I appreciate so much all of you who are following this and responding. This is all very new to me and I really want feedback, not just about the subject matter, but about the blog itself and blogging in general. For the back yard background, you can scroll on down the page and see the previous post. If you know anyone else who might follow this blog, I'd really appreciate you sending them a link!

One of my biggest squash plants, and by far the earliest and best producer so far, will soon be dead! Funny thing was, it was one I didn't realize had even been planted, and it was never cultivated, so it is basically growing in grass and weeds! It was so ironic that I watched an episode of Walter Reeves' Georgia Gardener http://www.walterreeves.com/ recently where he showed this gorgeous squash plant with lots of squash forming, and he said that though it should live throughout the season and continue to produce these pretty squash, unfortunately it would soon die. He showed the base of the trunk where it joined the ground, and it was full of holes and dried out! He cut into the plant to show two larvae inside eating away, having hatched from eggs a moth had laid earlier! Last week I went out to harvest a couple of nice sized squash, and when I lifted the big leaves on one side of the plant to get at it, I heard a sickening crunch! I pulled back the leaves and looked and there was that same kind of trunk full of holes! My squash plant apparently has those same hungry inhabitants! The plant still looked healthy, so I figured the best thing to do was cover that base over with good soil and mulch and water it really well, and maybe it will prolong the plant long enough to get a few more squash.

In just a few days, the plant has really gone downhill! That may have been brought on by the crunch I heard when I inadvertently wrenched it! Oddly, the end of the plant is still healthy and thriving and still making squash, so I guess I'll give it a few more days.

Walter Reeves said one way to avoid this was to get the plants going earlier in the season. I am also looking into what moths don't like! I use a garlic oil that I ordered from an Organic supplier that is fabulous for some things. Turns out not many things like the smell of garlic! Bet there are no vampires within miles of my back yard! To tell you the truth, I'm not real crazy about the smell if I get it on me either, but the mosquitoes leave me alone. But the problem with this stuff is that bees don't like it, so you have to be careful not to put it near flowers, or anything that needs the bees for pollination. The other problem, and a big one for me, since the whole idea of this is finding the absolute easiest way to do all this, is that it wears off in a few days and is washed off by rain or direct watering, and it takes a lot of sprays from a spray bottle to do all the things around my property!

I'm trying not to make these posts too long. Good luck with that because I get long winded before I know it! I do want to talk about preventing pests rather than killing them, the whole philosophy of "Do No Harm!" but that can wait! And in case you didn't see it on the previous post, go see my friend Ingrid's page on edible landscapes, and be sure to watch the video links to Fukuoka farming and Permaculture! This is where I am headed in my farming future and will eventually be the focus of this blog! No cultivation, no chemicals, naturally pest resistant, what's not to love about this? I really urge you to check all this out!
http://www.landscapingrevolution.com/mission_statement.html