I haven’t update the website in a long time. I been keeping up with the garden but let it go since the summer heat was pretty much the death of Vegitate this year. Half of Vegitate survived and I was able to get a lot of peppers out of the garden along with tomatoes.
I had to protect the the remaining garden back on October 18th, with old covers from the 1st frost making the garden look like Occupy Vegitate.
Occupy Vegitate
Dustin Blakey had posted an article in the efortsmith a while back that said basically due to no spring temps that if you could get them to make it to September they will start to take off and boy did they.
Here is another reason to grow your own vegetables.
The bee spray is working well, bringing more insects to the party. I have seen more wasps, bumblebees, butterflies. How ever I am still not getting bees on the tomatoes. I am starting to get a lot of blossom drop. Blossom drop is where the flowering plant falls off due the lack of pollination. However the good news is that tomatoes are self pollinators or self fertilizing. They contain both male and female reproductive parts inside of the flower. Tomatoes and peppers are asexual. Now how to get the flower to pollinate itself. Well, bring on the good vibrations. The way I choose to do it in my garden is by using an old soft electronic toothbrush.
Take the toothbrush and turn it on and place it on the back of the stem of the flower and it push it in a vertical position and count to 5 and move to the next blossom. The vibrations loosen up the pollen and make it fall towards the stigma of the plant.
If you don’t have a vibrating tooth brush you can use the old hand method. Just grab the plant around the base and shake for a few seconds.
Here are some other videos I found on how to perform the technique.
My garden so far is doing great, I have pulled out about 25 cucumbers plus out of the garden and 8 or so squash, tomatoes are starting to flower and my pepper plants have little peppers on them. I have been running into one issue on my cucks and that is aphids. If you have never seen aphids they are pretty disgusting. It is almost embarrassing to admit your plants have bugs much like your own child has lice at school, but I have lice in my garden there it has been said. See picture below.
Aphids with ant protectors.
I lost 2 cucumber plants before I knew what was going on. The picture is not from my garden but the one I found on the internet that let me know what I had. I started taking action as soon as I figure it out what the small invaders where. They reproduce at an alarming rate. I use a water hose to wash off the bottoms of the leafs every day and my plants have bounced back. I used Neem Py which works like a charm. However the ants protect them like Doritos to a teenager. As soon as I get rid of them the ants bring them right back to suck on there “honeydew” for food. It will be an on going battle for now on but at least I am one step head of the game. Ladybugs are the number one consumer of aphids but I have yet to see any in my garden.
Bee Attractant
I have only noticed a few bees buzzing around my gardening and decided to try to attract more of natures helping hand to vegitate.
I found several bee forums and this was the most recommend household treatment I could find so I made some up and filmed it for your viewing pleasure. I sprayed it on the flowering plants and came inside. After 4 hours I went to check to see if it made a difference. I counted 4 wasps, 2 bumble bees, a ton of ants, flies and dragonflies had came to the garden party. Hopefully I will get more bees but it did work. Maybe the ants will leave the aphids along and drink my elixir instead but that is wishful thinking. You can watch the video below.
I had to protect the the remaining garden back on October 18th, with old covers from the 1st frost making the garden look like Occupy Vegitate.
