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.

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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.

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...

Uninvited house guests

Cold snaps mean the bromeliads and other sensitive potted plants come inside. Most years I clear out the spare bedroom but it wasn't an option this time. The pineapples can take up an entire room all on their own.

The pineapples that were on the front porch, moved to the living room for Thanksgiving break.

The ficus can take up a corner all by itself.

Ignore the pile of laundry on the loveseat.

And the ornamental bromeliads go in the back hallway.

These plants spend 9+ months of the year outside, so it's only natural that they have their own symbiotic relationships with other fauna. Unless of course the fauna comes in.

Meet Kermit. Tree frogs usually hang out in the bromeliads all summer, this is the first time one came along for winter. He disappeared before I could relocate him on a warm-ish day. I hope I don't find his dehydrated body somewhere. That's usually what happens to the anoles that come in.

And then there was this:

Good thing I'm friends with an entomologist who specializes in Integrated Pest Management. He identified them as acrobat ants. The pots went back outside. The ants got swept up and tossed outside. Then the pots got several rounds of treatment with some granules, soaked it in with the water hose, and waited.



So far so good.

Kitty deterrents

My cats love my garden.

Curley in the sweet potatoes

They think it makes a great napping spot.

Mo in the peppers

They also think freshly planted raised beds make great litter boxes. They are outdoor cats, but apparently the soft soil in the raised beds is more appealing than the bedded horse stalls and loose dirt in the pasture.

As a result, it's not uncommon for me to have shallow-planting seedlings popping up outside of their prescribed rows, if they pop up at all (because they got buried).

I've tried a few deterrents over the years. First I used step-in posts and and attached netting. It worked for a few days, but soon the kitties figured out where to squeeze under the netting to get inside. By the way, this is also useless against chickens intent on devouring every little green thing poking out of the ground. But that's a story for another day. And as kitties become fond of the texture of the fluffy loamy soil it's like a thrilling and rewarding obstacle course.

First attempt, back when I first put in the raised beds. 2013?

I moved on to stronger physical barriers. Lattice works well - first I started with some scrap lattice from a trellis I took down when I moved in. Unfortunately those pieces eventually rotted and fell apart but I got a new sheet to replace it. Beds are 8x4, lattice comes in 8x4 sheets, coincidence? I think not.

The nice thing about the lattice is that you can still water without lifting it, and the sun can get through to help warm the soil. Seedlings can still pop up too, though once they start breaking through I usually take some scrap 2x4 or 2x6 wood and build up the corners to give them more space. I've used empty soup cans scrounged from my recycling bin too. A sheet of lattice this big and you will need some center supports - I usually plan my rows to have an open space in the middle for this reason.

And best of all - the holes aren't big enough for the cats to get through! However, if you prop it up too high the devious one will still try to get under there.

Built up with 2x6s and she still can only sit on top and watch.

I've also repurposed my shade cloth and hoop structures for some of my other beds. This one came in handy when I was starting carrots and parsnips. Those seeds are planted in very shallow rows and risk drying out if you don't water the soil enough. In this case the shade cloth served double duty - keep the cats out and protect the soil from evaporative moisture loss. For this water trough bed I used baling twine and a short bungee cord to secure the "skirt" on it.

In smaller spaces where I'm planting seeds between existing plants I've found this neat tool. They are called "Cat Scat Mats" and are available from Gardeners Supply. Also helpful for keeping cats out of pots and planters. I just wish they were a little bigger so they would cover more surface area in the raised beds. The nice thing about these is the spacing allows the seedlings to get a good start. Just need to take them out before the plant leaves get too big to easily pull through.

Cat Scat Mats from Gardeners Supply

As for the other new plantings, I'm not as worried. Potatoes are pretty tough at withstanding cat bathroom habits.

Why I'm not organic

I know there are some people who get into gardening because they want to take an organic approach to their food production. Great. I'm not one of them.

Don't get me wrong, everyone has the right to pick and choose how they garden. I'm just one of those who thinks the requirements to be truly organic is more than I want to deal with. And, I really like my Miracle Grow fertilizer.

The greatest gardening advance ever. OK, maybe I'm exaggerating a little.

Growing up we hardly ever used fertilizer on our garden. A good amount of rotted cow manure worked into the soil before spring planting was all we needed. Soil here is a different story. If I don't fertilize, sometimes as frequently as once a week, garden productivity is next to nothing. 

Alabama has notoriously poor quality soils. They don't contain much organic matter, which means the soil's ability to retain certain nutrients like nitrogen is not good. On top of that, the soil is usually quite acidic, which also messes with plants' ability to effectively utilize soil nutrients.

The basic fertilizer is a 28-8-16 formulation. The tomato and veggie version is an 18-18-21. Compare that to one of the organic products on the market that has an 8-8-8 formulation - I'd need to apply 2-3 times the amount of the organic product as I would need to meet what the synthetic version can do.


And then there is pest control. Now, I will admit that most of the products I use for bugs and disease are labeled for use in organic gardening, but I use them because they work so well.

What?!? You can use pesticides in organic gardening?? Yes, yes you can, if they are labeled for it. Case in point, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) products use a bacterium normally found in soil that is very effective against leaf-eating caterpillars.

Don't get me wrong, I have a good supply of Sevin dust in the tool room too, but what I like about the Bt product is that I can apply it with a sprayer wand - really helpful for tall and hard to reach areas. Sevin dust works great, but when your tomatoes are five feet tall I don't feel like breaking out a step ladder to get ahead of the hornworms using a powder. Bt does have it's limitations though. It's most effective when the worms are little, so you need to watch the garden closely to get the stuff on at a time when it will work.

Bt will get this itty bitty armyworm, but not his big brother

So, if you are into gardening because you want to try your hand at organic, go for it. It doesn't work for my situation, and I really enjoy the advances of modern agriculture. Just remember to read the label regardless.

Great stuff for controlling aphids and mildew, but need to wait two days before harvesting veggies