Happy Independence Day! My garden staged a revolution while I was gone, and as is so often the case in such situations, there were casualties.
See, what happened was, the very morning we were leaving, we awoke at 2 a.m. to the artillery fire of hail on our metal roof. The hail was the size of shooter marbles, and there was a lot of it. We also got almost two inches of rain in half an hour. It was a violent storm, and it did some damage.
Immediately after that, while we were gone, the temperatures rose into the low to mid 90s. Our neighbor was coming to take care of the animals, and his daughter was nice enough to water the garden for me a couple of days. Which is why they saw when the dreaded harlequin bugs arrived. I got a text from our neighbor with the sad news that bugs had taken over the garden, along with photos of the damage.
It was extensive. It was mostly the rutabagas and cabbages that got decimated, of course, because harlequin bugs prefer plants in the brassica family.
The one-two-three punch of hail, heat, and harlequin bugs (alliteration alert!) made for a pretty sad garden when I returned.
Sad, denuded rutabaga.
Oh, and those rutabagas? I harvested them, because some of them had gotten pretty big already, so they were fine to dig. I was excited, because I love rutabaga.
Too bad these were turnips.
Big! But . . . turnips. Boo.
I realized this when I was peeling them to cook them. They were white inside, and the experimental raw bite I took was distinctly peppery. Rutabagas are yellow-fleshed and sweet. I found my seed packet from Seeds 'n' Such to check that I hadn't accidentally ordered the wrong thing, and nope. Those were supposed to be Laurentian Rutabagas. They are not. They are turnips.
A. said, "Hey, at least you know turnips grow here!"
Yeah, but I don't really LIKE turnips. I like rutabagas.
Bummer.
Anyway.
I harvested the rest of the cabbages and started a crock of sauerkraut as well. I think I lost at least three tomato plants to the hail, but the rest seem to have new growth on them. The snow peas gave up entirely after being infested by the bugs and withering in the heat. About half the basil plants, which were still quite small, died.
I also dug up three dead potato plants, in addition to the random garlic plants that were in the potato bed.
Not bad for just a few potato plants. They don't typically grow great here, but at least we got something.
You know what grew nicely while we were gone, though? The weeds. Of course.
So I've been spending the past few days weeding, watering, and salvaging. As well as squishing swallowtail caterpillars, which are determined to eat all my dill and parsley. I can typically keep up with harlequin bugs by picking them off and dropping them in soapy water, but they multiplied too much while we were gone for that to be effective. In an effort to keep them off the rest of our plants, A. sprayed the dead pea plants, rutabaga tops, and cabbage plants after harvesting with some pesticide we had.
Gardening feels like nothing so much as an ongoing battle sometimes.
So tell me, fellow gardeners: How are things in your garden on this holiday?
We have enjoyed rain nearly every day since we planted our garden, or at least it feels that way. We couldn't get out to work in the garden those days. Then there were the days you would swear we live in the Great Smokey Mountains (because of heavy smoke from Canada). We didn't go out much those days. Cough. Cough. So the weeds are thriving, but my 15yo son told me last night that our plans for the today are to weed the green beans.
ReplyDeleteOther than that, things to be growing well. I hope you didn't have too much vehicle damage from the hail!
Rutabagas are an underappreciated vegetable imo. I'm from SC and I grew up on it. It is the devil to peel and chop up, but so worth it. I love to make a pork roast and add pieces to the pot. I also love turnips, but not as much as rutabagas.:)
ReplyDeleteCrazy question, but are greenhouses an option? I know there is the cost and you can only make them so big, but with the heat and lack of rain, I didn't know if anyone there used them. Maybe it would get too hot inside at times?
I am losing to woodchucks, who love kohlrabi. I have to put in the last tomato stakes. Beets did not come up. But I have had peas and strawberries. Beans have been devoured in their tender infancy
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Mil
I pulled up the 4 vegetable plants a colleague had given me. They hadn't died but never really grew. Probably not enough sun. So into the yard waste bag they went. We finally had a few days of storms and rain, though the tornado and derecho went south of us. So everything here is growing!
ReplyDeleteJenlee: A couple of people do have greenhouses here, yes. They are difficult, though, because of the intense sun and the extreme wind we get. They have to be well ventilated and very well anchored. I should imagine hail could damage them, too.
ReplyDeleteJody: No damage from the hail to anything but the plants, thank goodness.
ReplyDeleteWhen it gets hot down here, we get bugs that suck all the juices out of any fruit- tomatoes, melons, squash- and make the fruit rot faster and have weird patches that don't quite ripen. That's what finished off our tomatoes this year.
ReplyDeleteOne sad word says it all: deer.
ReplyDeleteOh gosh, that's a deadly trio, no matter how lovely the alliteration.
ReplyDeleteMy pea plants are being attacked by oidium :-( apparently a bicarb-oil solution can help, i need to try. On the positive sice, I have a full garden bed full of volunteer melon (I think)
Claire
There was a national mixup of pepper seeds this year, maybe your rutabaga/turnips were involved too?
ReplyDeletehttps://gardenprofessors.com/escandalo-seedy-mixup-results-in-jalapenogate-drama-across-the-us/
Natalie J.: That's funny. The MiL got some kohlrabi seeds from Seeds 'N' Such that she's almost sure as collards. It's an epidemic. :-)
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