as with every saturday lately, the morning was spent out in the garden working, rearranging, watering and dealing with the bugs (more on that later).
i thinned the swiss chard again, taking out about half, now that it is a good 9–12 inches high. the rest can get even bigger i hope. success is sweet; i took in enough to put a bag in the freezer; the tiny leaves in the strainer above will get chopped into a quiche in a day or two. we’ll probably eat that bok choy tomorrow with some rice, squash, and fish.
i also thinned out the salad greens; i have a pot of lettuce that i over-sowed, plus two garden rows of mixed asian salad greens that germinated beyond belief and were on top of each other.
in case you thought i was kidding about the tiny lettuce salad, i’m not—i’ve got about 6 or 8 cups of tiny greens here. mark and beckie are coming for dinner tonight and we’re all eating it.
with these
and a cucumber i picked yesterday.
as it happens, most everything we’re eating tonight came from the garden. i have a dish of eggplant parmagiano from the freezer that was baked last winter with the last of the garden eggplant (we picked eggplant til almost thanksgiving last year) along with sauce from garden tomatoes (the cheese was purchased). and i have a pan of the stuffed peppers we all love (the last of last year’s).
time to clear the freezer . . . the new stuff is starting to come in regularly and we need room for it. in fact, while the coffee perked this morning i put up 2 quarts of zucchini chunks. soon we’ll be doing tomatoes.
about the bugs . . . thanks for all your sympathies but today i think i have avenged myself (hide your eyes if you are sensitive about dying insects)
after i finished harvesting and working this morning, i sprayed everything with a good dose of rotenone and they are dropping like stones. all those black speckles there are the wee ones—thousands of them.
i’m not exactly thrilled to be the cause of so much carnage, but i’m hoping it is balanced by saving the life of the greenery and produce.
21 thoughts on “some carnage we got here”
Oh no, the carnage was necessary. The fact that you are still working through last year’s bounty shows you are an outstanding gardner and I would defend it to.
Did you utter a war cry when you started spraying?
Excelsior, Anne – them bugs wanted killin’.
You gotta do what you gotta do. All’s fair in love and gardening. 😉
You know, a really good and non-toxic instant bug killer is — tah dah! — any spray cleaner! Yes, the kind you use on kitchen counters. I use one by Seventh Generation. If they are crawly bugs (ants, for instance) then put food-grade diatomaceous earth (it’s non-toxic too) on the ground where they crawl. Got this information from a local integrated pest management guy, so this is “real” information.
Hee hee, carnage away! Die bugs, die, lol!
Wow! Look at them! I remember a few years back a neighborhood in Seattle that I lived near was going to be sprayed for those beetles. Some people were protesting which is why I heard about it. But wow… that IS some serious damage that they cause! I can see why the city of Seattle wanted to make sure they were contained and eliminated before they spread!
Wow… dude those bugs had it coming…. you have to make sure that you can feed your family. good for you for getting such a great garden! I moved this season, and didn’t have time for planting… I miss fresh veggies, good thing I have a great local farm market.
The sight of your dead bugs makes my heart sing! Thanks to both you and Kay the Arky for some great pest control strategies.
Yummy fresh vegetables & getting rid of the bugs is really necessary. I have a couple of lemon trees & lots of bugs too.
Wow! I’m so impressed. Our tomatoes are just now appearing and are green, green, green…hopefully soon to be red, orange and yellow!! 🙂
And yes, carnage away in this instance…these are icky, destructive bugs.
Sometimes the use of WMD’s is justified!!
Nope, you had to do it. Cycle of life and all that 🙂 And the produce is looking amazing — I bet the salad was scrumdiddlyumptious!
What a gorgeous whack of bounty…. and carnage. yes. it needed doing. :^)
I hate to do it, too, but sometimes there is just no other option. I’ve been sad that lately my Pyola has also seemed to kill some bees. That really does break my heart. But if I don’t use it, there won’t be any bean blossoms (for example) for them to pollinate — those friggin’ Japanese beetles!
And look at that produce! I’ve got bad germination on my spinach (again). Think I’m going to go out in the rain right now and plant some bok choy in its place. Sheesh.
Glad you got the bugs. such beautiful produce should be eaten by people not bugs. Love the knitting in the previous post.
thanks for the link to the good bug spray.
That’s a serious pile of bugs gal…. ick.
Glad that they will stop munching your food.
thanks for the link to the rotenone spray – I may have to get some – I’ve been lucky so far though – no bugs!
I really don’t like the looks of those bugs. But your tomatos look great. I went to the store and couldn’t believe how much they wanted for tomatos.
I used to have problems with Japanese beetles, but I used Milky Spore powder on my lawn and my neighbor let me put it on his. This becomes a natural predator for the grubs. Since then, I’ve had so few Japanese beetles that I can hand pick them. (Well, I take a trowel and knock them into a jar of soapy water–I don’t actually touch them.) It takes a year or two to spread milky spore disease to the grubs, but it is worth it. And, although not attractive, I use the floating row covers, and it eliminates the need to use Rotenone.
Anne- The summer is passing by really quickly. We’ve had rain almost every day- so there’s lots of flowers, and weeds. I better get busy.
At least, the bugs hadn’t made lace out of those yummy-looking greens! That salad must have been delicious!
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