May 19, 2015

Unending Rain

 A few rows of bush beans are up, but there's spotty germination and limas on the right are missing.
 Those dull black specks are flea beetles. Some of the eggplants are completely shredded.
On the far end of the broccoli bed dog prints have been found and leaves broken off. 

So much rain. Unending days of rain. The ground is a soggy mess. I haven't been able to do much of anything in the garden except tiptoe around the edges and snap a few pictures. At least the bush green beans are up. Although the germination was very very spotty in some rows and nonexistent when it comes to the lima beans.

It actually started raining while I was out seeding the last bed on May 15th with cucumbers, bitter melon, luffa, Delicata squash, and melons. The pole beans will just have to be planted at a later date, and I couldn't find the seed packet for the Papaya squash. Ah well. Eventually the bed will get trellised.

Hardly any of the Pinkeye Purple Hull summer peas have emerged, so I will probably be replanting the bed with some fast growing gai lan and some yu choy. Once the gai lan and yu choy are finished the bed will be planted in Brussels sprouts.

The Catskills and Brawny Brussels sprouts seed packets say 90 days to maturation, which sounds crazy to me. Doesn't it take like 5 months or more to get Brussels sprouts?

Flea beetles are everywhere. They're decimating the eggplants, the smaller plants now have leaves that are see-through. And they've started eating the tomato plants. The rain means I can't keep the plants dusted with diatomaceous earth, so I'll probably have to figure something else out.

2 comments:

David Velten said...

Wow, obviously a lot of rain. Hope it dries out soon for you. The flea beetles are surely a problem. Only sure fire solution is to cover them until they get big enough to resist, but at this point it is too late. Like you say, it gets warm under the cover but eggplants do like their heat. Maybe use Agribon 15 rather than 19. If it ever stops raining, try spraying with Spinosad alternated with Pyrethrin. Both are approved for organic gardening, and you are not going to be eating the leaves anyway. Two years ago we got a lot of rain, 14" in 10 days. Here is a post on that: http://davessfggarden.blogspot.com/2013/06/need-ark.html. The garden survived but the big problem was disease caused by the wet weather.

Phuong said...

Hi David,
Thanks for the Spinosad and Pyrethrin used in organic gardening suggestions. I went ahead and sprayed with Spinosad tonight, I remember seeing your post on using it for flea beetles.

Wow, the 14" in 10 days you got two years ago is a lot of rain. It's supposed to dry up for the next 4 days and then rain for 2 weeks after that, so I'm hoping to get my leeks and pole beans planted and get the flea beetles taken care of before the rain.