First blood

Only three weeks in and already I'm getting pests. The beans were first. I guess that's appropriate since they were the first to emerge. I don't know the names of pests and I should have taken a picture before I squashed them into their ancestors. But these little worms bite out two small cuts from the edge of the leaf and perpendicular to it. Then they fold the leaf over on themselves for protection. Very clever. Here's a picture after I removed the bugs.

I'm also seeing some leafminers on some of the bean and cabbage leaves. Not sure what to do about that as the pests aren't available to squash like worms.

Here's a very healthy new leaf triplet from one of the bean plants. I picked some eggs off this one, presumably the same pest species that were eating the older leaves.

Last weekend I replanted some of the plants that did not germinate: a couple lettuces, spinach, sorrel, chard, turnip, and one black bean. Still waiting to see the germination rate this time around. I think that maybe I should have started the seeds indoors in June. Then they would have had a bit of a headstart. A week ago Thursday we got a frog-strangler rain that nearly wiped out the tender new seedlings. We got about 2 inches of rain in 45 minutes. The beets were battered; the carrots, creamed; the spinach, splattered...

But most plants seem to have recovered. All in all, the garden looks pretty good.

Suburban diversity

We don't even try to maintain a perfect lawn. I actually like the occurences of the varied species that pop up. Occasionally we get something really interesting, like this Indian pipe (Monotropa uniflora) that appears in the fall. It looks like a fungus, but is actually an herbaceous plant that does not have chlorophyll.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotropa_uniflora

We also get some edible plants, like the Florida betony (Stachys floridana). The white tubers taste kind of like a radish without the bite and are great in salads. The flowers are pretty, too, but this plant is extremely invasive and hard to get rid of -- and so is hated by monoculturists.

http://pubs.caes.uga.edu/caespubs/pubcd/C867-11.htm

There are so many different species that grow in our yard, that I would have a hard time cataloging them all. Many invite pollinators and other benficial insects into the yard. Others provide flowers and textural interest. And so they are welcome, with a few exceptions.

The exceptions:

• Chinese Tallow (Triadica sebifera)-- not aggressive in my yard, but is a real problem in nearby Payne's Prarie.
• Climbing fern (Lygodium japonicum) -- stays in one spot in my yard, but it's an invasive exotic and it keeps coming back.
• Air potato (Dioscorea bulbifera) -- Horrible stuff. Propagates in many ways. Impossible to get rid of. Very evil.

Garden update

One week later, most plants have emerged in the square foot garden. I planted 2 small sage plants, a cabbage plug and an established pepper plant, but all the rest are from seeds. The black tepary beans came up overnight and are already getting big enough that we need to think about getting the trellis ready.

The little photo above is a nasturtium sprout, planted 4 seeds per sqaure foot. Below are beets at 16/sf with spinach (4/sf) in the square behind them.

For lack of something more suitable, I used plastic knives as labels for each sqaure.

List of plants in east box:

• 4 nasturtiums
• 1 sorrel
• 16 beets
• 4 lettuce (2 squares)
• 16 carrots (2 squares)
• 4 spinach
• 4 marigold
• 1 chard
• 16 onions (2 squares)
• 1 brocolli (2 squares)
• 1 sage (2 squares)

List of plants in west box:

• 4 marigolds
• 4 spinach
• 4 turnips
• 4 lettuce
• 1 chard
• 16 beets
• 1 sorrel
• 16 carrots
• 4 nasturtiums (2 squares)
• 1 brocolli
• 16 onions
• 1 cabbage
• 4 black tepary beans (2 squares)
• 1 poblano pepper