How to Water - over head or at the base of the plant

Which way should you water your plants? When it comes to vegetables there are certain plants it is best to take precautions with and NOT do overhead watering. Tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers and watermelons in particular are all plants that get fungal diseases (blights and powdery mildew.)



These tomatillos have lots of space at the
bottom so they can be watered easily at
the base without getting the leaves wet.

Wet leaves set up the perfect conditions for disease to get established. For these plants it is much better to water at the base (ground level) and not get the leaves and stems wet.

You can't control the amount of water that comes from the sky but you can control where you place the water when you are hand watering.

There are 4 or 5 tomatoes in here. Only one
is easy to water without getting the foliage wet.
The only choice IS to water through the leaves.

But....there is always a BUT....if we haven't had any rain for several weeks it is a good idea to give the plants a shower to wash the dirt and grime off the leaves.

Carrots






Any time you wash a plants leaves off, do it early enough in the day (at least an hour before dark) to give the foliage time to dry before dark.

Carrots, lettuce, and greens on the other hand, like to get their foliage washed when they get watered. So you can do overhead watering frequently on them. As you can see above, it is hard to water just at the base of a carrot in a bed of carrots so you do have to get the foliage wet every time you water.

Vicki - Bed 41

Sauteed Squash with Red Onion & Parmesan Cheese

Hey Everyone,

I know I just threw a recipe out there but with all the rain, the squashes are growing faster than the blink of an eye.  Last night's dinner was truly a farm to table recipe as all I needed from the store was a block of Parmesan cheese to shave.  Everything else came straight from the garden, although a bit wet!

Simply delightful!

Sauteed Squash with Red Onion & 
Parmesan Cheese!

Ingredients:

Squash & zucchini need to measure 6 cups when diced.

3 - 4 medium size yellow crookneck squash

2 - 3 medium size zucchini's 

1 large red onion

1 large or two small minced cloves of garlic

1 - 1 1/2 tablespoons of Bertolli Extra Light Virgin Olive Oil

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. of fresh ground black pepper

1/4 tsp. of crushed red pepper

1/4 - 1/2 cup of shaved Parmesan cheese

Directions:

Wash all squashes with a vegetable brush.  Cut the squashes into 1/2 inch round slices and then quarter. Just halve the small round pieces.  You need 6 cups of diced squash all together.

Mince the garlic cloves and thinly slice the red onion into vertical pieces, about an inch in size.

Mix the salt, black pepper, and crushed red pepper together, set aside.

Shave the Parmesan cheese and set aside.

Heat oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium heat for 1 - 1 1/2 minutes.  Add the squashes, onion, and garlic.  Cook 6 - 7 minutes until the onion is tender, stirring gently and frequent.

Remove from heat.  Mix in the salt and both peppers.

Add the Parmesan cheese and serve.

Makes two full plate dinners or 4 - 6 sides.

Hope you enjoy,

Denise, Beds 25 & 29    

When to pick squash

Can you guess which of these yellow squash has
just been sitting around developing lots of seeds?

At this time of year and with as much rain as we've been getting squash grows like crazy (as do the cucumbers but that is a story for another day.) One day you have tiny barely formed squash and 2 days later you have eating sized squash.

If you are trying to grow baseball bat sized zucchini than just leave them on the vine. But if you want nice tender zucchini, you'll need to pick frequently. And carefully look under every leaf.

The zucchini in this picture range from baseball bat
size to young and tender.

Picking frequently encourages the plant to keep producing and it also keeps the vegetables from getting rotten from sitting on the ground. The goal of all plants is to reproduce by flowering, fruiting and setting seed. The larger you let your veggies get, the closer to completing the life cycle the plant gets. Which means the plant will decide it doesn't have to flower and set any more vegetables for you to eat.



Squash Bug Life Cycle

Squash bugs unfortunately are one of our biggest pests at the garden. For some reason we have been afflicted with them in great numbers ever since the garden first started. Squash bugs are bad because they spread disease from one squash plant to the other and they also reduce the productivity of the squash plant.

It is easy to see the adults but not so easy to see the nymphs when they hatch out.  You have to really examine all your squash plants (leaves, stalks, base of the plant) on a very regular basis to control them. Usually the eggs are found on the undersides of the leaves however in one bed the eggs were found on top of and underneath the leaves.

Look for the adults and  nymphs down in the base of the plants, along stems and the undersides of leaves. If you hand pick (and kill) every adult you see, you won't have nearly as many eggs to remove. And if you remove the eggs as soon as you see them, you won't have any nymphs to deal with either.

Spraying with Azamax will help but you have to be careful not to spray any beneficial insects and to spray at the correct time of day as well as when it isn't windy.

Here is a very handsome specimen, lurking, waiting to find a mate.

Ah ha....several squash bugs have found significant others and are now mating

 

Squash bug eggs are really gorgeous however every one of these eggs will become a pest. All of these need to be removed. The best way to do it is to just cut off the piece of leaf and then take it home to put in the trash. If you just drop the eggs on the ground, throw it in the compost pile or in the woods, the eggs will STILL hatch out!

These eggs are very close to hatching. Notice they have

 turned very translucent and some are almost white.

 

Baby squash bugs that have just hatched out. Soon

they will be adults looking for mates.