New Tree and Dealing with Grubs

Monday I was out on my back porch transplanting some of my seedling when the doorbell rang.   It was visit for the gardener I hire once in a while to cut my grass and clean up the garden in general.  A week or two ago he had pulled out a vine in my garden bed and took some weeds out of the lawn.  He mentioned that he had some trees available and if I wanted one.  These trees are known to be hardy to the El Paso region.   So I told him yes.  My backyard is a good size and there is not a shade spot in site.  He had the trees ready and I went ahead and picked the one I liked and he planted it in my garden.  Its pictured on the left.  Now when he brought it it had a lot more branches on it and it was really a lovely tree.   I asked him if it needed pruning so it could grow up he said yes and that's what he did to it.   I jokingly told him that he left it bare.   He said it would be fine though.   I'll just have to trust him and hopefully in a few years I'll have some nice shade in my backyard and my lawn won't need so much water anymore.

While he was digging the hole however he discovered an bug in my lawn.  It looked like a fat short worm.   He couldn't give me the name of it but said it would eat the roots of my lawn.   This concerned be because back in 2007 I planted a very nice Southern Red Oak in another section of my lawn.   It grew very nicely except this past year it wilted and ultimately dried up completely.  It seems to be coming back from the ground as four sticks are coming up next to where the trunk used to be.  So I may still have a Southern Red Oak in my lawn, which I loved because the leaves would turn red in the fall.  Its such a beautiful effect.

So back to the bug.   I Googled garden soil worms.   I got a bunch of earthworms and that's not what I was looking for.   I did get a few grubs.  The little bug did look like a grub.   Yup an ugly little grub.   These guys eat the grass roots.

Last year I remember my front lawn wasn't quite as green.   So was my mom's lawn at her house.   My sister decided that there were bugs in the lawn and applied some lawn garden insecticide to both my mom's and my lawn.   The lawn seemed to perk up a bit even thought it was already late season.  Now last year I had neglected my back yard lawn as watering is tedious work because I have no sprinklers in the back.  It is likely that the grubs traveled from my front lawn to my back lawn or I might have had grubs in my back lawn to begin with.   Either way these things have got to go.   I would hate for them to get at my vegetables and I think they might have already attached one of my laurels.  So first chance I get I'm heading to Home Depot or Lowes to get grub killer.   I will not allow them to kill my garden.

Hardening the Squash and Corn

Corn and Squash Feb. 8

Before you take a plant and plant it outside you're supposed to harden it. The process of hardening is done by gradually increasing the hours the plant is outside in the sunlight after being indoors or a in a greenhouse. Each day you gradually increase the hours it has been outside in the sun.

Squash and Corn

I had transplanted my squash and corn into containers. These seedling are quite the growers and no longer fitted in their original tiny seedling containers. A few containers I was able to put on my windowsill but some didn't make it because of the container size. Luckily I did purchase a spot grow light bulb which I have been using for my various seedlings and for the squash. But with the warmer days I started putting them out on my back porch around lunch time and leaving them outside until night time with the weather gets chilly. As they days went by and the weather warmed up more they even spent a few nights outside. They've even tolerated a few of the lighter winds we have in El Paso.

The first picture is when the squash was still hanging out indoors before hardening.  The other pictures are the squash and corn hardened sitting outside today on my back porch.

Squash

One thing that I did notice with the squash was that the first few hours on the first hardening days the first original squash leaves the sprouted would start to wilt. To combat the squash wilting I made sure that the soil was very moist and not dry. After a few hours it would come back up to its normal pose. I think this is just the process of hardening. As days went by they did this a bit less and needed even less watering. I have nice big round new leaves coming out of each squash plant and soon they will have exceeded the capacity of the container they are currently in. In contrast, the corn took the sun like a champ.

I haven't yet decided when they will go permanently into the ground outside but if the weather continues to be as beautiful as it has been they are ready. I just don't want to put them out in the garden and have a frost come in and ruin all my work. For next year, squash and corn will be planted later. They are fast growers so I probably won't start them until probably mid March. This has been a beginners learn from your mistakes situation.

One thing I'm very happy about is that so long as the temperature does not drop below 40 degrees Fahrenheit I don't have to bring these in at night.  This is what I heard from a radio show Good to Grow on NPR Feb 12th.  I'm going by this because the last Squash container pictured is very heavy and if I can avoid it, I don't want to pick it up anymore.

Killing Onions / Growing grape vines

Storing Red Onions

Some weeks ago before the frost while at Walmart when I was doing most of my seed purchases I found little bunches of onions. There were white ones, red ones and yellow ones. I purchased the white and red but not the yellow since those seemed interesting to start from seed. You've seen the start of the yellow onion seedlings.

These were in sold in little bunches like the one in the bowl.  They are the Bonnie Plants variety.  To store them I placed them in a bowl with moist soil or in a bucket with moist soil.   I wasn't ready to put them out yet because of the big freeze we had.  Good thing I didn't.   But they're ready to go out now.

I planted a few in a container. Those seem to be doing well. I have a feeling that they do not enjoy the full sun or the intense El Paso sun. They were far more erect when I had them indoors with little or no direct sun.

Storing White Onions

Just Friday I planted some in my garden. I agree my soil is less than ideal but since I can't do a complete overall of my soil I'll have to make do. I laid the onions down in the grown and covered them with soil/dirt to which I added a bit of miracle grow garden soil. Then gave them a good watering. So far they have not risen and it is now Monday. I'm starting to think that if I leave them there I'll soon have killed them. I'll continue to watch them for a few more days to see how they are doing.

I planted these in front of my grape vines. Yup I bought and planted some grape vines. The reason I decided to put them in from of the grape vines is because onion roots seem to not go very far. So I don't think they'll reach my grape vines and my grape vines roots have just begin so I don't think they'll reach my onions either.

Wilting Onions in the Garden

I'm very excited for my grape vines. These too I bought before the big frost from Lowes. I stored them in my front bedroom which I have closed off from the heaters which makes it very cool. Of course now that the weather is no longer cold its not as cool but on our cold days the toilet water next to the bedroom froze and the single pain window had ice all over it. So the grape vines survived a frost as they should. Now they are happily outside and are starting to show new leaf growth. If you look closely at the picture you'll see the white grape vine, Niagara White Grape Vine, has pink leaves coming out that are slowly turning green.   The blue grape vine, Mars Seedless Grape, has buds on it.  These too were planted with a mix of the soil in me garden with Miracle Grow Garden Soil and Peat Moss.

I hope it is not too soon to have put them outside as we do get a few cold fronts and frosts between now and the official day of the last frost in April.

Niagara White Grapes

Mars Seedless Grapes

Egg shell pots seedlings

Jamaica 1/31/2011

I've been holding out on you and perhaps for lack of time. I mentioned before that I have planted additional seedlings when I started the greenhouse but in eggshells. Those were all correctly labeled and to some extend why I was able to identify the epazote. Here are some images of how those started and the days the photos were taken. Since these were not in the greenhouse they had a slower growth rate, but are doing quite well. The funny thing I found out about eggshells is that they make the soil more alkaline, that is they raise the ph of the soil. So I suppose this wasn't the brightest idea of mine since I want to lower my soil pH.  Never the less I've already collected them and they make cute planters so maybe I won't use them next year. For this year, I'm having fun with them.

Roma Tomato Jan 31st

I planted these seed on Jan 26th just like the pumpkin and corn.   You can tell that they do not have such a dramatic growth rate as pumpkin and corn.  However seeing them sprout is just as rewarding or more.

I begin by showing you the first sprouts on January 31st then to February 7th and lastly February 9th.  The February 9th photo shows the okra starting to come out.    There you will notice some eggs missing.  This is because I set up my mini greenhouse with the heating mat and those that had not yet sprouted got put into the green house.

Epazote Jan 31st

These young sprouts are coming out beautifully.   It really satisfies my curious mind.


My favorites from this batch are the Jamaica and the Roma Tomatoes.   The Jamaica was one of the first to come out.

Februay 9th Okra

Eggshell seedlings Feb. 7th

Freezing Weather

The last week El Paso had extreme freezing weather.   So much so that that didn't give me any motivation to plant anything.  Plus because of the many burst/frozen water pipes, El Paso was placed on water restrictions so I didn't think it was a good idea to go watering my new seedlings.   Also because of the freezing weather my mini heated germination station did not arrive until Monday.   Plus I got a special birthday surprise over the weekend.   My husband surprised me as he flew in from Acapulco.  So instead of doing much gardening I was busy unfreezing my pipes and yes just downright enjoying my husband.   But we did achieve some gardening steps.   He accompanied me to Home Depot.   Not to my surprise all the plants in the outdoor nursery were frozen.   You'd think they'd have put them inside the store.   We picked up some garden soil, peat moss, and soil acidifier.  Yes, I found what to use to change the pH of my soil.  I found this little bag and will be using it in my garden.  Basically, its sulfur.  I still don't know exactly what the pH of my soil is because I haven't found a soil test kit that I like but I did return the previous one I bought back to the store.   Thank goodness that was a waste of time and money.

Mini Green House Jan 31st

I have gotten plenty more growth in my from my seeds.   Last you saw were the corn, squash, and onion seeds.   Those are a lot bigger now, I even had to transplant the corn and squash because they were too big for the mini greenhouse container.   You can see I moved them to a south facing window in my bedroom.  First here is a picture taken January 31st.

Yellow Onion Feb 7

Now here are some taken February 7th.   You can really see how these have grown.  The onions are no longer horseshoe looking things sticking up out of the ground but rather they look like small sticks sticking up out of the ground.  

The squash has grown very leafy and the corn is very tall.   That's what made me take off the green house cover to begin with.

Corn Feb 7th.

Squash Feb 7th.