More things that bloom

Pineapple update time! And yes, they do bloom too!

It makes sense. When you cut the outside off of a pineapple from the store you sometimes find the little black or brown seeds just below the surface of the fruit. 

I never knew pineapple flowers were purple! Its neat to see the progression of the flowers emerging from the bottom to the top of the fruiting structure. And also how the fruit is now obviously different from the leaves on top.

So now the question is, how long until they are ready to pick?

Yes, they do bloom!

Most garden plants start from seed. To have seed, you need to start with flowers. But most gardeners never see the flowers because we harvest the crop before it reaches that stage of growth.

Unless, of course, you have a cool season crop that "bolts" on you because you have been too distracted to harvest it on time. Like my radishes.

They are bigger than the cauliflower plant hiding behind it, at least two feet tall. And on top of those leggy, mature stems we have flowers!

But all good things must come to an end, or at least a different outcome than nature intended.

Some of them are almost the size of racquet balls. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go find my salt shaker. *burp*

Staking the Peas

The snow peas I plant definitely benefit from staking. Besides helping to keep the plants upright, it also makes it easier to pick the pods.

I don't do anything too fancy, but it helps that I have certain tools at my disposal thanks to the pasture fence I maintain for the horses.

For most of my staking I use t-posts. Even the tomato cages get the t-post treatment to help them stay upright. For the size of my plants and the wind that can pick up in storms they hold up quite well. And like I said, I happen to have some handy tools around the place, like the heavy-duty post pounder pictured above.

Plastic hay twine is what I use. It doesn't degrade quickly like some of the natural fiber stuff, and technically I'm recycling because otherwise I would just throw it away after taking it off the hay bales for the horses.

When I first start a support system I gently fold the plants all to one side so I can run the line straight. Then I gently fold them back over the bottom line before stringing the second one back over the row.

From there I pass a few more lines back and forth and start teasing the plants to climb up. I usually check every other day to guide the tendrils to the twine. Before long they are climbing mostly on their own, and just in time for the first harvest of the pods.

Pineapple progress

Snapped a few pictures last week of the pineapples. The stalk of the inflorescence is becoming prominent in a couple of the plants.

It's also cool to see the pinecone-looking things differentiate into the spines that will be on the fruit part vs. the leaves that will become the top growth.

Slowly but surely

Hey, Aunt Kathy!

I also considered titling this post "Impeccable Timing."

Last week I discovered some insect damage to my Brussels sprouts. I spent the weekend taking pictures fully intent on a blog post about it. Then my Aunt Kathy and Uncle Dave stopped in for a visit. She really wanted to see my garden because she's getting back into it now that she's retired and getting over some serious health issues. And her questions about organic solutions to insect damage were exactly what I was going to cover in the post.

So, Aunt Kathy, this blog post is for you.

***
Two weeks ago we had some pea size hail come through with a storm front. The next day I noticed damage to the Brussels sprouts. Now, keep in mind these poor plants have had a really rough winter, so it seemed appropriate they were getting beat up again. But upon further examination, and comparing what I saw on them compared to elsewhere in the garden, I discovered it wasn't hail damage at all. Hail hit the entire garden, but the damage I saw on my fall planting Brussels sprouts didn't match what I saw on the transplants I put in a few weeks ago.

Holey Brussels Sprouts

Not Holey Brussels Sprouts

And then upon closer inspection, I found the culprits.

Cabbage worms!

More cabbage worms!

Cabbage worms! And come to think of it, I believe I saw the butterfly (adult) form of these guys the same day I was planting the spring transplants. That may explain why I don't see damage (yet) on the other plants.

So now I'm in control mode. If you are not squeamish there is one sure-fire way to get rid of these guys - hand removal. Conveniently I have some willing accomplices for this task.

The willing accomplices. They work fast.

When you have worms this big there are some limitations on what you can use for chemical control. I turn to my trusty garden dust for something like this. It kills them quickly, and that's important to me given how fast the cabbage worms can devour a plant at this stage of development.

Personally I like the dust because I can see where it lands, but the same chemical is available in spray form too. The active ingredient is carbaryl, which is what is found in most "garden pest" products you can find in any garden or home store.

Now that I know the butterflies are active I'll be switching into prevention mode too. For that I like to use a different product type.

This uses Bacillus thuringiensis bacteria, something naturally occurring in the soil but at higher concentrations it kills many worms and caterpillars that attack garden and farm crops. It is labeled for use in organic gardening (Aunt Kathy, this is what you asked about). Those of you who follow this blog know I'm all for the right tool for the right job, so why I like it is because it is very effective when the cabbage worms are very, very small. But when the worms get to be the size of the ones I found it doesn't work as well. It's also a spray, which means I can get it to stick in places that I can't get the garden dust, which also happen to be the places the caterpillars hatch and get their start. I used to be able to find Bt products at my local big-box store but now I'm having to buy it from my favorite online gardening retailer.

Any pesticide, whether it is a chemical dust or a bacterial spray, does have safe handling instructions and limits on when you can harvest the vegetables. Always read the label before use. Regardless, you should always wash vegetables thoroughly if they have been treated with any product for pest control.

I've looked into using barrier fabrics for the garden, but given the way my cats and chickens like to destroy things I don't know if it will work for my situation. I did buy a few at an end-of-season sale last year and I'm going to try it on my squash plants because chemical control doesn't work as well for those pests.

As for the chickens, they are not as discerning in terms of eating the worms and leaving the plants alone. It will be a while before this broccoli plant recovers.

Pineapples!

I've been trying to grow pineapples for the last few years. I'm good at growing the plants, but have not been able to get them to fruit. I even had several produce pups and then die, so some of my plants are actually second generation.

All that changed a few weeks ago. I had to move one of the potted pineapples and noticed this in the center.

I'm kind of surprised. The pineapples have been indoors since Christmas, not getting much light or water. Everything I've read said they need direct sun and heavy fertilization to fruit. These have been in pots for over two years.

A few days ago the weather was finally warm and stable enough that all four pineapple pots got moved out to the front porch.

Even the "little" plants (the bottom two pictures) have the beginnings of an inflorescense.

I have no idea what will happen from here. Good thing I have a blog to report the progress.

Spring Cleaning

My garden spring cleaning started with the herb garden this year. I've been a bit behind with re-mulching in there, which meant that some of the broadleaf weeds have been creeping in.

I'll be getting some new herbs in a few weeks so it's time to get things back into shape. First up, weeding. And while I tried to be careful I did knock the remnants of the pineapple stage in the corner. Turned out to be a good thing - I discovered the plant was completely dead and the roots rotted. Why is that a good thing? Because while I liked that plant the first year it took over the whole place and shaded out some of my favorites. The second year it came back but lacked the vigor, however it still shaded out some of the others. Now I don't feel so guilty about ripping it out.

Ah, much better. I also pruned back the bee balm in the upper right and the sage just beyond the left edge of the photo.

And now for the final step in the process, re-mulching. The horses got a little wasteful with their hay over the holidays, spilling it on the ground and then using it as a sort of equine litter box. It doesn't spread well in the pasture like that but it makes excellent mulch.

And the herbs don't seem to mind the healthy dose of nitrogen and and organic matter that is mixed in with the hay.

Now to find some new things at the garden center.

Sprouts!

We had a bit of a warm streak toward the end of January, so I got the itch to start planting stuff.

And it has mostly paid off!

carrots

radishes

kohlrabi

beets

sugar snap peas

I went with various veggies that are cold weather tolerant. The risky part was whether the soil was warm enough to facilitate germination. When it's cold and wet the seeds can rot in the soil before they have a chance to sprout. So after several consecutive days in the upper 70's I took a chance.

It wasn't a complete success.

I planted lettuce where I had to rip out dead broccoli plants after the great aphid battle. It was old seed. It didn't work.

The cats also had some input on what grows were, mostly where they preferred to turn the garden into a litter box. Most of the snow peas survived, and when I thin plants next week I'll try transplanting to fill in the holes.

Aphid battles

I've had aphids in the garden before, but nothing like this year. I lost four broccoli and two Brussels sprouts plants over the holidays to these little beasts.

The tell-tale sign is that chlorotic look to the lower leaves, but as the aphids take over the whole plant will soon look like that. To the uneducated eye it may look like the plant needs fertilizer, especially when the plants are small. But turning over the leaves shows the true culprit.

Aphids literally suck the life out of the plant. As the lower leaves die they move up the plant to the next one.

One of the challenges in controlling aphids is that there really aren't any chemicals that are effective against them. Even if there was, it needs to get sprayed up under the leaves, so dusting isn't effective either.

Soapy water is one available control tool. As soft-bodied insects aphids don't have much protection from the elements. Soapy water basically smothers them. Unfortunately, soapy water can also harm the plant. The strategy is to spray with soapy water, wait a few hours, and then spray the plant with the garden hose. Sure, I could just spray with the garden hose too, but all that does is knock the aphids off the plant and into the soil where they could crawl back onto the plant again.

A squirt of liquid dish soap and some water go into the pump sprayer. I don't have a specific ratio, other than the concoction needs to be able to go through the sprayer easily but the stuff coming out feels soapy. (I keep a bottle of Ivory in the barn, fairly gentle for cleaning sensitive areas on the horses but tough enough for scrubbing bird feeders.)

As I start spraying the plants I want to make sure I hit both sides of the leaves. The goal is to smother the aphids.

If you see some suds, that's OK. In fact, that's a sign that you have a good ratio of soap and water. I'm going to rinse off the plant in a little while anyway.

 After a few hours the aphids are still on the underside of the leaves, but they don't look happy. A lot of them have already shriveled up. Next step is to break out the spray nozzle on the garden hose to blast away the soap residue and aphids.

After blasting each leaf I'll come back and give the whole plant a good spray with the nozzle. I want to make sure I get the stems too, in case there are any aphid hiding there.

I'm not quite out of the woods yet. I may have to repeat this a few more times this week. These are the worst of the lot. We'll see...

Starting over

Bad cold snap last week. Like, really bad. and it started with rain and a potential of freezing rain.

The garden didn't fare well. Eighteen lettuce plants almost ready to harvest, and all of them goners. So are the beets and peas.

Of course the weeds survive.

But the broccoli and Brussels sprouts look like they may pull through.

Lettuce in front, broccoli and Brussels sprouts in back

 And the carrots look great! At least something survived to be picked another day.

Almost time to start planting things for an early spring garden, so I guess I'll spend the weekend cleaning up the carnage.