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Interior NW & NE Burbs 2020


IrishRob17
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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 :) 

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59 minutes ago, gravitylover said:

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.

You're in a slightly better spot than me, but still not sure I would bank on nature's irrigation today if things are dry. We 0.04" probably. While the NAM is wet, check out the disparity between simu-radar and actual radar valid at 9 am. Abysmal.

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16 minutes ago, gravitylover said:

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

 

17 minutes ago, gravitylover said:

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

Yup it was a quick hit not at severe criteria here. Had 0.17 in the early am event and 0.52 in this recent one. 0.69 for the day.

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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?

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2 hours ago, gravitylover said:

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?

Overwatering wouldn't cause instant death like that unless the garden were literally submerged... you'd see yellowing and then stunted growth over the course of days and weeks. It's definitely toasty out but nothing we haven't seen yet, so it's also difficult to envision the brassicas just up and dying from heat without bolting first. Got any pix? What you describe is unfortunately consistent with cutworm activity. They feed at night, and the plants start wilting severely and suddenly on the next sunny day. Hopefully it's something else.

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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 ;)

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2 hours ago, gravitylover said:

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

The cucumber beetles came out with guns blazing this week so they've been my main adversary as of late. Also probably gonna need to copper fungicide my maters after this soupy weather. Love spending 500 man-hours and $1500 to grow $73 worth of produce. :)

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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.

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1 hour ago, Juliancolton said:

The cucumber beetles came out with guns blazing this week so they've been my main adversary as of late. Also probably gonna need to copper fungicide my maters after this soupy weather. Love spending 500 man-hours and $1500 to grow $73 worth of produce. :)

That’s why I say it’s easier to maintain the lawn and flower gardens, my wife can deal with the veggie garden. Dry begets dry around here, sure it’s damp but it doesn’t add up to much of anything. 

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Yeah, there's a trade-off though as plants respond more vigorously to rain water vs. well or tap water. Rain has the benefit of natural nitrates, especially when accompanied by nitrogen-fixing lightning, as well as trace micronutrients picked up on the way down. Poor man's fertilizer. It also avoids the nasty salts delivered by softened water. You can sort of work around the latter handicap by testing and improving your soil's cation exchange capacity but I start to lose my bearings when delving that deep into the chemistry side of things.

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