The Ladybugs Have Arrived!!

Today was an excellent day! We got everything planted and the ladybugs are here!!

The box of bugs

Bag of Bugs

Bugs!

More bugs!

Ladybugs in he garden. Sorry i didn't notice it was so out of focus. 

There are ladybugs on every pepper plant!

The finished garden!

More garden.

I released a total of 2000 ladybugs. A few hundred in the greenhouse and the rest in the garden. They went to work right away eating all the aphids. 

For anyone wondering my new student is working out awesome. She's doing a wonderful job. 

Now that i'm done planting i'm going for a well deserved swim!

I made the garden bigger!

Today I decided that it was time to expand this garden. I have entirely too many peppers and i would like to plant more lettuce, carrots and other random things. 

Meet Betsy the backhoe, and my Dad. 

Garden before.

Another shot of the garden. 

While i was standing there waiting for my Dad to finish digging i noticed a beetle and worm fighting. I wish i could have gotten an action shot, but this is all i got. The beetle won. 

Just after i finished tilling. 

Rows are prepped and my fence is back up. I ran out of nice fence so i have to search the buildings for snow fence. Tomorrow i'll fix it with nice fence. My mother asked me nicely not to leave bright orange snow fence up. 

This is how big it is now. 

Another shot of the length now. 

The greenhouse is now holding 180 peppers. Aphids are still going strong, my ladybugs will be here in 3 days. 

The rest of the peppers and the reason i had to expand the garden right away. They're all doing really well and all the aphids left. 

I'm so close to having everything in the ground i can taste it. I figure about 4 more days and i should be done.  

On a side note my little rubber shoes cracked and my feet have been wet for days and now i have athletes foot. Always something. 

So much planting to do!

I've been so busy i haven't been able to post any of the pictures I've taken this week. There are still 3 more rows to plant and another 100 ft to dig up and prep for next year. I'm actually not sure everything will fit in this garden, i may have to start prepping an extension on Monday. I have a little over 200 peppers that need a home. I'll have too see what my space looks like after i finish getting my seeds in today. 

Here's a picture update!

I planted the giant tomatoes the other day. They're doing well, i have little tomatoes starting everywhere and there are blooms on everything. 

Here's a little tomato on one of my smaller tomato plants. I ran out of string to tie them up so they're all a little floppy right now. Plus they were under a row cover for 3 days so they look slightly beat up. 

Got the squash and watermelon in, as well as the lemon cucumbers. 

It's a pepper!

Poblano pepper

More peppers!

Sweet Red Long peppers.

More pepper plants. 

And some more. 

The aphid situation hasn't changed much, i'm basically just keeping them at bay until my ladybugs arrive in the next few days. They're still beating up my plants pretty bad, but not nearly as bad as they were.  Presently i'm spraying them every day with dish soap, water and vegetable oil. I thought for a while that i may have some green lace wings in there but i don't have enough to curb the aphid population. I have a load of fat spiders, but not enough to even put a dent in the aphids. 

We finished transplanting all the peppers in the greenhouse yesterday, i had some help from a very lovely friend. The rest of the peppers went outside yesterday to harden, not the best way to harden off pepper plants but i figure it's time for them to sink or swim. 

The flea beetles have mostly gone away, there are still some munching on the mustard, but it's matured enough now that they can't really make a dent in it. 

My carrots finally sprouted! Took forever, but they're finally up. I'm really happy. 

I'm so close to having everything in the ground i can taste it!

I hired a student to help me for the summer, she starts on Monday. She's pumped about the job and i'm pumped that i have some help! 

It's been a long week of working until the sun goes down but, so far i'm pleased with the results. 

If it's not one thing it's another.

         The flea beetle infestation has subsided. The mustard matured enough to get the flea beetles to slow down on eating them, i still find the odd one here and there but nothing too bad. Poor mustard though, it looks pretty beat up, i'm sure soon enough they'll look like nothing happened to them.

          Half of the tomatoes were planted today, they look a little rough right now. Tomorrow i'm going to give them some cal/mag, molasses and liquid kelp to perk them up.

        I finally finished installing the irrigation and it's presently running. I'm very happy about that!

        Also we put up the trellis for the cucumbers, they're being planted tomorrow.

        While all this lovely stuff happened i also discovered one of the worst aphid infestations I've ever seen in my green house this morning. I spent a good portion of my day fighting with them, it was so bad i had to wash every leaf on every pepper plant. I also intertwined all the basil through all the peppers since apparently aphids don't like basil. It was really discouraging, i was so happy that the flea beetle issue was starting to calm down and then BAM! APHIDS!

           I'm hoping tomorrow won't make me cry.

Second flea beetle update.

We attacked them with fly paper this morning and a slightly tweaked garlic spray. We definitely cut down on the population of beetles.

I've never had so many dead bugs stuck to my hands, very gross but very satisfying.

The garlic spray we made is the most vial smelling thing I've ever smelt. Here's the recipe if you run into a flea beetle problem.

In a big pot with water pour in large amounts of the following:

Garlic Powder
Onion Powder
Cayenne Pepper
Red Pepper Flakes
Siracha  (for good measure)
Vegetable oil

Bring to a boil and let simmer for 5 min. Remove from heat and let cool.

Put it in a spray bottle and spray away.

This isn't going to get rid of them forever, but it'll cut down on them. Use this spray with some fly paper and your flea beetles will have a bad day.

Update on the flea beetle.

My plan did not work this morning, so now i'm onto plan B, hopefully it works. My mustard is looking pretty sad, i'm pretty sure the roots are being attacked as well. I may have to write off this round of planting and wait to plant again.

On a positive note i got half of my irrigation installed.

Meet the flea beetle

So i was planting the onions today and i was on the second row which is next to the mustard and i noticed that it looked like the mustard plants were moving. After my run in with the spider mites i knew that is never a good sign. I went over to check and......

FLEA BEETLES EVERYWHERE!!!

They are very quickly destroying my entire crop of mustard, i'm not sure there will be any left in the morning. Turns out flea beetles LOVE mustard... I came home to come up with a plan of attack for the morning, i'm too exhausted after planting onions all day in the hot sun to attempt to kill these guys. I attacked them with some soap and water with hope of slowing them down. It's supposed to rain tonight so that may save my crop, since it turns out they don't like to eat in the rain. 

I have a pretty good plan, i hope it works. 

I think i grew too many peppers.

Well i'm finally able to start transplanting peppers and i discovered i have too many of them. I haven't decided what i'm going to do yet. I know i need to keep the bell peppers and some of the hot peppers in the greenhouse and then i think i'll attempt to fit the rest in the garden, if they don't fit i may just make the garden bigger so they will fit.

Last night my peppers that were transplanted took off and are the happiest little plants every. Here's some pictures.

Poblano pepper

Yellow Bell Pepper

Green Bell Pepper. 

This little guy was just a flower when i transplanted this plant yesterday. It's a poblano.

Not exactly sure what type of pepper this is yet, i have about 8 trays that i didn't mark cause i ran out of marker stakes. I believe it came in my Portuguese mix. 

It's been a long couple of days for me and the next few weeks are looking about the same. Not sure when i'll have stuff ready to sell but, i think it'll be soon. 

I made a facebook page!

https://www.facebook.com/HsaFarm

The greenhouse has been emptied!

Yesterday i had some help from my lovely man and we finished the rows in the garden. I also got all my nutrients into the soil as well as a load of egg shells that were collected for me by a very lovely lady who makes some wonderful baked goods. My herbs are planted and so are the carrots. 

Now onto the pictures!

Everything that was in the greenhouse minus the peppers. 

Transplanted peppers, i'm not done yet. I figure by tomorrow they should all be transplanted. I have a large amount of bell peppers already starting. No that they're in bigger pots they should shoot up pretty quickly and start blooming. 

Empty Greenhouse

This is my giant Brandywine tomato plant. She's 5'4" and i think i'll name her Big Bertha. 

Mustard!! 

This is what mustard seedlings look like up close. 

Spinach

Garlic

We found this onion left over from last year. It's doing really well, so we transplanted it. Seems like a happy red onion. 

Complete garden

Sadly my lettuce died due to lack of water, luckily it's early and i have more seeds. Irrigation pump is going in the river tomorrow morning and hopefully my system will be here by Monday.

For the last 2 days I've worked my little butt off and things are starting to move along. Today i didn't stop, i think i took 2 5min breaks the entire day. Didn't even stop for lunch. I was so hungry when i got home i ate a hamburger, 2 sausages, and sweet potato fries. My dinner was so huge it required 2 plates.  

Also, i have a wicked tan!