Welcome to the sesame street farm where the grubs chew letters into the produce:) I was washing veggies for my CSA and discovered the letter "e" gnawed into one of my chinese radishes!  I took it on a photo shoot with the interns of LLF and gave the radish a nice Up-do, Erica Badu style.  

It has been SOOOO long since I've blogged, my bad and many apologies...June was, well, a bit of a stinker.  I moved out of my apt of 6 years the same week I started my CSA, my beloved pup passed away, my radiator busted, my auto insurance expired, the generator kept tripping, we thought the well went dry, drought, sandspurs, got sick for 6 days, had an allergic reaction to the beasty that is an heirloom squash from New Zealand...that plant is so mean, however I don't think there is a bug on him!...hmmmm I think that covers it.  Well, you get the gist.

All in all though, the farm is going great!! Here comes the silver lining news and bug report...

Happy to report that the war on squash bugs has been downgraded to a nuisance.  I get attacked, I counter attack, but the threat of total destruction is over...I'm working at acceptable loss, all's well.  I spray spinosad around the base of the plants early in the morning only when I notice that there's a problem.  Spinosad will hurt bees and beneficials, so work early morning or late evening when they are resting.

I have a fairly significant number of worms especially on the beans and my lovely tomatoes.  I've sprayed BT twice so far, early in the a.m. or in the late evening when the wormies are active.  Again, only when I notice that the balance of acceptable bug presence has been breached and turned into an outbreak.  Apparently, BT doesn't last long, so you want to spray well and when the worms are active which is in the evening through to morning. Send a clear message to the army worms and horned worms that snacking on your produce will be hazardous to their health. BT does not harm bees, it is specific to worms.

The worms have moved to the cucumbers, and all of my veggies in the melon family from cukes to watermelon to squash to baby melons have come down with a case of the mildews.  I've sprayed them twice with serenade or copper and mix in some BT.  It isn't anything too serious, very common in our swampy hot summers.  Just a maintenance situation.  Again, these products don't harm all insects but you really don't want to spray anything in the middle of the day, you may burn the leaves of your plants.

The tomatoes had blossom end rot which isn't surprising.  I planted them with espoma tomato fertilizer and bone meal, but I know that my soil was low in calciujm to begin with, so I expected trouble.  I sprinkled gypsum and calcium nitrate into the soil near the base of the plants every couple of weeks or so. The first round of ripe tomatoes went down, got the rot and were gross and squishy...BUT, round two is lookin good.  It seems that the tomatoes have recovered from blossom end rot and are ripening into a rainbow of colors.  I think our chef friends are happy:)

The CSA is going well!  Fun veggies and flower bouquets to sell each week.   All sorts of produce is coming in...it is so rewarding to actually pick this produce that I've been dreaming about since I purchased the seed.  So here's to July and the promise of a new month!

Happy fourth of July everyone and thank you for reading:)