More on Milk, Amendments and Potato Beetles

I just want to mention that this year is supposed to be particularly good for potato beetles and that in past years, I have been particularly good at giving them a habitat. Last year, I even added a new type that prefers tomatillos and husk cherries.

This year, I definitely have seen the potato beetles struggling a bit more in the habitat I'm providing by planting potatoes, tomatillos, and husk cherries. They keep getting a jump when it rains and washes all that is good in my soil away. But, I keep knocking them back.

First, I waited to put hay around the plants until after they were a good size. I mounded the plants the first two times with dirt. The good thing is that it gives the beetles fewer places to hide; the bad thing is that the soil was exposed to the dry weather for the first couple of weeks, then the deluge afterwards. About two weeks ago, we got 4 inches of rain in two days and that's when the potato beetle numbers rose to what I'm used to seeing in my garden.

The larvae pretty quickly ate all the leaves off the new growth from around 30% of my plants before I sprayed my milk and complete feed foliar spray. Then, I spent about 3 hours picking all the larvae off. Then we had another huge storm that knocked all the plants over.

So this week, I was prepared for another onslaught. What I found was the growth that had been chewed away regenerated. And, the stems that were exposed by the plants blowing over were also covered in new leaves. And, though there were some new larvae, there were fewer than 5 adult beetles and only about 10 out of the 60 plants had any larvae on them. And, I found only one very small cluster of eggs.

What this means to me is that my plants are pretty strong. The new leaves mean that the plants are better able to keep making bigger potatoes. While I am still struggling against the potato beetles, I am definitely getting the upper hand. We're a few weeks, 2 or 3, away from when I figure we'll see blight this wet, wet year, and the potatoes still have so many leaves that blight might actually be an issue. But maybe, my plants will be robust enough that they can even beat blight.

I actually just really hope to not find out.

More on Bugs and Milk

Maybe you've heard, but we have had inordinate amounts of rain in the last month- so much rain that there aren't many strawberries because they've molded on the vine. Being from Texas means I avoid complaining about rain. And our grass is the most beautiful we've ever seen it because of all this rain. Our cow is very happy with all the nice pasture.

However, there are complications. You might think that we would always need rain because of our sandy soil. You would almost be right. Even as wet and sopping as everything is right now, if we do go the next five days without rain, the garden and the pasture will show signs of stress.

Still, the garden is suffering. The sandy soil means that none of my plants are standing in water, not even with all the hay I've put in the garden for mulch. What has happened is that all this rain easily leeches nutrients from our soil. Soil without nutrients means the plants do not have all the trace elements they need to have happy bacteria and fungi around their roots. For all I know, the inundation might even wash away some of those microbes, because it has rained and rained and our soil looks a lot like beach sand.

The rain also washes away my foliar feeds, so I have been spraying milk twice a week instead of once. And still, the latest deluge seemed to be the final straw for the potatoes and pumpkins. The potatoes are crawling with potato beetle larvae and the squash beetles have killed two pumpkin vines. To give a little perspective, my potatoes are still leafy and lush, not a bunch of bare stalks, and this time last year, the cucumber beetles had eaten most of the vines to the ground, so even with these setbacks, I'm still ahead of where I was last year. Also, I have mulched heavily with hay, so I have trapped some of this water to get the plants through the next little dry spell.

I also ordered more of the trace mineral/complete feed from Nutrient Dense Supply Company. I have the recipe for making it myself, but so far, it's been worth it to just buy it from them. Yesterday, I sprayed this at the maximum concentration with more milk. Now, it's not supposed to rain for a few days, so maybe the plants can get a leg up, and the various invertebrates will not thrive.

I'll post pictures of the garden soon!