Loopers

[city_farmer]

I thought I'd have a first season reprieve--a kind of honeymoon with my garden--in which the pests had yet to find my veggies. I pictured myself wandering beatifically through the lushly bountiful garden, blithely harvesting relatively pest-free crops. I'm reasonable about bugs: I can tolerate some nibbling here and there. I have good soil, I water

Comments

[thegrackleshack]

I do feel your pain. Given that this is an urban area, I had assumed the bugs that like vegetable gardens would take some time to get established and become pests. They would have to search out my garden via their buggy scouts, or come in on nursery plants. Oh, well!

I've given up my morning/night stroll through the cucumbers squashing the beetles. The mildew kind of negates it all. They weren't the most flavorful cukes anyway. : P

[city_farmer]

Did you really make twice daily rounds on the cucumbers? I hope you got at least a few before the mildew did them in.

The broccoli and chard were starts from an organic farm, via Fred Meyer, and I bet that's it. With the starts came the pests, but not the beneficials.

I learned my lesson. Patience. No more starts for me.

[thegrackleshack]

Oh, yes, until they were mostly gone. I hate the beetle squashing, but they spread like crazy.

I've got plenty of cucumbers, the rain is good for that.

I'm aiming to not buy any starts for next spring and want to set up a small greenhouse for just that sometime this winter. I think the fall tomato starts I bought recently came with wilt.