Happy Sunday, Garden Friend!
Here in central North Carolina, the brisk winds of autumn have shoved summer aside... Have the fall winds found you yet? :-) It's definitely great weather for gardening.
Speaking of which, here are our updates from the past week!
WINTER SQUASH - RED KURI
Last week we were really excited to see the Red Kuri winter squash had gone kind of crazy. Good crazy, with the vines all over the shade cloth covering the wire arch, and the squash fruit looked to be maturing well.
I gave them a good shot of comfrey tea earlier as a booster. So with that plus the added heat of the black shade cloth, the kuri is loving its vertical growing environment on top of a cattle panel tunnel.
However… just two days later we spotted some worms making trouble on our biggest nicest squash. Not pretty! You can read about it here.
BCT (Bacillus thuringiensis) to the RESCUE
So we immediately started a daily dose of liquid BCT and it seems to be helping. Several dead worms have been discovered on the surface of a few of the squash. We’ll keep this up on a daily basis and hope it ‘s not too late.
For those curious about the pickle worms, here’s a good reference.
We see from this link, that spraying BCT is discouraged, but we are streaming the material into the holes and have seen the little worms back out and die. Again, time will tell.
SUNCHOKES / JERUSALEM ARTICHOKES
We harvested sunchokes this week and made a video to go along with the operation. You can see that video in this article.
It’s still VERY dry around here and has also been hot until just yesterday (Saturday, 10/5) being our first cool day of fall at 61 degrees high. We’re so looking forward to a prodigious rain. Speaking of which:
RAIN CHAINS - More than Artsy
Rain chains are actually beneficial for channeling rain back into the soil or rain barrels, which can keep the water out of sewers and treatment plants. Far better to send it through the soil for purification and hydration instead. You can read more here!
WANT LONGEVITY SPINACH / GYNURA PROCUMBENS?
In case you missed it in the email sent out last night, for the first time ever, we’re offering some plants for sale. We have only a limited number… and won’t know exactly how many until we start snipping and packaging. We shared this with our email folks first before opening up to the public page and Planting for Retirement group.
What's growing on in your garden?
We'd love to hear what's happening in your garden patch! Any stories, observations, photos, or questions... Bring it on! You can reply to this email or share on the GardensAll Facebook page!
In Gratitude and Appreciation,
The Aldersons,
Coleman, LeAura, Devani, & Nikolai
...and the Dogs: Zoya, Caspian, Zeus and Mystique the black cat
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