The Passing of Irene, the Hurricane

Today the sky looked so blue with flowing clouds giving a peaceful moment after the storm. Very impressive! -- Our thoughts are with the people of Vermont and New Hampshire in the wake of Hurricane Irene, many towns suffered severe flooding. 

Current view of the garden after the storm. Picture taken on 8/29

After experiencing the uninvited raiders at the garden, like those horn worms who  champ the tomatoes from our garden are keeping us busy trying to find out a solution.

I thought twice before cutting off our huge green tomatoes, I think I need time to evaluate the damage. Later on Saturday I decided to harvest some veggies. 

A garden friend: a lady bug.

Like a miracle, there is no damage in this garden project after the storm. None! That pleased me so much! All that has left after this natural disaster is some bent pepper plants, the problem was fixable. 

Pepper plant, the only damage. It looks a little bent.

On Saturday, August 27, 2011, we harvested most of the ripe vegetables, before "Irene" pass trough .

 

Then the harvesting was shared with friends of the church. 

The compost bin was checked. The temperature was ideal around 120º F.  To provide the right aeration, the pile was turned adding some straw to keep the moisture. We added some coffee ground, we know that worms love this!

Our compost bin

During the work party on Monday 8/29, little Chelsea shared with me a salad self-made from the harvest of the garden! It is so impressive to see when children are involved on organic gardening activities.

Veggie salad made by Chelsea Robinson with organic vegetables from the garden.

 Here I am with Isaiah and Chelsea showing off the harvest, and a kitty, their pet is posing with us.

Oh, Nooo!! What Are They?

Gardening should have always a permanent surveillance. If gardeners don’t monitor the garden constantly. After I checked the place, the soil looked good, weeds almost gone, no signs of early blight in tomatoes, nor the mildew powder in zucchinis. Life in the garden looked almost perfect -- until I noticed that some of the tomato leaves were suddenly blighted. This was an alert!  

 We found seven awful tomato hornworms...picking them off was an uncomfortable experience.

We were delighted with the previous rain. As usual, we stopped and checked the chopped tomato leaves, suddenly I touched something that looked as a pickled cucumber with a thicker bumpy skin growing as if this were part of the tomato plant! Imagine a texture like that on a tomato. Absolute nonsense!  It was a hornworm. Its size was about 3 1/2 to 4 inches (7-10cm) – I had never seen one since I started to grow vegetables and flowers in this country back in 2007.

Knowing About the Tomato Hormworm Tomato Hornworms are the larva of a huge moth called five-spotted hawkmoth. Approximate size of the moth is around the size of a hummingbird. It is gray-brown with yellow spots on the sides of their body.

Hornworm Lifecycle
The five-spotted hawkmoths lay their eggs as soon as they mate after hatching. They appear in late June to August. Full grown larva (3-4 weeks feeding) wander around the garden digging themselves in where they form a pupa (brown and about 3cm long) that overwinters and hatches in the spring.


How To Control Tomato Hornworms

1. Use a liquid Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) does not harm animals, people or the environment. It paralyzes the horn worms and they die from starvation. Spray the top and bottom of the tomato plant leaves. 
2. Spraying the undersides of the leaves with an insecticidal soap mixture kills the eggs at the first sign of seeing the moths. 
3. Parasitc Wasps (Braconid and Trichogramma) lay their eggs on the larva. If you see little white things on the worm don’t kill the worm, place it in a jar with a fresh leaf and keep feeding it until the wasps do their job. These are the cocoons of the wasp and their larva feed inside the host and will kill it. 
4. Hand Pick. Tomato Hornworms are so big you cannot miss these guys.
5. Companion Planting. Plant marigolds as a deterrent around or between your tomatoes. Marigolds stink to a lot of different bugs and they avoid them.

Source: http://organicgardensite.com/bugs-harmful/tomato-horn-worms/

Hand picking and Bt spray have been applied to the garden!

What Are Those Cracked Tomatoes?

Cracked Fourth of July Tomatoes 

If you recently have seen your tomatoes split or cracked in this way, you might wondering if they are lacking of food, or maybe some pest has attacked your crop. The truth is that this is quite common by fluctuations in watering . Due to heavy watering after a long period of no water. 


When it begins to ripen during a spell without water, the outer skin will thicken and toughen up. A sudden influx of water will cause the tomato to swell or continue growing on the inside. This swelling will then cause the skin to rupture resulting in a split or crack . Exposing the flesh can invite disease. 

Chart information taken from the "Vegetable Gardener's Bible" by Ed Smith

That is why, in our recent garden meeting we talked about the importance of watering, considering that humans need 75% of water in our bodies, and:

• Corn       70% of water
• Potato    80% of water
• Tomato  90% of water

Keeping the right amount of watering in our crops, it will prevent stress and malfunctions in our vegetables.

 

Recycling Plastic Plant Pot Containers

On Saturday was the day to check our garden storage and clear out all our collection of plastic plant pots to be recycled. 

Thank you to the Sustainable Hanover Recycling of NH who is working with Longacres Nursery  for caring the environment in this way.

Property of Longacres Nursery helping to keep out of the trash/landfill  all the plastic plant containers. They will be recycled in to new pots. 

I spoke with Susan Edwards member of the sub-committee of HGC and Sustainable Hanover Recycling-NH, about this brilliant idea. As you may see the pictures all the containers are ready to mail out to somewhere in Connecticut. 

Our project Beyond Veggies and Flowers of LUMC, wanted to be part of the recycling plan.

Sharing the Harvesting

On a sunny and shiny Sunday, I picked more treasures from the garden. The previous days we had been busy, weeding and harvesting.  The organic vegetables were placed on the Coffee Hour table where the LUMC friends can enjoy their moment after Sunday service sharing the news, making comments and enjoying part of the harvesting of the church garden. 

Front of the Lebanon United Methodist Church, LUMC. Summer 2011

Squash in bloom and bees doing its job pollinating

The pepper and squash are looking so nice. 

Finally I got a lawn sign stand at Home Depot in West Lebanon, NH to mark the VT Master Gardener project.

Garden Tour

The garden tour at the Canillas Community Garden has started with free tomato tasting, some of the gardeners, including Michael and I, shared our favorite tomatoes: Fourth of July and Sungold. 

Patty McGovern and Polly preparing the tour. Thank you to them for all their effort to keep a successful community garden.

Michael's crop is full of healthy and yummy tomatoes. He is preparing every day tomato salad with feta cheese, cucumber, onion, virgin olive oil, salt and pepper. 
These are behind the scenes, where visitors in a garden tour don't have the chance to see beyond gardening organic vegetables.

Showing off my favorite crop: garlic, hot pepper and basil among flowers.

Maintenance in the Garden

The first ripe 4th of July tomatoes.

For a gardener there are no miracles when working in a garden. Perseverance, monitoring, fertilizing, watering and taking care of plants are part of a successful gardening journey.

I have built some rustic tepees to try the vertical garden, giving the cukes plenty room to climb and display the bloom of the other climber: morning glory flowers. The bees will be attracted to this and we need them as garden companions to pollinate our plants! 

We found many Morning glories around the patio and we decided to transplant some seedlings  beside the cucumbers. Their early morning bloom will enhance the garden although the bloom will show off only in the mornings.

Pastor Jill, and her children Chelsea and Isaiah, were volunteering during the week by soaking the plants with fish emulsion as part of the task of fertilizing. I love Isaiah’s enthusiasm on willing to help.

Tip of the Week

Removing Tomato Suckers
This is the shoot or sucker that grow out between the vertical stem of a tall tomato plant and the branch leaves. If side shoots are not removed, the plant’s growing energy will be directed outward into the side shoots. Each of these shoots will form a further truss and the plant will become more of a bush in shape.

Keeping Pets out of the Garden

The cute kitty of the house has been ripping out the beet seedlings, trying to find a place for its facilities, leaving all the effort in making a garden beautiful in a disaster.  A concoction of garlic and  habanero hot pepper was sprayed on the area. Some flakes of cayenne pepper will work perfect too to keep the cat away.

I picked some pebbles from the nearby river while I was swimming with my husband.  They were a little  heavy to carry but it was worth the effort because now they made a nice border to the plants. Also, special thanks to the Canillas Community Garden for donating some bark mulch to cover the soil

The VT Extension Master Gardening Program partnering with LUMC has sent out the sign for the garden, I am going to buy a lawn sign stand soon to display it properly!  

Bulletin board in the fellowship hall of the LUMC

Through her photography skills, Jodi Austin, another garden volunteer and member of the church, keeps our church family updated about happenings and activities of interest. She recently created a poster for the bulletin board in Fellowship Hall featuring the garden project "Beyond Veggies and Flowers" so members of  the congregation can see what is happening in the garden.  “Thank you Jodi”!