Juli Lawrence – Rakish Gardening

July 10th, 2008

Today I finally got my teepees built and put up for the squash, melons and cucumbers. I used some wooden stakes I had, plus some of my harvested bamboo cane. I also am pretty sure I saw a squash vine borer flying around, and went to get my spray bottle of spinosad, but he was gone by the time I got back. I’ve already lost one Blue Hubbard to a borer and I don’t know how well squirting the base of the vines with this stuff will work. It’s made of fermented bacteria, but kills too many bugs, so I’m hesitant to use it much. It also kills bees, and that’s not good at all.

Lots of wasps were working hard on the cucumber and melon flowers. Go get em! Make me some fruits.

I also finally got my herb stack a pot planted. Geesh. I don’t know why I put that off so long. Right now, I’ve got flat parsley, basil, catmint, bay leaf, something purple I don’t know, lemon grass, Greek oregano, dill and a few other things.

The only major jobs I have left are to put down newspaper/straw out back for weed control/mulch, finish up the irrigation system and build a new compost pit from pallets, then make a new big pile. I have a small pile going, but I’ve got about ten large bags of chopped leaves ready to go. I’d like to have that batch finished for fall. But I’m glad to have gotten those teepees finished so my curcurbits have something to climb.

I brought some of my bamboo cane inside to work on tying my fence. I hope this doesn’t turn out really ugly.

The best news: three days now with no sign of Japanese beetles.

• My bamboo journey – Bissettii bamboo
• 2007 Garden Wrap-Up
• Spring to do’s
• Bamboo slash and burn
• New to-do list

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