Caterpillars Love Broccoli

I've been battling caterpillars for the past 4-5 days or so. They have waged war upon my broccoli.

This is one of the little buggers. They have a silk-like web that they spin around themselves, too.

Here is a close-up. Please let me know if you know what species this is.

You can see all the holes and fragmented leaves. I've pulled off about 30-40 of these daily.

Tomatoes are already as tall as my stakes. I'm going to have to figure out what to do about this.

Broccoli crowns coming in. I'm checking these multiple times per day to monitor for flowering. I have a feeling they will flower.

Ant Invasion

So I was cutting my pond plants back today, which I need to do at least twice a summer, when I noticed that the bubbles from the aerator didn't seem as strong as they usually do. After collecting all the cut leaves/branches with my waders on, I picked up the aerator's air diffuser to see if it needed some cleaning, which it did. But that still didn't quite do the trick. So, I clomped over to the sprinkler cover that houses the aerator (Easy Pro Linear Aeration Kit (LA5N)), and the entire inside of the sprinkler housing was thick with ants. I'm talking millions of ants here.

I doused them with some bleach and water, which took care of most of them, though there were way too many survivors, pulled the aerator out of there to clean/dry it off, and that's when I noticed that the ants just seemed to keep coming out of the aerator.

Sure enough, they had made their way INSIDE the aerator's housing - all the way inside. In every orifice of the housing and under the motor, there were ants. Even after completely disassembling the unit and cleaning it, there were still ants popping out of there from time to time. I think they might have even made it inside the motor.

I despise ants. They are everywhere and in everything around here. But, I have to give them credit. They are an amazingly resourceful creature, and they can make a home in the least likely places.

Very Quick Update

Had a busy weekend, so I didn't get a chance to get any photos, but I wanted to put out a couple of updates. First, I picked up 40 tilapia on Thursday. I initially put 15 into my sand system. However, Thursday night and Friday night dipped down in the 40's, and I was worried about the cool temperatures and the effects on the fish. So, I moved as many as I could into the pond. I got all but 2 out. The other two remaining were small and too damned fast to catch! I also lost a large one, who jumped out of the tank during the first night. Sad.

The tilapia in the pond seem to be OK. I've seen several feeding, though not all. I transferred 3 large goldfish into the sand system, so that is now holding 3 large goldfish and 2 small tilapia.

I've discovered that I don't need to poke holes in the sand. All I have to do is scrape away the algal mat on the top. I scrape it away in large chunks and then move those chunks to the surface of the sand under the plants (where the water doesn't get to). It should provide a bit of a mulch layer.

In my pond system. I've discovered that some other bugs are the major culprit in eating my strawberries. I don't know what they are, and I'll try to post a picture soon, so that someone who does know can identify them. They're extremely common around here. I've seen them in my compost piles, too.

I put in 3 uniseals in my three grow beds where the open hole overflow drains were, and I put in 2" pipe with elbows. When I flip them up, it serves to prevent water from overflowing out, so that I can flood my plants and get rid of the pests. It seems to be helping quite a bit, and I'm wondering if there are benefits to periodic flooding of the plants that I hadn't thought of before.

It also brings to mind the likelihood of growing rice in my system. I'm definitely going to look into it, as I think it would be quite easy to start off with less hydroton and keep adjusting the flood height and adding hydroton. I think that's how it works! Like I said, I need to read up on it.

ANTS!

So, some of the pests that I see frequently in my pond/hydroton system are ants. For the most part, they aren't a problem, though they do enjoy some of the sweeter fruits that you might grow, like tomatoes and strawberries. Well, since I have quite a few strawberries growing right now, I'd really like to limit the losses I take from the ants. By ants, I'm talking about sugar ants (or at least that's what people call them down here). They don't bite, and they can live just about anywhere - under leaves, rocks, inside toys, etc.

Well, turns out that hydroton makes a nice ant home, too, especially if you have a couple of inches of hydroton that don't get too wet from your inflow.

So, the question is how to get rid of them? I don't want them eating all my food!!

Yesterday, I tried to flood them out. I basically just turned up the volume of the inflow so that it was faster than it could drain. The problem is that I have overflow holes just drilled into the grow beds, so when the water got that high, it all overflowed. A terrible waste of water!

But, it worked. The ants got the heck out of there. I met their escape with my garden hose, which at least served to scatter them temporarily. I'd wager that they'll be back soon enough, though. There were some other critters in there that ran from the flood, too. Interesting...

My plan is to install some bulkhead fittings into my drain holes so that I can at least prevent the water from spilling out onto the ground. I don't really have any better ideas, though, do you?

Peanuts + Fall update

Well, I pulled up my peanut plants today. I didn't really know if it was the right time or not, but I figure it won't be too much longer before we have our first frost, and I wanted to have them up before then. In any case, we have peanuts! I'm gonna dry them out for a few weeks, so I'll report back on how they taste.

In other news, I have a bunch of green tomatoes on the vine. They are still very green, and I keep hoping that one morning, I'll wake up and they'll start turning. Time is running out!


The broccoli is looking good. I've been battling some caterpillars that really eat up the leaves like crazy. They hit them last spring, as well. I've seen fewer and fewer recently, so maybe I'm winning the war. Or, maybe they are regrouping for another assault.

The bok choi is looking good, but the spinach is kind of hurting. When it sprouted, it looked like grass it was so thick together. I suspect that maybe it was TOO thick, and they choked each other out. Hopefully the strong will survive!


Finally, I'm gonna get some rainbow trout in the pond in November. I hope to grow some cilantro or something in the buckets during this time, but I'm not sure anything will grow with the water as cold as it will be. If all else fails, I'll empty the pond and fill it up periodically to keep the nutrients down. Apparently, the trout don't like water over 70 degrees F, so it may be a struggle to fatten them up enough to eat by next spring.

What the heck are these?!!

Found these little bugs on my squash this morning. What are they?

Veggies, Disease, and Mineral Deficiencies?

Well, it seemed about time for an update, so I thought I'd post some pics of the veggies. For the most part, things seem to be going very well. The squash has been productive and delicious, though the leaves are yellowing, get these splotches on them, and eventually wither and die.
I thought there was a serious mineral deficiency going on with this cucumber, but it turns out that it's some sort of white cucumber hybrid. Park Seed calls it "Cucumber Pearl", and they threw the seeds in with my last order. They taste good.

The peppers seem to be going OK. They were struggling for a while while their roots got long enough to stay in the water, but they seem to be doing well now.
The tomatoes are doing great! There are several large tomatoes on the vine, just waiting to turn red.
So, not knowing anything about minerals, mineral deficiencies, pests, or basically anything about hydroponic gardening, I thought I'd throw these photos out there in case someone who did know something about anything could respond! I've been adding 5ml iron and 30 ml of Potassium weekly, with an occassional blast of Kalkwasser to supplement calcium and help keep the pH up. I guess it's not enough for the squash, but seems to be OK for the other stuff. Again, I don't know.