Growing aids in the garden

We have had some funny weather so far this spring. We had a cold spring with nighttime temps down in the upper 40s and low 50s. Then it turned off hot with night temps up around 70 and daytimes in the 80s. Hot for sure. We were close to putting our shade cloths on our high tunnels to cut down on how hot they were getting. I think we'll hold off a bit more, maybe a couple weeks. Night temps down in the 50s again.

We've had bugs eating the leaves on our eggplant. Not sure exactly what. Perfectly round holes in the leaves. Marge dusted them with seven, and must have worked. We do have aphids on some of our tomatoes. We had ants in the high tunnels this spring, so figured we'd have aphids. Normally if one has ants, then there will be aphids. My plans are to just watch them. If they get bad, I'll spray with, probably, Malathion.

Check your cabbage plant or Brussels sprouts for worms. With the warmer temps, they will start chewing. Easy solution is Bt. I buy Bt in two forms: one is a powder, Dipel Dust, that we just sprinkle on the cabbage, and the other is a powder I mix with water and spray on them. I also spray Bt on my tomatoes to get rid of tomato horn worms. They are voracious eaters and can strip a tomato plant in a day or two. The worst part is they eat the top leaves which virtually stop your tomato plant from producing more tomatoes. First couple weeks in June is when the tomato worms usually show up.

If you got your potatoes out early, you may need to check them for potato bugs. Was talking to my cousin in Oklahoma, and he said they had a good crop of potato bugs. Just keep an eye on them. We bought a small bag of miniature potatoes, and because they were sprouting we planted them. It looks like every one of them has come up. It will be interesting to see what comes of this. As a boy Dad would take an old coffee can and add some kerosene and send us out to pick potato bugs. Picked many a potato bug. Dad had a duster that he used. Not sure what chemical.

Our zucchini are blooming and have little zucchini on them, but I think we will clip the little zucchini off them. The plants need to beef up rather than produce. We do that to the peppers as well. Some prune off the first bunch of flowers on the tomato. I never have. My first tomatoes are always Stupice followed by Big Beef about 20 to 30 days later. My goal each year is to pick my first Stupice tomatoes in May. I think I ate my first tomato May 22.

Most cucumbers are divided up into slicers for eating and picklers for pickling. A few can go either way. We like our pickling cucumbers to be 3 to 5 inches long when we pick them. Normally they will have little poky spots all over them. One has to brush them pretty good to get them smooth enough to eat when pickled. Slicers can be any size. A really popular one is Straight 8s. Some use them for pickles. We like the longer English or Asian burpless seedless cucumbers for slicing and eating. Most of them will have a real smooth skin. When you make dill pickles use some Ball Pickle Crisp Granules. It helps.

Normally I start my cucumbers indoors and then transplant them. That's how I do our okra as well. Also the zucchini, kohlrabi, Swiss chard and even dill. We have better luck transplanting then planting seed outside in the garden. I planted our okra in Jiffy 7s this year and transplanted them right after they came up. So far it has worked like a charm. Also works on cucumbers.

If you error in your gardening error by making it a little too small. Making one's garden too big has ruined many a garden.