Cucumber Beetle

Cucumber Beetle

[May 7/May 10] All sorts of troublesome little bands of pests are starting to make some noise on this side of the pond.

Meet The Beetles!

On Monday, I removed the reemay from a bed of chinese cabbage and bok choy and found tiny little flea beetles nonchalantly dining on the leaves. This is a problem this time of year for the leafy brassica plants. Reemay is the first line of defense, but when this fails we resort to using a stronger repellent spray made from chrysanthemums.

Another group soon to descend on our shores are cucumber beetles. In turn, they’ll target cucurbit leaves and flowers. This one I’m not sure yet how to remedy, other than by planting a “decoy” bed of not desirable cucurbits to distract them from the actual valued crops. I’ll know more about this in the next couple weeks when the cucurbits are transplanted.

Strawberry Beds Forever

The other reason I removed the reemay from these beds was to get some wheel hoe work in (first mentioned in this post). Under this protective cover, not only do our crops thrive, but so also do the weeds. Grass and thistles are both starting to grow voraciously amongst the crops. I spent some time cleaning beds of onions as well as the pathways between several beds.

As previously mentioned regarding the strawberry beds, we’ve heavily mulched to help discourage weed growth. The strawberry plants are a small crown with perhaps one or two tiny leaves and a set of healthy-sized roots. On Monday, they were officially transplanted through small openings in the mulch into the freshly-tilled soil underneath.

A Hard Night’s Day

Meanwhile last week, I managed to catch some sort of bug which led to an eventual head and chest cold. I felt it coming on early Thursday morn and throughout the rest of that day I could feel it slowly sapping my energy (legs felt so heavy walking around). I planned to get a good night’s rest and be ready to go the next day.

Friday had other plans. Cold, rainy weather and whole-body aches convinced me to call in sick. I also would rather quarantine myself than risk going to work and giving the bug to my coworkers. This has always been my philosophy, and I wish more people would learn to rest and recuperate this way.

Now granted, my immune system is about as effective as a line of sandbags against a hurricane, but hey–knock on wood–nobody else had caught it as of the time of this blog post.

Let It Be Rainy

With gentle soaking rains forecast for the next several days, the crops (and the weeds) will be growing like gangbusters in the weeks ahead as the weather warms. And then just around the corner?

Farmers’ Markets in Wauwatosa and West Bend and the first CSA share of the season….

*Photo courtesy of imarsman via Creative Commons license