Weevils and Me, Pas De Deux

Yup.. that's him. The little *!@)$&*^ that's been eating my snap peas and bush beans.

The kids have learned that we find leaves that are damaged, and then we pull out The Vegetable and Herb Expert to make a diagnosis. Once we have a firm idea about what we're dealing with... we gather more data. Capturing a specimen for analysis under the microscope so we can see get a visual is key. Ugly furry ^%!@#$. He's at x40 in this photo.

Here he is at x20. The top of the image is dominated by a penny for perspective of scale.

I only applied the tobacco tea mixture to the ground around the snap peas once. I've applied the hot pepper/soap mixture to the snap peas twice - and only twice due to rain (Rain may have washed off the first round. I'm trying to keep my response proportional). The snap peas that made it out of seedling stage have taken off and the new growth is unadulterated so far. Very few bush beans made it through the war. The mounds in this photo are the second round of bush beans. I've also done a second round of snap peas. Now that I know what to look for, I won't be caught unawares. I know the enemy, and I'll be ready with the appropriate response next time.

Evil Weevils

Both my bush beans and my snap peas are getting ravaged. Grrr....

Using one of my favorite books "The Vegetable Herb Expert" by Dr. D. G. Hessayon. I figured out that I've got a serious weevil issue. (This book is the ultimate resource for diagnosis).

Also called "brown beetles" or "pea & bean weevil", it munches up the leaves of your snap peas and bush beans (bastards!).

These little $@!*ers have been chewing up the leaves on my plants so fast, the seedlings die.

After learning that they were nocturnal, I had to go out to the garden and see them with my own eyes.... I realized that I'm officially in need of a gardening 12-step program after crawling around in the garden with a mag-light at 12:30am.

With visions of one of my favorite crops disappearing for the year, I asked my father-in-law for assistance... he created two different sprays for me. One is a mixture of hot sauce, mouthwash, oil soap, and 'tobacco tea'. It's "for ground use only". I need to do more research, but it's my understanding that pretty much nothing survives that mixture.

Is this earth friendly? Um... I don't know, but I'm thinking that the probability leans towards 'NO' (research pending.... I want to nail this down). That said, it's now in the arsenal when desperate times call for desperate measures. The other spray bottle he hooked me up with is a bit more simple - a mixture of hot sauce and (bio-degradable) dish soap to be used on the leaves directly. I'm inclined to think that one is probably OK - but I still have to research that as well.

In any event - since I started using the sprays the new growth on the snap peas *does* look a whole lot better. I treated the ground (once) with the tobacco tea mixture, and I've been making sure the leaves always have a fresh coat of the chili sauch/soap mixture. I won't save this entire rotation of snap peas, but I think the damage control has been effective,

Snap Pea Spout

One of the crops that first turned me onto gardening in a big way- snap peas.

To get our garden started, we worked with the Seattle Urban Farm Company. We didn't know anything about anything ... and these guys came out and bootstrapped us (they're awesome). One of the crops they planted was Snap Peas.

These grow with minimal effort, and the kids will be picking the peas off and eating them by the handful in late June/ early July.

We planted two different types last year - Sugar Star (90 days), and Super Sugar Snap (58 days)... and we discovered that we definitely prefer the Super Sugar Snaps. It wasn't just that they were faster, bigger, and bore more peas... they flat out tasted better. Maybe next year I'll experiment with another variety, but this year I just planted a whole bunch of the Super Sugar Snaps.

Radish Harvest!.... (Not quite)

Yesterday was the 30 day mark for our French Breakfast radishes. (Top front row, right hand side.) They're a little behind schedule... but not by much. 23 days after planting we were thinning the crop and enjoying the sprouts in dinner salads; so we've discovered that planting radishes has a two-fold harvest! :) I'm not too bothered by the delay in maturation, this is the beginning of spring after all... planting this variety again in mid-summer will be interesting study.

The peas directly behind this crop of radishes are the faster 55 day Sugar Sugar snap peas. We'll have to put up the lattice for those reasonably soon. I think that we may be able to get one more planting in front of these snap peas - but it will have to be something with a fast maturation. Once the snap peas get bigger, the space in front of them will be overwhelmed and will have to be left alone for the rest of the season.

A second crop of radishes, "White Icicle Heirloom" was just planted in front of the 90 day Sugar Star snap peas. These are super fast- just 23 days. (!!) I'm trying to get better about off-setting the plantings so we have continual harvests, so I only used half the pack. At the same time, this is the first planting where I was really trying to be mindful of seed dispersion and spacing so as not to waste seeds. (This was a bit tricky for assistant Cyrus, who was not particularly mindful as to how the seeds landed...)

I've been researching succession planting- which is different techniques for maximizing the space you use. Thanks to the calendar, I'm able to quickly see what has been planted when- so that makes planting in timed intervals much easier. Another succession planting technique is re-seeding a space immediately after harvesting a crop. (A cold season/warm season planting) This will take more research to make sure the vegetables that get planted are complementary in terms of soil management. There's also inter-cropping, which involves two or more plantings in the same space at the same time that complement each other. The Three Sister's technique, developed by the Iroquois is an example of this. I'd really like to try this if I can get the new terraced garden done by the beginning of June.