Bees in the Garden

Reality television doesn't compare to watching bees do their thing in the garden. I could have observed them all day recently, but it was hot outside (they don't mind the heat). Different bees can be spotted in a landscape - bumble bees, honey bees, native bees, European paper wasp, and even the dreaded western yellow jacket. It's easy to confuse western yellow jacket with the European paper wasp, check out this You Tube to learn the differences.  Bees love many garden plants including honey bees on this white blooming garlic chive plant.  Tune into the bee channel in your garden!

 

Tomato Tales 2015

The end of August usually means anyone growing tomatoes is eating a ripe, juicy, sweet tomato almost every day. There's plenty to share with friends and soon it will be time to get the mason jars ready for canning.  Not in my garden. Before I continue writing, this is not going to be a negative rant (again) about the tough growing season we've had.  But as long as it's been mentioned, keep that in mind, please.  And if you don't grow or like tomatoes, then continue eating what pushes your in-season, gotta have, home-grown button....let me guess...peaches!!  Great choice.

I'm down to five tomato plants in my garden, four in-ground (healthy) and one in a container (sick).  A few weeks ago I pitched two container growing tomatoes, certain they both had either Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus or Early Blight. Now I'm not so sure that was a good idea. The one remaining container plant is not only producing tons of little yellow tomatoes (sweet-n-neat-yellow) but they are bursting with great flavor too. The plant looks sick, really sick - the leaves have turned brown to crispy, almost appearing moldy in parts.  It looks terrible, yet it is full of tomatoes that look healthy despite the foliage! What gives, and what's causing this?  

Just like every year that something goes wrong with one of my vegetable plants I send it off to the Jefferson County Plant Diagnostic Clinic located at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds. My friend Patti got back to me in less than 24 hours with the diagnosis (very small fees apply).  Are you ready?  Any guesses as you look at the photos?

The good news is there is no disease, which explains why the fruit still tastes so good.  Even though you can eat ripe fruit from a plant with Early Blight or TSWV, they just may not look normal and I find that the fruit with either of these ailments is below par in taste. Drum roll...this formerly cute little two-foot patio tomato is suffering from spider mite damage!  Yikes, they are destructive.  I usually associate spider mite trouble more on ornamental plants, so it didn't cross my mind to think they were the problem on my tomatoes.

You can read more about them on the fact sheet from Colorado State University - Spider Mites  But in a nut shell, they are teeny, tiny spiders (related to ticks and scorpions), too small to see with your eyes. The two-spotted spider mite is the one that attacks vegetables and many other garden plants. They bruise leaf cells with their their mouth parts and eat the sap causing all sorts of damage including leaf discoloration and speckling.  Their numbers are highest in July and August, reproducing very quickly. Severe infestations can greatly stress the health of the plant or cause death.  

Insecticides may offer some control, but I personally won't use them. In many cases using chemical sprays only helps spider mite numbers increase by harming the beneficial control insects (carbaryl, found in the product Sevin). Spider mites not only like dry, hot conditions, but low humidity too. Lower humidity makes it a bit harder for natural predators like lady beetles and predatory thrips to prey on spider mites, but they'll do the best they can. Keep plants watered during dry spells (that means overhead watering on vegetables, do it early in the day so the plant dries quickly). Hosing down the plant will help kill or knock off the spider mites and dislodge their webbing, all good.  

The Plant Looks Almost Fine Far Away

Thank goodness this determinate tomato plant is about finished fruiting for the season so I'll harvest what I can in the next few days and then get rid of plant. Next year I'll keep a closer eye early, especially on the container grown vegetables. As much as I write about paying attention to your plants, this infestation totally got by me. Did I mention it's been a tough gardening season? Okay, no more negativity, there's plenty of perfectly fine yellow squash that needs to be eaten!

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Kemarin sore seorang teman blogger meminta saya membaca sebuah artikel tentang plugins wordpress yang membuat website menjadi rentan. Jadi di sini saya mencoba membagikan apa yang tertulis pada artikel tersebut, karena cukup banyak pengguna wordpress di Indonesia setelah blogger suka menghapus penggunanya yang melanggar syarat layanan.


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CARA MEMULAI BISNIS ONLINE DI INTERNET (Bag.4). TAHAP MENGEMBANGKAN TARGET PASAR ANDA

Ini adalah salah satu hal yang menentukan seberapa cepat anda mendapatkan konsumen saat memulai bisnis online anda. Banyak sekali orang yang tidak mengetahui bagaimana cara memulai bisnis online mereka di internet dengan benar, jadi kali ini saya mau membagikan sedikit bagaimana cara menargetkan kata kunci anda saat anda baru mulai membangun bisnis online anda.


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Faktor SEO Penting 2015

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Di bawah ini saya memberikan beberapa hal yang perlu anda perhatikan dalam membangun website yang SEO friendly di tahun 2015 ini

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Is it Fall Yet?

Washington Park Fall

Writing a garden blog isn't that much different than keeping a public diary.  Anyone reading this knows we have a house, a dog and a garden full of an assortment of plants with a few that come down with disease or insect issues this time of the summer. Since we don't have children I wonder if our landscape problems compare to raising children which must be easier than flicking Japanese beetles into soapy jars every morning for eight weeks each summer.  Hey...if we had children maybe they would do the flicking! 

So my true confession is this. I am looking forward to the fall season.  Please, no judgment for this admission. Despite not being able to begin the outdoor gardening season until mid-June because of six weeks of constant rain and eight hail storms, autumn can't get here soon enough.  I say this because I feel like the summer never got off to a good start and catching up never happened either.  I went through the garden motions once the soil dried out in June...seeding, shopping for container plants, putting out the patio furniture, putting up the yellow jacket traps and nursing sore muscles from a hard day of work in the garden - all good, but not great like most years. Something just wasn't right this summer, maybe July went by too quickly or missing so much of the spring season altered the garden universe "chi" or something. The closest explanation is that I would like a garden season do over, but a do over isn't really possible until next spring is it? Whatever the reason, I am feeling a bit blue and think the best remedy is getting to fall which means spring is not that far away.

No doubt a therapist or a close garden friend (almost one in the same ) would tell me to snap out of it...`a la... Cher from Moonstruck. "Summers are short, enjoy them while you can, life is short, enjoy IT while you can."  And they would also say that "gardening is dynamic, we can't control the weather, yada, yada, yada."  They are right, but I still want my do over.  And while we're at it, I wish we could do over or not do over last year's November flash freeze plant fiasco!

The lesson...there actually is a do over in gardening.  It's in my mind right now as I watch new plants get established and enjoy the trees, shrubs and container plants that are pulling their weight in the garden right now as I finish this blog posting.  Next spring will be here soon enough, in the meantime I'm going to go shopping for a new leaf rake.