I'm still controlling the Woodlice with the Iron Phosphate. It works a treat.
Ladybugs (called Ladybirds in England) seem to be arriving so thats good.

I have ants at one end of the potato patch and when I scrape the soil away a little I see small winged insects under the soil which I presume are ants at another stage.
Any ideas Dawn?

I planted a few radish in the containers with my Crooked Neck Squash and they seem pretty bug free at the moment.

A few Bumblebees are around, they love the African Blue Basil which I put in with the tomato plants. Trouble is, the Basil goes crazy and tries to take over the plot. I hack bunches off and put it in a vase on the dining table. It makes an attractive and pleasent smelling display. My wife says it's not as good for eating so I grow Spicy Globe to fill that perticular need.

I've bought some Lime and have it ready to mix with flour for my experiment against Blister Beetles which are the bain of my life. I'll keep you posted on that one.

I've never had a problem with slugs but this year I've had a few tiny ones around the lettuce, probably due to the immense amout of rain thats fallen. Again, the Iron Phosphate has cleared them up.

The only snake I've seen so far, and I'm not complaining, was brought home by Alvin, our cat. It was a little grass snake so no problem. He played with it a bit then let it go.

Crawdads are leaving holes all over the place but don't bother me. I thick they are pretty cool creatures.

I have some tiny green coloured flys which hang around the potatoes, they were on them when I had the floating row covers on and have remained there ever since. I'll try to get a picture. They don't seem to be doing any harm but..........what do I know LOL.

The Blue Jay is still working flat out picking the beetles out of the plot that got hit with Carrot Beetles last year.
Well done that bird!!!

OK, I'm going out to do a bit of weeding before the temps get too high. I'll take the camera out just in case I see anything I need identifying.

Mick.

Mick,

I am glad the iron phosphate works. When I first learned about it, started using it, and found that it worked.....it seemed too good to be true! I was almost afraid to say "Look! This works!" for fear I would jinx myself. After several years, though, it still works, and I usually don't have to reapply it too often in the dry months. It saves my plants from total destruction, though, in the wet months.

I don't know of any way that flies are a problem, other than being annoying if they are the biting kind.

I think the winged ants may be the queens. You're always going to have ants and they are beneficial in many ways. Even fire ants are beneficials because they eat some of the other insects we consider garden pests. If the ants are in an area where you don't want them, though, just sprinkle some cinnamon on the ground there and they will go elsewhere. OR, spray the ground in that area with peppermint soap. I use Dr. Bronner's liquid Peppermint Soap, which I buy at the health food store, putting about a tablespoon of soap in a gallon of water. I spray it only on the ground where ants are because it can burn foliage. I think both the peppermint soap and cinnamon work because their strong scent affects the ants' ability to follow one another's chemical scent trails, so they get confused and go elsewhere. If you want to get rid of the ants, buy the Safer brand of organic fire ant control. The active ingredient is Serenade and it is a pretty good product.

The only time I have ever considered ants a problem is when they are "farming" the aphids that are on plants. However, thanks to our large ladybug population, we hardly ever have any aphids at all, so that's no longer a problem here. (It was for the first couple of years after we moved here and before we had as many ladybugs as we have now.)

I like the crawdads. We stay too dry to have them here, although there are some closer to the Red River where the water table is higher. We did see them every now and then in the bar ditches when we first moved here, but I haven't see any lately. The same thing with tarantulas. For several years, we saw quite a few, but none since the dry drought years of 2005-2006.

I plant a LOT of basil, some of it for the plants and some of it for us. It does turn into a big monster and I am constantly whacking it back. In most of my beds, I have about one basil plant for every 2 to 4 tomatoes. When I cut them back, I just drop the trimmings into the pathway as mulch and they release their scent every time you step on them. This year I planted Italian large-leaf basil, lemon basil, lime basil, Purple Ruffles, Green Ruffles, littleleaf, opal and a couple of others whose names i don't recall at the moment.

My lemon balm and borage are also huge and attract lots of beneficial insects too. And, I have a whole row of catnip on the eastern edge of the veggie garden right along the fenceline. I planted it there, thickly, to see if it would "crowd out" any bermuda that tries to creep under or through the fence and into the beds. It is working pretty well. Of course, it also attracts cats, but that's OK.

With the lime and flour, are you going to mix them together and then dust them on the plants? Or, will you mix them with water and spray them onto the plants? Maybe spray them on the ground? Just curious. Dusting your plants with flour is a very old organic technique that is supposed to deter chewing insects like leaf beetles and grasshoppers. I tried it the first year that grasshoppers were really, really bad here and discovered my tomato plants did not like having it on their leaves. Most of the other plants didn't seem to mind it though. Did it work? I don't know. It is hard to say. It was such a bad year and there were so many. I think it might have reduced the grasshopper population some, but I never used it again because it made the tomato foliage look so bad.

I have noticed this year that the cardinals and mockingbirds are hanging around inside the garden a lot more than usual, so clearly there are some bugs in the garden that the birds want to eat. One mockingbird, in particular, is very entertaining. Not only does he sing all kinds of bird songs, but he also imitates cats, tree frogs and cell phone ring tones. He keeps me amused.

OK, I have been inside long enough now to finish a cold drink and cool off, so it is back out to the garden to do some more weeding.

Dawn

skeeters is our biggest problem here, but we have a lot of low spaces that hold water when it rains. As in the Ditches around the our lots here, the city does nothing to try to let them flow corretly, about 5 years ago they went across our lots to dig out a new line, leaving large ruts in the ground (no road) in the wake, so now I have holes with more standing water. since it is out of this lot that we live on, I have been slowly filling up the holes with weeds, dirt or what ever else I can fine, since I do have to mow that area.
skeeters, so bad that you cannot get outside in the late evening hours.
But they have always been really bad where we are.

I haven't seen a lot of butterfly's either here, I do seem to have a ton of bees this year, so bad in fact that I had to take down my hummingbird feeders because each feeder hole ( 6 or 8 on each feeder) where just full of little butts sticking up out of the holes, the little butts where bees!
I have seen a LOT Of Yellow jackets this year, along with red & paper wasps.. the dirt daubers
Lots of baby Mantis and walking sticks again this year.
I have been seeing a lot of baby grasshoppers also.

My veggie garden looks to be clear of bugs so far, but that is because I had to brake down and buy some spray,as I had 10000s of box elder bugs all over the place.

while out in the garden today, I saw a lot of ladybugs

and my fav. bug has to be the jumping spiders... As long as they stay outside!!

enjoy the temps, I am inside to stay until it cools back off.

Ok, I've had to leave the weeding as Alvin needs to go to the vet for his shots.

Dawn
I'll be mixing the Lime and flour in equal amounts and sprinkling it dry on the soil but only if I see Blister Beetles around (which I haven't as yet)

Here's a shot of my little growing spot.

Here's one of the Crooked Neck Squash I'm trying to grow in containers. I have 2 of these and small squash are beginning to form. These are the first squash I've ever grown so...........

And I did manage to catch a snap of one of the many little toads that are in the garden. We usually have around 4 or 5 but this year it look more like 40 or 50. Great News !!

Mick.

Kirts,

I hate those mosquitoes. You know how they bother some people and not others? Well, they eat me alive and almost completely ignore DH. I think y'all have had more rain than us this year, as we've had only 14" so far here at our house. We only have skeeters in large numbers when we have quite a bit of rain. Even though we have 4 ponds, we don't have many mosquitoes, but I assume that is because the dragonflies, frogs, toads, water bugs, birds (esp. the purple martins, perhaps), bats, etc. are doing their jobs and eating the skeeters.

Some years, when there is more rain, I buy the mosquito dunks and drop them into the ponds--they contain Bt 'Israelensis' which kills the larvae. I don't like spending money on them because they are rather pricey. I really think it is the dragonflies and damselflies that keep most of the skeeters under control here. I have noticed that the more dragonflies and damselflies we have, the fewer mosquitoes, and there has to be a correlation there--I can't believe it is only a coincidence. I guess I need to do some research and make sure that dragonflies and damselflies actually do eat mosquitoes.

We always had box elder bugs when I was a kid, but I've only had them one year here. I despise them. They used to simply cover the chinaberry tree we had in our front yard when I was a kid.

We have about a million spiders per acre here. You walk through the woods at your own risk this time of year because they build webs EVERYWHERE, across every path or trail, etc. I like most spiders. I do kill black widow spiders and brown recluses (fiddlebacks) because they are dangerous. I don't care for the way they build webs in the garage and tornado shelter, but we spray with a non-toxic product called Cobweb Eliminator. It keeps the webs from adhering to any surface your spray with it, and it last several months.

Mick,

I hope Alvin isn't mad about getting those shots! Our dogs always pout for about a day after they get shots, kind of like they're saying "What did you do that for?" but they get over it.

Nice photos. Squash is fun, but you have to watch it. When it does well, it often does really, really well and you end up with more than you want. Once, some friends of ours planted a garden....their first garden ever. They had something like 3 or 4 tomato plants and a whole long row of zucchini and a whole long row of yellow squash. Of course, they produced enough squash by themselves for every resident of Love County! It was a REALLY long summer and those darned squash plants just wouldn't die. It got to where you were hoping you didn't run into them in town anywhere, for fear they'd give you more squash or more zucchini.

I love the toad. We always have lots of them and lots of frogs, newts and skinks as well. Some years we have horned toads.

Well, I came inside to eat lunch and cool off, so now it is time to go back outside. If I pace myself, and come in for about 15 minutes out of every hour, I can usually stay outside most of the day unless the temperatures or heat index are just ridiculous.

Dawn

When we were discussing spiders the other day, I mentioned that I used the little electronic sound emitters to help control insects, but that I had small ants that kept making a trail through my kitchen window into the kitchen. I took my own advice and moved one to the outlet which was quite close to the problem. It worked. I haven't had ants to deal with for three days. Most of the summer I have sprayed almost everyday and it didn't seem to phase them. It killed the ones that got hit by the spray, but that didn't help that much. I guess they don't like that sound either. I hope I don't zinx myself by saying it worked, but at least they are gone for now.

oklahomagrownveg,
nice pics! love the little toad.
I have been trying an experiment with mosquito repellant that i got from the internet. Everyone here has probably seen the email about listerine repelling mosquitos. I've tried it twice now and either the mosquitos aren't out in numbers or it's working. The first night I was biten 4 times and that was crawling around in the asparagus ferns in the hot evening. Today was cool and cloudy so maybe the skitters weren't out much. I did notice one of my big squash plants has wilted from this morning. I don't see any squash bugs or anything on it. I have been spraying it with seven as that is the only way I'll ever get a squash. I fear their days are numbered and it will be a matter of time before I'm bagging them up for the trash can. At least I have some put up for winter. I did pick 7 okras today!!! It's funny the plants are probably 12 inches tall and already putting off. Squash bugs (I think) are my only problem right now. Usually later in the summer I will have a problem with blister beetles on the tomatoes and will have to remedy that. I have a big bug bugging me right now (called a husband) to come eat smoked ribs. So I'm outa here.

River,

Keep us posted on whether the Listerine works!

When your big squash wilts, does it wilt slightly during the heat of the day and then recover completely overnight? If so, that is normal in our heat. Squash would rather NOT be exposed to our hot sun and high temperatures so they show their displeasure by wilting.

However, if it is not FULLY recovering, but instead recovers a little less every day, you probably have squash vine borers. The moth lays eggs on the plant, the eggs hatch, and the little grubs bore into the stem and begin feeding. Once they are in the stem, you probably cannot save the plant. You can try, though, by partially slitting the stem with a kitchen knife, removing the borer, pressing the slit stem back together, and burying it in the soil so the soil will act as a "band-aid". Water it, and it may recover if the borer did not do too much damage inside.

You can spray your squash vines with Bt Kurstaki (for caterpillars) and it may kill them as they bore their way into the plant, but it won't do any good if they are already inside the stem.

Here in our garden, SQBs have already arrived, but I've only lost one plant so far. And, if you don't garden organically, you can spray your plants with liquid Sevin or dust them with powdered Sevin and it is supposed to help Since I garden organically, though, I have never tried it and don't know if Sevin is effective or not. Just wanted you to know it is an option.

Today I did find one squash bug, and she was busyily laying eggs on a plant so she didn't even try to get away from me. I flicked her into a paper cup of soapy water, and scraped her eggs off the leaf and into the soapy water with her. I was sort of surprised to only find one. Found one earlier in the week. Maybe if I can keep finding them, I can keep them under control this year.

Hope those smoked ribs were tasty!

Dawn

No recovery for the poor squash. it wilted big time so guess i have squash bugs now. what a shame. i wish there was something to kill them suckers!!

About all I have ever had success with is just handpicking them and drowning them in soapy water. (You also could flick them onto the ground and squish them with your foot.)

One way to make them "easy to find" is to put an old board or shingle on the ground near your squash plants. They will congregate under that board. Then, all you have to do is lift the board and step on them and grind them into the ground with your foot.

Usually, if you catch them early, you can defeat them. Of course, it is important to find and destroy their eggs before they hatch too.

Finally, sometimes you can put in a late planting in July and get squash from that planting in September after the squash bugs are gone.

Dawn

It seems that hand picking is the only solution.
Growing Catnip or Tansy is "supposed" to repel them too although I've never tried it.

Hey, I got the rest of the property "mewn" yesterday afternoon!! Good job too, we've just had a small thunderstorm pass over us this morning and everythings wet again.

Mick.

Well, I have tried tansy and couldn't tell it helped. It got HUGE and reseeded freely everywhere, and after three years of fighting it, I took it all out last year.

I DO have catnip, although mostly on the opposite side of the garden from the squash. Maybe I'll cut off some stems and strew them around on the ground around the squash and see it if helps!

We need to mow, probably tomorrow I guess.

No rain here and very little, if any, chance of any of it falling the rest of the month. Usually, June is one of our rainiest months. The last five years, our June rain has varied from 5" or 6" inches (normal) to as many as 10" (last year) to almost 13" (in 2004). If we don't have good rainfall in June, we usually have an unbearably dry summer. If we don't have good rainfall in June AND July, when we usually get 4" or so, then we have an unbearably hot, dry summer with wildfires. We need rain desperately but are not likely to have any this week. I am starting to get worried. We are already seeing wildfires in pastures west of us (western Love County is a bit drier than the rest of Love County more years.....more like southwestern OK than southcentral OK) and it is really early for that! In our county, we often get 1/2 of our annual rainfall just in May, June and July, so a dry spell during those months means real TROUBLE here.

I'm glad you got to finish your mowing, and even glad you got rain (even though you probably didn't need it). Of course, I wish we had some of your rain. One good thing about less moisture is less mowing, 'cause the grass isn't growing as fast. I did weed-eat about 600' of fenceline yesterday because the neighbor's tall unmown pasture grasses were falling over into our mown area. Just trying to tidy it up a bit! I also weed-eated all around my garden fence (about 350 linear feet) and around the retention pond at the northeastern corner of the garden. By the time I was through weed-eating, I was too tired to mow, and this afternoon is too hot--already in the 90s. Maybe tomorrow morning I'll get it done.

At this time of year, I am outside less and less and inside more and more. If it wasn't for the cooler early-morning temperatures, I don't know how I'd get anything done outside.

Dawn

Most of the pests here in Moore/SWOKC are down from what I've seen, with the exception of small (about 1") green caterpillars that are decimating my wife's petunias. I don't know what they are, but we can't seem to get rid of them.
I've had only one hornworm on my tomatoes, which died a quick death (I don't have any volunteer plants).
Lots of spiders, toads and wasps are helping, along with some very young mantids, too, though I'm starting to see a lot more baby grasshoppers.

Steve

Hi Steve,

A good organic caterpillar killer is Bt (Bacillus thuringensis) 'Kurskati'. You spray it on the plants, they eat the plants and become infected with the bacteria and they die within a day or so. This is a bacteria that only targets caterpillars, so it won't harm bees or other beneficial insects like lady bugs and green lacewings. Unfortunately, it is deadly to the butterflies and moths and some people choose not to use it because of that. You also can spray it on tomatoes to keep the hornworms away but that does mean you won't have the hummingbird moths.

For grasshoppers, this is the worst we've had them here in 6 to 8 years, and we are in a very, very rural area, so when they are bad, they are very bad. Our free-ranging guineas and chickens usually keep them under control by themselves in all but the worst of years. This year, because I had lots of grasshoppers VERY early (started seeing them in January or early February) I finally put out some Nolo Bait in May. Nolo Bait is another organic method of pest control and it contains a bacteria that targets only grasshoppers and their relatives like crickets and locsusts. The bacterial agent is Nosema locuste and it will kill grasshoppers of all sizes, but is MOST effective when they are in the smaller instars (roughly 1/4" to 1/2" long). And, since grasshoppers will even eat dead grasshoppers, it keeps on killing them for a long time.....the dead grasshoppers pass the bacteria to the ones that eat them. It isn't easy to find. I get mine at a full-line nursery in Texas, and I know you can find it in Oklahoma, but not necessarily easily. I think I have also purchased under the brand name Grasshopper Attack. Baits with Nosema locuste are the only method of grasshopper control (except for the guineas and chickens) that has ever worked for us.

I think it is going to be a bad grasshopper year....but a colorful one. So far, we have had green, yellow, brown, black and orange grasshoppers, so at least they bring a little more color into the garden. : )

Dawn