gravitylover

Heh, no softener here. We're all about hard water. This creates another set of problems though... My attention span wanes after basic soil testing for pH.

Persistent dampness is all plants need to thrive, unfortunately it's even moreso for crawly things. I'd much rather have really dry, I'm on a 400 foot deep well that won't run dry easily so I can water but the bugs go away.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/v5qLLPgozJWdZJUb8 I don't know if this will work.

Our biggest expense was decent soil. I figured if I was going to go to all of the effort to make the beds and spend all the time it takes to actually grow food rather than flowers I should start with good soil. Unfortunately I think a lot of the bug problems I'm dealing with came with the soil which kind of sucks because most of them weren't here before. The most recent find is much much better, Coast of Maine organic certified so that's most likely what I'll use going forward. Copper fungicide? I'm just learning about all of the different things I need to do to make it all worth it. I found this for caterpillars https://www.bonide.com/products/garden-naturals/view/252/captain-jacks-dead-bug-brew-conc and this for slugs and snails https://www.montereylawngarden.com/product/sluggo/ I'm trying to only use things that are food safe and organic. I also planted marigolds and borage scattered around the beds but it's not as effective as I'd hoped. I really do think it's just too wet for real success.

Good morning everyone! I've been on slug patrol and spraying bacteria to eliminate the caterpillars since 6am. Ooh ooh fun with bugs

So when you want the models to be right with an event they're not... for the last couple of days it looked like I'd be on the northern edge of the precip for this one but now it looks like it set up shop to be streaming over here rather than the city. 50 miles, all I wanted was 50 miles. Why couldn't anything set up like this in the winter? Why o why o whining just a bit here

For how thoroughly soaked and soggy everything is you'd think we had inches of rain but nope, 1/4" of precip and many hours of fog is the culprit. For a year that's actually relatively dry it has been very wet, there have been more wet days than the numbers would lead one to think.

Well that's weird... I got home and all of the wilted plants are looking like nothing ever happened. It was back to cool(ish) and cloudy which was nice, means it barely got into the low 80's so summer still isn't here.

I'll get some pics when I get back home later. For some reason the site won't let me post pics anymore, says I hit my limit so pm me an email to send them to. Cutworms would suck, any other evidence of them to look for? No it never got that wet, the bed drains really well.

So what are the chances that stays with that orientation and it stays dry up here?

Oh no, this morning the garden looked awesome. Everything was standing tall and visibly gaining then the sun came out and nearly everything wilted and flopped almost to the ground What the **** happened? After my post yesterday when it looked like we might miss the rain I went ahead and watered, could the extra heavy rain we did end up getting drown everything? Is it just that the dark green greens like kale, cauliflower, broccoli, brussell sprouts and collard greens don't like the hot sun after such a nice cool start to their growing season?

Lots of wind but not terribly strong (comparatively), plenty of thunder and lightning and torrential rain, ~.5" in 20 minutes or so. Good storm, it was nice to see the heavy rain but I would rather it didn't come all at once because it flattened part of my garden and broke off 2 sunflowers

Damn boyz that was some rain! Looks like it was only about .5" but it sure came down hard for a few minutes there.

Had some drizzle, no wind. Looks like the sun will be out in a few minutes.

Looks like that's the case. It barely drizzled hard enough to wet the ground and the back edge is minutes away. Time to go water the garden...

It rained but not enough to wet the ground under trees or even plant leaves. I didn't water the garden yesterday because that batch of rain looked like it was going to matter. It didn't. Today sure looks more certain but if it gets hot and it misses to the south I have plants that are gonna cook.

Another beautiful day in the 60's here. We had a few sprinkles that didn't even wet the ground.

I got lucky and stayed warm enough I only lost a few flowers that were at the end of their cycle anyway. So I put stuff on the grill for a long slow burn and turn around to look at the garden and realized that the sky is ugly. What's with this incoming wetness? I guess I should've paid attention... Speaking of garden mine is killing it! Holy greens batkidz, I've got the best one yet. I had a little ant colony in the potato box problem but a 70% vinegar mixture splashed into it took care of things nicely. Apparently it's toxic to ants. Who knew. Even better is it shouldn't affect the newly forming potatoes at all. Did you know that a vinegar and lemon juice cocktail kills termites? Organic ways to eliminate crawlies without affecting your garden

Very heavy rain with some rumbles..

I think yesterday might have been a little bit soupier but the overall sogginess is depressing. Bring on the sun! But keep the temps in the low 70's

Fourth overnight and morning in a row of dense fog and heavy mist. Yesterday never cleared and dried and it barely dried the previous two days before the wet set in again. The surface of everything is wet and soggy, mold is setting in, mushrooms are thick, skeeters and gnats are happy and some of my garden is too but the slugs and snails are out early this year as are other plant eating bugs. Strange things is it's just the surfaces that are wet, 1/2" or less below the surface and it's bone dry.

Yup we're having another "good" bug year. The exterminator was here today and he flushed all sorts of cool looking critters. Between that, the black caterpillars and the slug and snail babies that showed up in the very wet garden from 3 days of dense fog in the mornings it's just a wonderfully buggy day here

Once the continent dries out for the season the warm air is always away from the coasts. This doesn't bode well for the upcoming fire season, they have so many strikes against them already that this year could end up a real doozy.

Misty, drizzly, dreary blech... You can keep it.

I'm very much the same way. If you have time you should head to Somers National, it's a super hilly and twisty affordable (during the week) 18. Yay another misty wet day. This morning with the third dense fog morning in a row the slug and snail babies were out in force in the garden. I spent 4 hours with a tweezer and little shovel pulling them off plants and the ground. Yuck...