Garden at the beginning of June
Every garden year is a
little different, which keeps me from getting bored. For example,
during the last few springs and summers, I've been madly picking asparagus
beetles, but 
I've only seen a single
asparagus nibbler in 2012. I squashed it, looked ferociously for
more, then shrugged and moved on to other tasks.
On the other hand, I
usually plant seeds for the summer garden and forget about them for a
few weeks until they're ready to be weeded and mulched. Not this
year. Something or other is happily eating my seedlings as soon
as they come out of the ground, not snipping the stems at the base the
way cutworms do, but nibbling off the cotyledons so that sad little
sticks are left behind with no energy with which to grow. Despite
three seedings, I have a total of two cucumber plants in the garden ---
I guess we won't be awash in crisp cucumbers this year. Other
summer vegetables have also been affected, although less
markedly. Luckily, the unidentified nibbler seems to have gotten
sated at last --- my most recent succession
plantings are doing much better.
Meanwhile, a hot spring has
caused problems with early crops. I try to get my broccoli into
our bellies and freezer before the cabbage worms hatch, but that wasn't
possible this year. So I'm picking green caterpillars out of the
broccoli heads (the latter of which are smaller than usual) and hoping
Mark won't notice the missed insects that end up on his plate.
(Note to spouses of gardeners: it's very endearing to find a bug on
your plate and shrug it off as "extra protein".)
But the hot spring has a
silver lining. Mark and I enjoyed a bowlful of black raspberries
Friday, a treat we usually don't partake of until the end of
June. We're gorging on sugar snap peas, crunching up baby carrots
I thin out of the vibrant carrot
bed, and watching onions plump up for later harvest. And, of
course, the tomato plants are growing like gangbusters --- one currant
tomato is already the size of a pea. Maybe this will be the year
we eat our first tomato in June?
I've decided that the
trick to a successful garden is to plant such a wide variety of
vegetables that no single failure will leave you hungry. That,
plus learning to shrug off problems and to learn from your mistakes,
turns every year into a good garden year.
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.
MamaHomesteader --- I'm guessing bugs for our unidentified nibblers just because they're hitting the plants when they're so tiny (and because many of the surviving leaves on larger plants have holes through them).
We did see a rabbit in the garden for the first time in years, though, last week. I started researching ways to catch him and learned that it's illegal in Virginia to kill a rabbit out of season?! So don't tell anyone if you put yours in the pot.
Last year my 10 cucumber and melon plants started missing leaves till they were all raped and I was lefts with sticks. Then it was the lettuce that was ravaged, then they started on the tomatoes. I ended up putting a 18" screen around my garden as a fence and the problems went away. Ended up finding out it was a family of 3 woodchucks/groundhogs. Luckily my parents always have extra transplants.
Hope this helps. They aren't easy to spot cause they are super cautious and will scurry away at any movement/noise around them.
Marco --- See my comment to MamaHomesteader above....
MamaHomesteader --- My sentiments exactly!