini plants next to some spaghetti squash growing on a trellis... I haven't yet gone out to check that area over for SVB or squash bugs. It might be harder to treat because of the trellis...

Oh! Almost forgot... I read that you can go out at night and shine a flashlight into your stems to locate SVB larva inside. Anyone ever done that?

 

[WthrLady]

Anybody use paper bags on fruit? They claim it drys out after a rain and is fine
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Nope. The bag might dry, but do you know what prairie land winds would do to my poor tree catching all those bags?! HOLY moly!

 

[Eagle343]

Deer cleaned off my apple tree. I wish I could put up a hot wire Slightly concerned some one walk onto the yard and take a test, both young and old.

 

[TJAnonymous]

So the Japanese Beetles have arrived to terrorize my grapes... I think I might spray those with Surround too.... Along with the peaches.

 

[jerryse]

Deer cleaned off my apple tree. I wish I could put up a hot wire Slightly concerned some one walk onto the yard and take a test, both young and old.

They will only do it once.

 

[Sally PB]

FWIW, I used organza bags I purchased pretty cheap on Amazon for my apples and grapes.

Tell me about bagging grapes. This will be my vines' 3rd summer, and they have tiny little clusters. I am excited to get some this year!

 

[Sylvester017]

My snow peas and pole beans are popping up, will need to put up the trellis they grow on this weekend. It’s really just cecil baling twine hung from the top of the block wall to the ground, I keep it about 4” from the wall to allow for air flow; one strand of twine every 6-8”, the beans grow up this to create a living wall! Then when Autumn comes I cut it all down and throw it on the burn pile.

This creates a nice cool wall behind the growing plants.

However do you find the energy & strength for everything you do? I had to wait til retirement before tackling things like gardens, chickens, house/yard remodeling!

 

[Justagalwithchicks]

Went out to check the squash mound (pumpkin, cushaw, zucchini, and watermelon) this morning and saw a SVB on one of my plants... Tried killing that sucker but I'm not sure if I got it. Started examining all the plants and found LOTS of eggs. Going to spray some BT today... There's too many plants to cover or wrap the stems so BT is my best option, I think. Not sure how often I'll have to spray it... Thought it had to be on contact?

I inject the BT. Sounds crazy but it works! Mix it up and use a larger gauge needle with he big syringes so you can put a lot in mixture start at base do every three inches or to about a foot up. Now I have zucchini etc all summer. I know some people may not be comfortable with this but it works for me. I do it every week or sometime seven more if the SVB is bad that year. Good luck!

 

[TJAnonymous]

Tell me about bagging grapes. This will be my vines' 3rd summer, and they have tiny little clusters. I am excited to get some this year!

This is the YouTube video I watched when I decided I was going to bag my grapes this year to keep the birds out of them.

However, I quickly realized that in my case, it would probably be easier to use organza bags because my grapes are growing up a vertical fence. They don't "hang down" like his in the video. It was a lot easier for me to use the organza bags because they are drawstring so they close super easy.... And my main purpose for bagging is to keep them from the birds who always raid them the minute they are ripe and I don't get any! It didn't take long to bag them with the organza bags... I put out about 50 bags or so? In many cases, I bagged 1-2 clusters together because they were in close proximity to each other.

Here's a picture of my efforts

This year I put in a 2-wire arbor for some Marquis table grapes. Once they actually start producing, I will probably bag those the way the guy did in the video.