Cucumber Beetles

I found one on a cucumber flower on my balcony!  I squished in and looked for more.

Cucumber Beetle.  There are also spotted ones with the same colours.  Striped beetles are more common in Ottawa. 

The good news:  There was only one.

The bad news:  There is no magic potion to organically get rid of them.

All insects have life cycles.  The adult won't be a problem all summer long, but if you don't deal with them now (late June, early July), their offspring are going to wreak havoc later in the season and be ready to rise up and attack next year's crop.

Why Cucumber Beetles are a Problem

• Adults eat the cucumber blossoms.
• The adults carry diseases to the plant.
• They lay eggs at the base of the stem.
• The larvae will severely weaken the plant by eating the roots. 

Solution

• Go out in the evening and inspect.  
• Squish the adults.
• Look for the red eggs at the base of the plant and under the leaves.  Remove the infected leaves and wipe off eggs from the stem. 
• Encourage spiders, a natural predator.
• Sprinkle chopped onion at the base of the plant. 
• Cucumber beetle traps are available, but not many sources seem to think they work. 
• Trellis them -- my plant is trellised, so maybe that is why I only saw one beetle.  

Cucumber beetles also like:  eggplants, any kind of melon, squash, corn. 

Resources: The Little Garden that Could

                  Gloucester Garden

Grasshoppers

There are LOTS of young grasshoppers in our garden and on the balconies.  If you have holes in your leaves, chances are it is the grasshoppers.

Grasshopper

Problem

• They have huge appetites and travel in large groups. 
• They are difficult to get rid of, the older they get. 
• They will lay eggs that will hatch in our gardens next spring. 

Solution

Prevention

Grow plants that repel the grasshoppers.  If everyone plants ONE of the following in his or her plot, they may just get the hint.

Calendula

Dill

Daisy

Cilantro

Peas

Killing Them!

In the early morning, when there is dew on the leaves: 

• Shake the bugs off your plants
• Dust the plants and grasshoppers with plain (not self-rising) white flour
• Gently rinse off the flour after two days

For more details, go to Pest Control Options: Grasshoppers.

In the Garden Room Apothecary, there is a shaker made from an old plastic peanut butter container for the flour.  

Sorting Compost

 Healthy Ingredients in the Compost 

Healthy Food for the Vegetable Garden

Healthy Food on Our Plates

Bin 1 Cooking What to add? NOTHING!!!!   Except maybe coffee grounds without filters. What’s happening? Bin 1 has been layered with dirt, green waste and brown waste.  Throughout the season, it will get poked to keep the air flowing and watered to feed the critters transforming our yard waste into compost. The activity in the decomposing process will actually make the composter hot!  On a cool morning, you may even see steam rising from it.  This is why it is labeled “cooking”.

Bin 2 Green Waste Nitrogen rich waste What to add?   Leafy Garden Waste Flexible Stems and Roots Grass Coffee grounds and tea without filters NOT COOKED Vegetables and Fruit Waste Corn leaves and silk What’s happening? Just filling up so we will have green waste we can layer when bin 1 gets emptied in the fall. Some decomposition will happen. If Bin 2 gets stinky, it is suffocating and needs air.  Just turn it with the pitch fork.

Bin 3 Brown Waste Carbon rich waste What to add? Anything woody, hollow stalks or really thick garden waste. Sunflower stalks Corn cobs that don’t have butter or salt on them! What is happening? Just filling up so we will have green waste we can layer when bin 1 gets emptied in the fall. Brown waste takes MUCH longer to break down than green waste. Bin 3 won’t see much action during the summer, but come fall clean up, it will fill up quickly!

Do Not Add the Following to the Composter or We Will Get Sick!!!!

No cooked food;  it doesn't matter if it is vegan, vegetarian or meat.  If it is cooked, it will contaminate the composter, which will contaminate the plants that will end up on our plates!

Also Absolutely NO

Oil         Animal Waste    Eggshells   Bread(because it is cooked)

Plants that are diseased or have flowered because 

our composter won't get hot enough to kill them;  we don't want them travelling through compost to our gardens.

Animal Poop and Kitty Litter and Animal Bedding (rabbits, hamsters...)

Meat, cooked or uncooked!  Meat in compost has lead to e-coli outbreaks!

Any kind of oil

Peanut butter or any kind of bread

Butter because it is an oil and an animal product!

All of the above, except pet waste, can go in the city composter because the city compost gets a lot hotter than ours will when it is cooking.  

Tomato Leaf Harvest!

Healthy, bushy tomato plant that could do with pruning to prevent blight.

For those of you with tomato plants, you may be ready to prune!  If the plants are super bushy, the air might not be circulating well inside the plant.  This could lead to tomato blight. 

Cut off some of the extra branches that don't seem to have fruit starting. 

Nip off any new branches starting between the main stem and an existing branch. 

The healthy leaves can be used as a spray to combat aphids!  If there are no aphids in the garden, keep the leaves so they are on hand if we need them. 

Option A:  Chop them up and freeze them. 

Option B:  Dry them by hanging them upside down. 

Option C:  Contact the rooftop coordinator who has a food dryer and can dry the leaves in a couple of hours. 

Tools for Pest/Disease Control

Bottles to use for homemade remedies are in the garden room.  Please label the bottles as you create new recipes. 

A bottle of dish soap is also available. 

Wet Season Issues

Watch for signs of too much water!  It is rather odd to talk about this on a rooftop, but we have had a lot of rain since the beginning of the season. Normally, drought conditions occur on rooftops and on balconies.   However, we have noticed two symptoms of too much water. 

    Slugs

   As with most pests, they love the night life.  A few slugs is no big deal as every garden needs a balance of insects.  However, if the slugs are really chomping down, put out a tuna can at soil level and fill it with beer.  The slugs will drown themselves in it. 

   Blight  

Rhubarb Blight

   This really refers to a variety of fungi that attack lots of plants, tomatoes in particular.  If you see discolouration on the leaves, it might be blight.   Typically, black on tomatoes, red on rhubarb. 

Prevention

a.    Keep large/dead leaves off the ground and make sure the air can circulate through the plant.  Tomato cages are helpful when it comes to air circulation.

b.    When you do water, try NOT to water the leaves.  Water directly onto the soil, if possible, using a gentle setting on the nozzle so that water and dirt don’t splash up onto the leaves. 

White Fly

White Fly on the Rhubarb in Plot 4

I have lots of holes in my rhubarb leaves, so I went up at night to see what was eating them.  I found this white fly!  

The organic solution is spraying with soapy water.

There will be a labelled spray bottle in the garden room if anyone else needs to spray.   It is also good for red spider mites and aphids.