The Fall Garden

My summer garden is about done. I just finished my second crop of sweet corn. Again, I've never grown better corn, and yes, I'm still sold on Miracle Corn, my new variety of choice. The corn's flavor is superb, large ears, and matures in about 70 days. The corn grows only about 6ft tall, thus resists lodging during strong winds. And it pollinates very successfully, even on the edges of the crop. I'm also sold on placing a couple of drops of vegetable oil on the silk, shortly after it appears--this prevents worms and bugs from entering the ear of corn. It is 100% successful, if applied in a timely manner. The result? perfect ears of corn with no worms or bugs.

I currently have tomatoes, green beans, beets, carrots, and spinach in my garden. We ate our first green beans yesterday, are enjoying a late tomato crop, and have harvested some spinach. The beans were planted July 18th, the spinach and beans were planted on August 10th. I should have beets ready later in October. Other falls crops can also be planted; broccoli, lettuce, cabbage, and other cool weather crops.

I have applied a load of manure on the greater part of the, now unused, garden soil, and tilled it in. I will also till in large quantities of leaves as soon as they come down. Fall is the time to prepare the garden for spring planting. You took a lot out of your garden, you need to put a lot back. Manure, leaves, compost, sawdust, any biodegradable material should be tilled into your garden.

I tend not to want to pay for the manure I put in my garden, so I ask around and find horse owners, or other folks with animals, and ask if I can relieve them of some of their manure (they are always anxious to get rid of some of that stuff). Some with tractors and loaders will even load my truck for me, so all I have to do is empty the truck and place it in my garden. Chicken and Turkey manure is too hot for the garden, but if mixed with other material (leaves, sawdust, etc) it becomes a great garden fertilizer. I prefer horse manure, it isn't too hot (nitrogen content), and horse owners tend to buy the best hay, with few weeds, so I "import" fewer weeds than with cow manure.

Squash Bugs

Nothing is quite as ugly, smelly and destructive as squash bugs. Squash bugs, Anasa tristis, are a difficult garden pest to control, but there are options. Squash bugs prefer yellow crookneck summer squash, and they prefer this variety over zucchini and other squashes, although I don't find them very discriminating. They also favor pumpkins, and spaghetti squash. Squash bugs will thrive in, on, under, and around all squash plants, melons, pumpkins, cucumbers, and all cucurbits.

In my garden they seemed to favor the squash (crookneck and spaghetti), and avoided watermelon. Since my watermelons turned out quite good, I may plant more watermelon next year.

Sylvan Wittwer suggested to me, to use drip lines, and as the plants grow, move the lines further away from the plant base. Squash bugs like moist areas around the base of the plants, so removing the moisture from that area greatly reduces the attractiveness of the plant base. So this year, with a drip system installed, I tested this theory. My first row of garden, next to the lawn, had a Toquer Squash, a pumpkin, and a spaghetti squash. This was my control because it got overspray from the lawn sprinklers and the base of the plants were usually damp.

The remaining rows of cantaloupe, crenshaw melons, crookneck, zucchini, watermelon, and spaghetti squash, received the benefit of my moving the drip lines away from the base of the plants, as the plants grew. The drip lines ended up about 1 ft away from the base of the plants.

Clearly, the squash bugs preferred the first row of vines that tended to remain damp from the lawn overspray. Some of the other rows of melons, etc, where the base remained dry and open to the sun, squash bugs were much less prominent. So this does help--but the bugs will still come, they just won't be as "happy" and don't seem to reproduce nearly as fast in the dry conditions.

In addition to the above cultural practice, I also did the following:

1. Each day, I would scour the vine leaves for the eggs of the squash bugs, and squish these with my fingers. I was interested that the bugs laid eggs both under the leaves, and on top of the leaves. As the garden got bigger (quite a few melons), examining all the leaves became a bit of a chore, but I still tried to spend a few minutes each day looking for eggs, and eliminating them before they hatched.

2. I would also lift up the ends of the squash plants, every morning, and look for bugs, and squish them on the spot. This works well with the crookneck because you can lift up each vine all the way back to the base and see the bugs, and get rid of them. If you're squeamish, wear gloves.

3. Later in the summer, the squash bugs will accumulate under and on the fruit of the plants. As the foliage of the plants deteriorates through the summer, they will begin eating the squash, melons or pumpkins, etc. So I would lift or turn each squash (spaghetti), melon (cantaloupe and crenshaw) and expose the bugs, and squish them enmasse.

Historically, pesticides are not effective against adult squash bugs, and sprays or powders must be sprayed on the under side of plants and leaves to get to where the bugs are, and this is difficult to do. I do not even attempt to spray for squash bugs, and I tend to avoid using pesticides generally.

Strong, healthy, vigorous plants will withstand the effects of squash bugs better than weak or less thriving plants, so this should always be strived for. My experience is, doing nothing is not a good option--the bugs will win, your plants will lose, and you won't get much production.

Mid-Summer Report

Corn
The Miracle Corn I planted in May was a huge success. It was easily the best corn crop I've ever grown. I really liked the variety, large stalks, large leaves, not too tall (6 ft), two large ears per stalk, full rows of kernels, great flavor.

You'll notice in this picture there are no worms. I treat the newly emerged silk with two drops of vegetable oil, which prevents worms and other bugs from entering the growing ears. This is an easy, non-pesticide method that works 100%.

This crop is finished, but I have a fall crop of Miracle Corn on the way.

Watermelon
I have never had success growing watermelon, but thought I'd give it another try in Toquerville. I planted Crimson Sweet, and this melon was the first one I harvested, about 20 lbs, the flavor was very good, juicy, and I'll probably grow watermelon again, although I think I'll try the seedless variety next year.

Onions
I harvested my Sweet Spanish onions, had an excellent crop, with nice medium sized onions. I'm not satisfied with my drying methods yet. I have tried laying them on the ground, in the shade. This worked pretty well, but you have to keep turning and moving the onions until the tops are completely dried. I have tried tying the leaves together over a line, in the shade. This worked pretty well too, but they would sometimes fall down, or blow down if there was a strong wind, and squirrels or animals would take them. This year I tried pulling them and just leaving them on the ground (dry ground). This worked ok for some of the onions, but too high a percentage "cooked" and were spoiled by the sun.

Cantaloupes
We have been eating cantaloupes for a month. I plant only Ambrosia cantaloupes, by far the best flavor of any cantaloupe, but they have a very short shelf life (which is why you won't find them in any grocery store). The cantaloupes are not as large this year, as last, but still of normal size and excellent flavor. Curly Top killed about a third of my cantaloupe plants.

Summer Squash
My zucchini, crookneck and spaghetti squash all produced well. The curly top took both my zucchini plants, and both my crookneck plants, but I replanted both and have not been without summer squash yet. Quality has been excellent.

Pumpkin
Curly Top killed my one pumpkin plant, but we still got three pumpkins off it before it was gone.

Potatoes
The Curly Top eventually got to all my potato plants, but I still got a fair harvest, the potatoes just did not get as large as they should. The red potatoes did much better than the white "gold" variety. We've been enjoying the potatoes, and the flavor is very good, potatoes are just small.

Toquer Squash
I have a Toquer Squash vine growing in my garden that has become very large, spreading far and wide (I was warned it would do this). It contains several large, maturing bell shaped squash, and does not appear to be affected by Curly Top. When mature, this squash weighs 20-30 pounds. I got these seeds from my neighbor who grows the squash also. I'm impressed with the sweetness and flavor of this squash, plus it being a winter squash, should store well for some time.

Curly Top
Curly Top has damaged my tomatoes, potatoes, spinach, squash, pumpkin, cantaloupe, crenshaw melons, pumpkin, and cucumbers. Harris Seed is sending me a sample bottle of "GreenCure" which is effective against all blights (Curly Top is a blight), but they don't guarantee it. I am going to try it next spring. I am unwilling to give into the widespread damage of Curly Top. If anyone has experience with "GreenCure," I'd love to hear about it.

Summer Corn

On May 9th, I planted four rows of Miracle Corn, on July 13th (70 days), I harvested the first ears...and was it ever tasty.

Miracle Corn is a hybrid derived from Golden Jubilee, my previous favorite corn, that has twice the lysine and tryptophan (proteins) of other corn varieties. Miracle was developed to fight malnutrition in third world countries. It's a relatively new corn, being available for only the past few years.

I have had difficulty the past few years getting two, large, full ears of corn on each stalk; Miracle corn delivered for me this year, however. Frankly, I was impressed. I have never seen better corn in the field, and its flavor is impressive. Miracle is supposed to hold its sugar longer before turning to starch, than other varieties, as well.

Beginning early last fall, I tilled in large amounts of mulch and leaves, then applied mono-ammoniumphosphate every two to three weeks through my drip system. At 30 days from planting, I "turned" the furrow against the young corn and applied a side dressing of 16-16-16.

When the silk appeared, I applied two drops of vegetable oil to the silk, using an eyedropper. This prevents worms and bugs from entering the ear of corn, giving full, clean, worm free, ears, without using pesticides. Stalks grow about 6 ft high.

I plan on a second planting towards the end of July, same variety, different location in the garden.

Potatoes

I have updated my June 23rd post with additional information regarding curly top and tomatoes. But curly top also infects potatoes as well as other garden plants. Indeed, variety seems to be important in fighting curly top.

Potatoes
I have two rows of potatoes, planted from seed potatoes. I have observed that the red potatoes are virtually unaffected by curly top, but the white (actually gold) potatoes are largely infected and dying. I am harvesting some nice "new" potatoes from these dying plants, but fear I will not get many mature ones.

Melons
It is also my observation, to date, that Crenshaw Melons are not affected by curly top, but Ambrosia Cantaloupes are, somewhat. The effect on Ambrosia is not significant, but has taken two of my plants.

Squash
In my garden, this year, my Crookneck Summer Squash was completely taken by curly top, but my Zucchini is unaffected.

My Spaghetti Squash, Big Max Pumpkin, and Toquer Squash are, so far, unaffected by curly top.

Cucumber
The cucumber I planted early, all died, presumably from curly top, but cucumber I planted later, are so far unaffected, and are thriving.

Curly Top and the Beet Leafhopper

Because of the seriousness of the curly top blight in local gardens (actually throughout the Western United States), I have researched the subject and provide the following information.

This top picture is of a healthy tomato plant from my garden.

The second picture is of a Curly Top infected tomato from my garden

General Information
Causal Agent: Beet Curly Top Virus (BCTV) Hosts: Tomatoes, beans, pepper, spinach, beets, and cucumbers.
Symptoms: Leaves of infested plants are dwarfed, crinkled, rolled inward, and cupped upward. Veins on the underside of leaves usually have a purple discoloration, may be roughened, and often produce swellings or spine-like outgrowths. Roots are stunted and may exhibit a proliferation of secondary rootlets.
BCTV is transmitted to/from plant to plant by the beet leafhopper, Circulifer tenellus. Both the virus and the beet leafhopper have very wide host ranges. Once acquired by the leafhopper, BCTV is carried for the rest of the leafhopper's life, and thus long distance spread is common. Infected plants are usually scattered in a field. The beet leafhopper acquires the virus from infected crop plants or weeds such as wild mustard and Russian thistle. Only brief feeding periods (minutes) are required for the leafhopper to acquire the virus and transmit it to new plants. Plants begin to show symptoms about 7 to 14 days after they are first infected by a leafhopper. Tomato is not a preferred host for the beet leafhopper; however the leafhoppers transmit the virus to tomatoes while sampling it.

Curly Top facts
a. Curly Top is a blight transmitted by the Beet Leafhopper. Although tomatoes are not its preferred host, leafhoppers are fairly indiscriminate, and tomatoes get infected along with beets, beans, melons, squash, potatoes, spinach, peppers, cucumbers and other garden plants. Even Pumpkins have been infected in some states.

b. When humidity is above 50%, Curly Top is nonexistent; thus the desert southwest is very susceptible to this disease.

c. There is no cure, once infected, the plant fails to thrive, will not set additional fruit, and will usually die. Remaining fruit will be of low quality, underdeveloped, and of poor quality and flavor.

What Doesn’t Work

a. Spraying for the Beet Leafhopper is ineffective since the Leafhopper migrates, usually coming down from hillsides as the weather warms. And although spraying will kill the leafhopper, the damage is done before the leafhopper dies.

b. Commercially, there are some insecticide spraying programs, and soil treatments that are effective, but for the home gardener, they are either not available or impractical.

c. Some of the cultural practices of commercial farmers, are also impractical or irrelevant to the home gardener. For example, planting large, thick fields of tomatoes seems to repel the Leafhopper, but gardeners can’t do this.

d. The State of California is investigating the introduction of predators and parasites for control of Beet Leafhopper, but to date, no solution has been found.

e. Covering tomatoes with a mesh or screen to keep the leafhoppers out. Most mesh is not tight enough to keep the leafhopper out, and if it is tight enough, the mesh will also keep out sunlight and create too much shading, and stunt plant growth.

What Might Work
a. There are possibly two or three resistant varieties, but all tomato varieties are susceptible. Ropac and Columbia seem to be resistant, but no immune, to curly top. Floramerica is another variety reported to be resistant, though it's not been confirmed in our area. Bruce Church in Hurricane experiences about 80% success with Ropac and Columbia.

b. Planting tomatoes later in the season, for the Hurricane Valley this would be mid-May to mid-June. Leafhoppers seem to be less prevalent by this date, and moved on to their more favored plants like Russian Thistle, Mustard, and other weeds.

c. Creating dense stands of tomatoes seems to repel the leafhopper, but for most home gardeners, this is impractical. Still, if you can plant in a square instead of a row, you will probably create some protection against the leafhopper.

d. Eliminating Russian Thistle, plantain, and other weeds is also somewhat effective, since the Leafhopper prefers weeds, particularly the Russian Thistle.

e. Creating an enclosed, clear plastic “greenhouse” over the tomatoes, for the early growing period, in theory, should protect the tomatoes from the Leafhopper, but the “greenhouse” must be tight as to make it impenetrable by the Leafhopper. If this can be maintained until mid-May, when it would probably be impracticable and inadvisable to keep the tomatoes inside the “greenhouse.”

f. Shading, which lowers light intensity and retards evaporation, probably delays leafhopper visits, decreases the infection rate, and reduces symptom expression. However, tomatoes do not like being shaded (they prefer full sun), so there is an adverse affect to this practice.

g. New Mexico State University has tested the use of applying a white kaolin mineral product (3% kaolin suspension) on tomatoes and peppers, and the treatment has proven effective against curly top. But row irrigation or drip irrigation must be used since sprinklers and rain will wash the kaolin off the plant and eliminate its effectiveness. Kaolin is a soft, earthy, usually white mineral...and don't ask me where you get Kaolin. It is probably available someplace.

h. Bruce Church in Hurricane says a spray of reconstituted dry milk is effective (From Utah State info), and he uses it. Dr. Sylvan Wittwer confirmed to me that milk is effective as both a repellent of the leafhopper and as an infection preventative. I tried this only one year and it was effective.

A Few Mid-Season Observations

With the warmer weather my corn, tomatoes, cantaloupes and other vines, have all really taken off. Following, are a few mid season observations:

1. In Toquerville, there is little or no advantage to planting early. The ground is too cold, the winds too strong, and plants tend to not grow much until April or May.

2. All vines (cantaloupes, crenshaw melons, cucumbers, squash, pumpkins, etc) seem to do really well in this area. Plant them in early May, and you still have plenty of time for them to mature.

3. The tomato curly top disease is very bad, and very frustrating to try to overcome. There is essentially no effective prevention, and no cure, so the leafhoppers just infect the tomatoes, and there isn't a whole lot you can do about it; except to pull out the plant and replace it. The six plants I replaced are all doing well, setting on tomatoes, and none of them have become infected with the curly top blight. Unless I learn differently, I'm assuming planting tomatoes later is better than planting early, because you avoid the curly top blight.

4. The cool May and June this year was ideal weather for broccoli, but I planted broccoli in early March, and have had nearly 8 weeks of broccoli harvest so far. Also, I've not been bothered by aphid or leaf worms--so far.

5. We had a huge pecan harvest last year, but I have very few pecans this year. Pecans do altenate between heavy and light harvests, but I didn't expect it to be this thin. Also, I've observed that last year, my pecan trees did not have sap on them, nothing observable anyway. This year, however, with hardly any pecans on the trees, the sap is very heavy in all trees. Is there a connection between the "off year" and heavy sap?