Fed up with the garden

[NoTrespassing]

Sorry to hear some gardens are struggling. Since my wife's schedule changed to week days we're working our garden together this year and it's doing well although running a little behind. I bought a Sun Joe battery tiller and it's really helping keep the weeds down. I'm really looking forward to canning spaghetti sauce, chili, and salsa. We have over 30 tomato plants this year and a bunch of peppers.

 

[masseyrider]

Were oh were do all those Fing beetles come from? And don't say England.
Bumper crop of ladybugs.

 

[Jstpssng]

Were oh were do all those Fing beetles come from? And don't say England.
Bumper crop of ladybugs.

They don't hurt anything though. The natives eat aphids. There also is a species here which the government released to control some other invasive insect, I don't recall what.

 

[ning]

We also had a "cold" winter & spring. Two years ago, we had a super warm February and then a hard freeze in the beginning of March which resulted in zero fruit. Our normal has flowers in April/early May, then good gardens & fruit.
This year, I got two, 2, cherries. Thanks.
Figs are finally showing up, about a centimeter across on our three trees; there's actually three very large figs on one tree strangely enough, it's like it started those and then said "ah maybe we'll wait TWO MORE MONTHS"
My pomegranate bushes finally leafed out. They've yet to flower, and it's July now. I doubt they're going to do much.

Our garden seems ok but not great. Had excellent strawberries and peas, lettuce is good, we'll see how the tomatoes do.

 

[masseyrider]

They don't hurt anything though. The natives eat aphids. There also is a species here which the government released to control some other invasive insect, I don't recall what.

lady bugs = good.
F...ing beetles I meant to say potato beetles. Just hundreds of them. I've never seen so many.

 

[Oaktree]

So we no longer have a garden, for us it's just redundant when the grocery store is a scenic 12 min drive away.

I've heard that argument many times. Gardening is like any hobby, you have to enjoy it because the money saved vs time spent doesn't make for much savings.
Personally, there's nothing like FRESH produce, just picked as opposed to the stuff that's probably close to a week old by the time it gets to the supermarket. You also know how it was grown if that matters to you.

F...ing beetles I meant to say potato beetles. Just hundreds of them. I've never seen so many.

I've found that delaying planting potatoes until around June 20th +/- seems to keep them to a minimum. Still get a decent crop but you've shifted the timing with respect to the bugs' schedule. Obviously timing would vary by where you live and the length of your growing season...I'm in northern New England.
Japanese beetles are a bigger problem for me, haven't found anything that works very well on them.

As far as the garden goes, hope I'm not jinxing it but so far so good. Between an odd May that toggled between abnormally warm temperatures followed by frosts and a rainy cool June (and sofar July) again interspersed with short hot spells my expectations were low.
Peas didn't produce very well, but everything else is going fine. Corn was "knee high on the 4th of July", beans, cukes, tomatoes all ahead of schedule. Even starting to see some small peppers...don't usually get peppers until late August if at all.

 

[NoTrespassing]

Yep, store tomatoes aren't anything like the ones we grow.

 

[Egon]

Bug control?

Guinea hens, chickens, geese, ducks all do a good cleanup

 

[NoTrespassing]

Bug control?

Guinea hens, chickens, geese, ducks all do a good cleanup

I'd love to have some guinea fowl but so would the coyotes.

 

[JJT]

I started planting very early, May 10 for lettuce, peas and radishes, normal planting is Memorial Day weekend. Slow start with a very dry June here, but things have really taken off. Have had a few cukes, onions, lettuce, radishes, zuchini and yellow/summer squash. Peas did not amount to anything, 100% of my cukes had to be replanted and some of the early cukes had a skin blight.

Looks like we'll have a bumper crop of tomatoes, pumpkins and winter squash. Nothing beats fresh veggies from the garden. We share with the neighbors, I always plant too much, figuring the deer and rabbits will get more than their share.

The electric fence seems to be working great, so far no critters in the garden. Weeds of course are out of control, I'm good about weeding until the end of July, then I give up.....