stevia cuttings

My stevia plant has grown sprawling out of its pot, so I cut it back in preparation for bringing inside when temperatures drop. Decided to try a few as cuttings, to see what works. I've always heard this is difficult, but sources online say it works and are not in agreement about the medium. So I used six tiny pots, two each of sterile seed starting mix, regular potting soil, and plain sand. Three of each I dipped the cutting in rooting hormone. 

They're on my kitchen windowsill. These on the right had the rooting hormone, 

three on the left didn't. 

and two just stuck in a plain jar of water, for the heck of it.

Let's see if any survive to make new growth.

natural pest control

Some kind of hawk, in my backyard. Eater of rabbits and squirrels!

things got eaten

By the bugs! My favorite, amaranth 'calaloo', I have totally been unable to keep ahead of the beetles by hand-picking them every morning like I used too. Every morning far more are riddled with so many holes and spoiled by frass, not usable. I've finally sprayed with insecticidal soap (second dose today) but don't know if the plants will recover enough to be worth picking from again. Half them got pulled and tossed already.

Here's the beet and turnip-rutabaga bed in the foreground- not much better shape. Most of the beet foliage ruined- I think from whitefly or leaf hoppers. 

Turnip-rutabagas are definitely getting damaged by whitefly. I've sprayed them, too. The roots are all still quite edible, though- but I miss not being able to use the greens, and I'm sure I'd have bigger, healthier beets and rutabagas without the damage.

My collards have also been swarming with whitefly, and harlequin bugs (took me a while to find those culprits). And all are getting munched by slugs too, I think.

All the actual turnips rotted. I had to empty most of that bed and throw them away. 

But the cowpeas on the other end of the bed are doing grand, I just hope they actually give me some beans to eat (planted out kinda late this year)

And in the next bed over, the yellow summer squash is amazing! I took this picture several weeks ago, it's now sprawled large enough I can't walk through the aisle between the beds. Getting one or two nice-sized squash per week out of there. Very little sign of disease, no bug damage I can see!

Swiss chard

and leaf-beet chard are faring okay. Some leaf hoppers spreading disease, but when I start to notice symptoms, I cut out what I can eat and cut the rest down to the ground, bundling most of insects away with all the anemic foliage to the trash. The chard grows back quickly if watered heavy again, gets kind of a fresh start for another week or so.

Tomatoes- eh. They don't look great. The cherry and purple cherokee tomatoes are discolored, the larger varieties small sized and lots of leaves look unhealthy. It didn't seem like aphids, probably some kind of virus causing wilt- I cut out a lot of sickly foliage again and redid the mulch.

Kind of a blah year, aside from the squash, and the herbs which mostly seem unbothered. I'm wondering if next year I should grow more new varieties of things (as the yellow squash and cowpeas have done so much better than zucchini and green beans for me), or just scrap the garden altogether and do a solarization to kill pathogens in the soil . . . 

climber vines

My cardinal climbers have finally gone all the way up the post (seedheads of clematis there with them) to the deck railings- but no flowers yet. So late in the year.

I've glimpsed the hummingbird a few times- in fact the other day I think I saw two darting at each other in the air- but I think they're coming to the black-and-blue salvia on the sideyard. They don't come near the deck because there's no flowers for them here.

purple leaves

For one, my 'kiwi fern' coleus by the garden down under the deck, is looking really healthy. It has had one of those orange assassin bugs in residence almost all summer- I am thinking that helpful critter kept it clear of whitefly or whatever made it sickly in years past.

one day's harvest

I've been lamnenting how poorly most of my garden is doing this year (due to some neglect) but really it isn't all that bad. My yellow summer squash is doing stupendous, I still have plenty of greens (even if not my favorites), and the beets are small but tasty.

crawlie

Found two fat, rather large caterpillars on my turnip-rutabaga leaves. Not sure if they were causing the damage. Brought one in to identify it.

It's the orange-striped oakworm. Eats mostly (of course) oak leaves, and grows into a rather striking orange moth. I put them out in the perennial bed to finish their munching out of the garden.

garlic

I harvested garlics and they were drying outside on mesh seat of a chair for a week plus few days. It doesn't look like a lot, and most of the bulbs are small, but when I compare in my head to how many bulbs I started with, this is satisfying. This is just a few of 'em:

Some broke apart when I was rubbing off the dirt after curing, these I'll use first.

The hardnecks were easier to hang- the softneck garlics their "necks" tended to crumble and break off. But the softnecks had nicer, plumper bulbs that cleaned off easier (papery outside rubbed away clean). So I'm in favor of growing more softnecks the coming year.

fishes in the window tank

Another delightful surprise- baby fish in my tank again. You'd think the wonder wears off by now, but I still can't help stopping by the tank several times a day to look in close for the tiny bright streaks of blue on these fish fry. My white cloud minnows have been spawning lately, I thought the paradise fish would eat any fry. Not sure if these are the only ones to evade him (they're so quick) or if they were the only ones to find enough to eat in the tank- I haven't done any supplemental feeding. Didn't even see them until two were large enough to have the easily visible red tail fin. Must be a few weeks old. There are two larger ones, and one smaller that's either behind in growth, or hatched a week later. I wonder if the thicket of rotalas helps them hide.

Tucker is showing great color again. Though of course, he woudn't pause or flare when I was trying to take a photograph.