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Wednesday, June 2, 2010

I'm winning the battle

I think I might be winning the battle against the Colorado potato beetles. Last evening I sprayed with pemethrin, malathion, liquid sevin and tobacco juice and today there are very few bugs to be found on the taters. As I was spraying last evening the bugs were falling off some of the plants and seem to not like the spray. They did not do this the last time when I used only the pemethrin. So I don't know if it was the combo or the nicotine that did the job. If it doesn't rain tomorrow I plan to give them another round of the medicine to see if I can eliminate them all together. I don't like using spray but I also don't like the idea of not having taters.
While we were in the field checking the garden I got some of the passion fruit vines dug up and put in pots to see if they will transplant well. It is hard to keep things watered in pots this time of year due to the heat. If the passion fruit vines live I might move them to the front of the cellar and give them something to climb on. The thorn less blackberry is doing great there and has grown alot since I planted it.
I weeded the herb bed again to get the grass out. I think a lot of the grass seed get blown in the bed when the yard gets mowed. My OCD keeps me busy trying to maintain a perfectly weedless bed. I really need to expand the herb bed, really double the size if I can locate enough old railroad ties to do that. And get my wagon fixed to haul dirt in. I really don't like hauling dirt in the back of my pick-up with a topper on it. Too hard to clean out when I'm done. Or maybe I'm just lazy. On to tomorrow and see what happens then. Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

9 comments:

Mary said...

I hope you win the war!
I have that urge to keep the grass/weeds out of beds too--and usually it gets me through spring so the plants are able to take over for me. We are already pretty hot and very humid usually. I have found a use for stray grass though. I started to weed the centipede grass out of my beds and toss it by the pool. Now it has rooted and is filling in the bare area near the pool--so its like free lawn. :)

dgr said...

Lazy???? You??????? HAHAHAHA...

stella said...

HI ya'll, hope all is well with ya. Dang this heat is gettin to me. I walk outside and in about 5 minutes I am soakin wet with sweat. Hot flashes and hot weather do not mix well. lol THas what makes me lazy. lol

Fred Abner said...

Stella,

Malathion? Don't use that! Go to Gardens Alive and get Bullseye. Guaranteed you will like it.

Fred

stella said...

Hey Fred, I havent used bullseye. We dont have a farm store here locally so we have to get things when we are out of town which is not often or order online. I used rotenone and pyrethrum mix on tater bugs last year and it did not phase them. We lost all the taters because we couldnt get them under control. What is the active ingredient in the Bullseye spray?

Fred Abner said...

Stella,
I don't know the active ingredient in Bullseye but Gardens Alive sells the best, low impact to the environment, Insecticides. (GardensAlive.com) I guarantee it will kill all your Beetles on them 'taters. Have you every tried to raise Kennebec Potatoes? I did an experiment last year, one row each of Pontiac's, Irish, and Kennebec. The Kennebec produced twice as much as the others and they keep solid longer than any potato I have every raised. Try them next year if you can get some sets.

Fred Abner said...

Sorry about the spelling of "ever"

Fred Abner said...

Stella,

Have you seen the embroidered pillows that say, "I'm still hot, but now it just comes in flashes".
lol

Fred

stella said...

Hi Fred, yeh we tried to raise the Kennebec last year and that is what the bugs ate completely up. We had better luck with the Pontiacs as far as bug damage. We have a root cellar now and the local used to be farm store fellow gave us the seed taters for the Yukon gold. I noticed they had very few spots on them where eyes would grow. am thinkin this would tranlate in to less sprouts in storage as well. A friend of mine raises the yukon gold an i have seen hers in spring and they are still firm with very few sprouts.
I just looked at the website for bullseye and it seems to be a different type of BT that is the active ingredient. Thanks for the info, I will order some today.
lol I need a tee shirt that has "that" saying on it.