The war is here!

My husband and I have been growing container vegetable and herb gardens for a few years now. During that time, we've been introduced to tomato hornworms and the right growing spots for the various plants.

This year we planted a small garden on the side of our house using a variety of containers ranging from one gallon milk jugs to City Picker Patio Garden Kits, and finally 5-gallon HDPE food-grade buckets. As we lease our home, we are unable to plant in the ground, or we could be fined for "improvements on the property."

We planted strawberries and marigolds in one gallon milk jugs and mounted them to our privacy fence. We planted basil, peppermint, dill, and cilantro in window boxes mounted on our fence. Then we planted tomato, marigold, lemon thyme, squash, nasturtium, bush beans, tomato, bush beans, jalapeno, and cucumbers. Of course all of those were in different containers in a line. We made sure we drilled appropriate drainage holes in the containers, and none of our containers sit on the ground (because what would be the point of drilling holes if you're going to cover them with the ground?)

We planted a bit later this year as last year, mid-April, we had a FREEZE...not a frost but a FREEZE here in Georgia that quickly killed our plants (even though they were covered and insulated.)

And the war is here against pests.

Thus far, we have already encountered (in four weeks) spotted cucumber beetles, striped cucumber beetles, ants, leafhoppers, Japanese beetles, dogsbane leaf beetles, and unidentified caterpillars (I haven't found them yet, and the wild birds have been snatching them off our plants for us when they find them.) We've done everything we were supposed to do for pest control, and now we have to kick it up a notch. Last year I read about flattening a piece of aluminum foil around the base of a cucumber plant to prevent cucumber beetles. The cucumber beetles laughed at that. We tried planting highly fragrant marigolds nearby (as in directly next to them) - again, the cucumber beetles laughed. This year, we've continued with the tried and true method of eradication (nitrile gloves and trapping them when we see them.)

Then I remembered that my work uses food-grade diatomaceous earth for one of our products. Not only do we use it, but a few months ago we got some 50 lbs sample bags in of various particle size to test, and there they sit - partially used on our shelf. What's diatomaceous earth? Well, it's basically a powder made up of pulverized fossilized diatoms. Remember the diatoms we saw in slides in school? The little wheels and cylinders that look like glass? Yes, those diatoms. Diatomaceous earth, however, is a respiratory irritant so you should use a mask and safety goggles when applying.

Let's see how this works...

Gardening in Suburbia

One topic of interest for many people is gardening and specifically gardening in a suburban or urban setting. When we lived in a rental house that had land that just was not conducive to a normal garden, we researched and found City Picker's Patio Garden Kit. That was back in 2011. We purchased one Patio Garden Kit and mistakenly planted three tomato plants in it. I say "mistakenly" because the instructions say to plant that many, but what we ended up with was three, 7 feet tall tomato plants and an over-abundance of tomatoes. (How many friends got dozens of tomatoes THAT season?!)

Here is what our first round of City Picker's Patio Garden Kits looked like:

We had cute little marigolds planted, mainly because they were easy to grow, but also because they act as natural pest deterrents. These three little plants became monstrous tomato plants, and while we did have to hand-pick two tomato hornworms off of the plants, we still had an incredibly successful "harvest." 

That brings us to our growing season of 2014 wherein we purchased three City Picker's Patio Garden Kits. This time we planted two tomato plants in one, a pickling cucumber plant in another, and a straightneck squash plant in the third.

As you can see, this was one week after we planted our City Pickers (by the way, they are very easy to set up, and the instructions are easy to follow.) When we first had our City Pickers, they included small binder clips to use to anchor the black plastic covering. In 2014, large rubber bands were provided. You can also purchase replacement black plastic coverings to reuse your planters each year. 

By June 2014, this is what our garden looked like (with a cameo by Grimm, our German Shepherd: )

As you can see, TWO tomato plants (far left) is also entirely too many for a City Picker. I'd recommend ONE. One issue we DID have last year with our City Pickers was MOSQUITOES. We could not figure out why we had so many mosquitoes in our yard last year when there weren't any bodies of standing water nearby...except for the City Pickers.

You see, City Pickers are self-watering garden boxes. They are on raised casters, and there is a fill tube (as you can see in the April 5th, 2014 photos) where you fill water, and then wait for it to dribble out of the overflows on the side to stop. Unfortunately, this also means there is a small, standing, water reservoir in the base of the City Pickers. THIS was the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes as they would fly in through the fill tube, lay eggs which would hatch, and fly back out...that was even with TWICE a day watering.

When the plants were done growing, we dumped the City Pickers, and small swarms of mosquitoes came flying out of the bottom of the planters.

To combat that this year, we will be adhering pantyhose to the fill tube as well as both overflow holes on either side. Well...I say pantyhose, but we may use some other form of mosquito netting like what is used on rain barrels and such. This *should* prevent mosquitoes from setting up their brothels in our City Picker Patio Garden Kits.

We will also be planting ONE tomato plant in one of the Pickers and probably keep the one cucumber plant and one squash plant. On top of that, we will be planting A LOT of marigolds and sunflowers to help deter harmful insects as well as attract good predator insects.