Farm Pictures

 

Kohlrabi, mustard greens (under row cover) and kale, with strawberries and and onions in the background. 

Onions and leeks under black fabric, with strawberries and greens in the background.

  

Beans and summer squash just planted.

Rows of greens, such as swiss chard (under row cover), kale, sprouting broccoli, collards, Purple Peacock (kale and broccoli mix), and parsley.

 

Plants at home most of which will be going into the ground soon.

 Lettuce and greens most of which are ready to be picked now.

Sticky Traps

I use the traps to catch flea beetles, but have seen some other bugs on them before.  Mostly just fruit flies though, that I can remember.

What you will need:
~ Tree Tanglefoot
~ Florescent yellow paper
~ Sticks or bamboo (I usually use bamboo but just regular sticks are fine too)
~ Popsicle stick (to spread the tanglefoot)

Sticky traps are very easy to make, I just hate doing it because I do not like the sticky tanglefoot.  It is kind of like sap but it does not dry up, luckily it will wash off your hands with soap and water.  It is surprising that it does not dry up.  I have had this same container of tanglefoot for at least 6 years now, with a crack in it so it does not seal up well, and yet it has not dried up.

Now, on to how to make the trap.  I suggest to use the florescent yellow paper, I have tried orange before but it did not seem to work as well as the yellow.  I buy 8 1/2 x 11 paper and tear it in half.  All you have to do is take your piece of florescent yellow paper and put it on the stick or bamboo.

Then with the popsicle stick spread the tanglefoot on to both sides of the paper.  I try to spread it as thin as I can so the color shows through.

Finished product, all you have to do is stick it in the ground.  I usually put these traps under my row covers or in a high tunnel, and throw a few outside also.  They may not get rid of 100% of the flea beetles but do work pretty well.  Lets just say that I put my first sticky trap in the ground and by the time I got done making five more I looked at that first trap and there were already at least 4 flea beetles on it.  Any less flea beetles out there to eat my veggies is fine with me.

Planting Pictures, and How to Control Flea Bettles

Just thought I would post some pictures from the other day when me and Frank got some planting done.  We planted all plants, some kale, mustard greens and kohlrabi.  These pictures are from last Thursday May 14th. 

Frank is getting the hoops into the ground so that we can lay down the row cover.  You can barely see Frank and you can not see the hoops in the ground, but oh, well.

 

  Here we had just finished getting the row cover down when it was starting to get dark.  Just in time.  The row cover is covering a row of mustard greens.  It is a thin row cover, the purpose of it is not to keep the plants warm like you would usually use row cover for, but instead to keep insects (mostly flea beetles) from completely destroying the greens.  Flea beetles can be a real pain to deal with.  If you do not do something to protect plants such as mustard greens and eggplant, they can almost completely eat the plant to nothing.  The funny thing is flea beetles are just very, very tiny black bugs, it is unbelievable how much damage such a small bug can do.  So if your mustard greens, eggplant, radishes, turnips, kale, collards, kohlrabi, or a few other veggies, are getting eaten, and you see very little black bugs that jump really quick as soon as you try to touch them, you probably have a flea beetle problem.  Next time I am out there (today or tomorrow) I am going to have to make some sticky traps to put under the row cover.  No matter how fast you put the row cover up, and how tight you seal it there will be some flea beetles under there, and the sticky traps can help to get rid of them.  I will have to take some pictures and do a post on how I make my own traps.  

More Plant Pictures

Here are a few pictures I took about a week ago of some of my plants.  I have been transplanting like crazy and I have plants everywhere.  I can not wait till I can get some more of these plants in the ground.

 

Some kale plants that should hopefully be going in the ground very soon now.

 

 

Rhubarb plants that I started from seed last year.

 

 

Strawberry plants which are now in the ground.