How really effective?

 I mentioned about the new organic methods for warding off aphids in my previous blog and it took about a month since the installation. Today I visited my garden to see how the methods were effective.

 I would like you to compare those 2 photos, the left one showing a tomato tree of other gardener, who has his garden next to mine, with no aluminium foil and silver mulching sheets and the right one my tomato tree with the organic anti-aphid methods.

 I was able to see clear difference between the trees in my garden and I hope you could see that through these photos,,,. The left tree is Tainted with more aphids while my tree have less aphid.

 I make sure that my organic anti-aphid methods are almost effective through the comparison. I'm very happy to ward off aphids but I have a new problem,,,,,,less rain in this rainy season!

Planting summer vegetables

 I was looking forward to planting summer vegetables because I installed some organic methods to ward off aphids as I mentioned in my previous blog. And I and my kids planted the sprouts on the gardening ridges covered with silver mulching sheets.

 List of my summer vegetables:

2 eggplants
1 green eggplant
3 tomatoes (Momotaro)
2 cucumbers

A green eggplant, my first try.

3 tomatoes (Momotaro)

 I invented a new organic method to repel aphids! It's "a silver pole". It's very simple to make it! Just taping plastic poles with aluminium adhesive tape.
 I hope those methods will be "silver bullets" for protecting my vegetables against bugs.

Winter harvest

 I and my wife are delighted with beautifully grown Chinese cabbages and gingers. We see the great harvest as our best Christmas present!

 As I mentioned in the previous blog, I tried to minimized usage of chemical things like pesticide and the beautiful cabbages show us my try is successful. All of my 5 Chinese cabbages have no damage by aphids and much fewer holes by young worms than in last year.
 It's my first try to growing gingers but it's easier than I thought. I just payed attention only to watering since gingers hate dryness.
 I planted only golf-ball sized seed ginger and it's amazing to see "multiplied gingers " from the small seed ginger. My wife will preserve sliced ginger in honey to add it to tea.
 I have to admit I failed to grow my daikon radishes due to severe attack by aphids. I installed insect screens but I did't realized big holes on them! When I found the holes, many aphids hibernate on leaves of my radishes. They sucked the radish extract and most of the leaves were dead and that could cause the poor harvest.

Christmas harvests:

・Chinese cabbage
・Ginger
・Daikon radishes

My cabbages

 My 8 Chinese cabbages and 4 cabbages including a purple cabbage have grown with less damage by bugs thanks to insect screen, companion plants, and yellow buckets than in last year and they'll be harvested around Christmas.

 I found less damage in my Chinese cabbages ,which used to be an easy target for young worms and aphids. I believe the romaine lettuces, which were planted as companion plants, are effective to ward off young worm. The yellow buckets are also effective, too I believe. Aphids hibernate inside of Chinese cabbages which is comfortable for them to keep warm and they suck cabbage extract  there. That can cause poor growth. The yellow buckets can allure many aphids into the buckets and the insect screen physically shut them out.
 It's fortunate that there are less damage by bugs but I'm not satisfied with the growth of my cabbages. They have beautifully shaped hearts but the size are smaller than I expect. I don't think they can grow any more so I'll harvest them in a few days.


-- iPhoneから送信

Installing new methods

 It's difficult for novice gardeners like me to pursuing 100% organic gardening but I believe pursuing 80%～90% organic gardening can be feasible with installing new methods to decrease usage of chemical things like pesticide.

 I install 2 new methods, companion planting and yellow buckets.

 I planted romaine lettuces beside Chinese cabbages for warding off young worms which like to eat Chinese cabbages. Romaine lettuces can fume odor which young worms hate so they can't get close to planting ridges where the lettuces are planted.

 My 2nd method is placing yellow buckets beside my vegetables.

 It took 1 week since I had installed them and I found them very effective to repel aphids!

As I mentioned on my previous blog, aphids can be allured by yellow color. And I found hundreds of aphids were drown in water in the yellow buckets and no aphids on my vegetables!

Both of the methods are reasonable and cheep to install so I would like you to try them.

Launching the Cabbage Project in 2012

The temperature in Osaka is slowly but steadily going down after September began while it is still hot recording up to 32degrees C (90degrees F). In a morning and evening, the temperature become so cool that even young sprouts can bear with the hot daytime. It's the best time to launch my Cabbage Project of this autumn and winter season.

Today I went to a local sprout shop, bought sprouts of 5 cabbages, 5 Chinese cabbages(Hakusai-cabbages), and turnip seeds and planted all of them in my gardening plots.

My daughter rushed into a vinyl green house where sprouts are growing to pick up healthy ones as soon as we arrived the shop. My rule for picking up healthy sprouts is "No hole and No discoloration on leaves". Holes on the leaves means some small bugs might live in a planting pod and the discoloration shows the sprouts might be not healthy. My daughter knows the rules and the first-come-first-sold basis in the shop. So as the photo shows, she was checking healthy ones following the rules.

Of course, I had to verify her picks and there was no hole and no discoloration on the leaves. Great job, my daughter!

I planted all of the sprouts on my planting ridges, covered the ridges with rice husks, and set up insect screens.

I suffered from many aphids on cabbages last year so I tried a new measure for warding off aphids. A yellow plastic bucket is useful for capturing aphids which have a habit of preferring yellow color according to some gardening magazines.
They say that aphids can be allured by the yellow color, dive into the water of the bucket and drawn.

In a few minutes after installing the bucket, 3 aphids were found dead in the water! I can rely on the measure for repelling aphids!

The Hot Stuff

 Ahhhh,,,,just hot, very hot and scorchingly hot! I had to cultivate my planting ridges and to add organic fertilizer and to set up "a Hot Stuff" for autumn and winter vegetables like cabbages. I'll tell you the hot stuff later but anyway, I had to harvest my eggplants and pull the trees out for securing space for next vegetables.

 I was a little hesitated to pull them out since more and beautiful eggplants had seen recently and I assumed that it would be worth of growing them but I had to be dare to throw them away for my most favorite vegetable, a Chinese cabbage.

 Cultivating the ridges and mixing the soil, fertilizer, oil cakes and leaf mold in that hot day was torturous. Many people were killed with heat stroke in this summer in Japan while they were working outside like gardens, and construction sites. I drank water so often for avoiding heat stroke and could managed to end the cultivation.

 And here is "my Hot Stuff ", transparent multi-sheets. It's my first try but I learned the method from some gardening magazine. I know many gardeners suffer bugs like caterpillars, young worms of moths which can eat up our vegetables. The method is reportedly so effective to kill them. The temperature of the soil covered with the sheets can be too hot for those bugs to survive. It's more effective to cover the soil for about 1 month in the hot summer, not only for killing bugs but weed seeds, the magazine says. I've suffer many bugs on my cabbages and Hakusai cabbages every year so I hope the method can decrease damage caused by the bugs and usage of pesticides.

Kitchen things for aphid control

 Pursuing an perfectly organic gardening is the dream and goal for all gardeners although I believe we recognize that the road to the goal is harder and more difficult for us than we think  especially when we need some quick solutions for urgent problems like pests and bugs.

 Organic solutions are sometimes less effective but expensive and time-consuming while they are environment-friendly. How can we balance between effectiveness and eco-friendliness?

 I believe one of solutions is using LESS harmful chemical things in gardening chores. I'm also afraid of using chemical pesticides in my garden for the health of my family so I adopt much safer chemicals and goods as solutions for bug control. They are kitchen things like a kitchen detergent, cooking oil.

 I found that many aphids on my broad bean's tree and tomato's trees in my garden and I always mixture of water, cooking oil and kitchen detergent. 

 Mixture ratio:

 1. 100(water) : 5(oil) : 1(detergent)

 I think you want to know how the solution kill aphids. Most of insects are holopneustic, which means they have stomas on their belly for breath. The solution contains millions of oil molecules and when the solution vaporizes the molecules block the aphid's stomas and they will be suffocated.

You can see hundreds of aphids on my broad bean trees,,,,,.just spooky.

 We have to spray the solution thoroughly on the aphids. 

 One of the aphids on a leaf were struggling for the air in the solution for a while.

 When the solution had vaporized, many dead aphids were found on the leaves and trees.
Oh,,,sorry for poor bugs!!

Finally, I rinsed the solution with showering. The dead aphids also have gone with water.

 Protection from bugs is also important. We can create more effective protection with learning habits of bugs. Aphids hate the reflected light. So I used aluminum foil to ward off aphids.

 I rolled a sheet of aluminum foil around plastic polls for tomatoes, eggplants and cucumbers. I hope the reflected light can protect my vegetables from aphids and I'll monitor how effective the way is.

BUG'S FECES ON MY CABBAGES

 It's my most unpleasant moment when I've found bug's feces in my vegetables.

 One of my cabbages had a beautiful and intact heart inside till last Friday when I had saw no bugs there. But today many poos of young worms of a moss were found on the heart and inside of the cabbage with big holes on its leaves. Those many poos and big holes show big grown bugs might live inside the cabbage or in the soil around it.


I believed and decided to seek and hunt the bugs, searching for them turning over its leaves one by one. And at last, I found it! A middle-sized young worm was found between the heart and a leaf!


Eventually, 3 more bugs were hunted today.

After I "said good-bye" to the poor worm, I rinsed the poos off the cabbage not only because I want to keep my vegetables clean but because I can see other bugs might live if new poos are found.

-- from iPod touch

Summer bugs in my garden

Black cicada : Cryptotympana facialis

Common skimmer : Orthetrum albistylum speciosum

-- from iPad

Bad bugs and Good bugs

 As I found holes on my vegetable leaves have been increasing, I have to pay more attention to bad bugs like young worms of cabbage butterflies shown below and have to stick to my " F.P.K" method to ward them off. Today I found 3 young worms on my cucumbers so I smashed them to death. Oh,,,,sorry for poor bugs.



 While many bad bugs are found, I'm very happy to see good bugs or beneficial bugs like a black and yellow ladybug (Propylea japonica) who feed aphids. The bug may give me hope for less usage of pesticide.



-- from iPad

Bug's attack has started.

 Today I was shocked to find some leaves of my black chilies had been eaten showing miserable holes. I can imagine what should be blamed for the holes. I believe the leaves were eaten by young worms of European corn-borer. Despite my insect screen, those leaves were eaten, which means the bugs can habit in soil. The young worms are nocturnal and come out of soil to feed leaves.
 I dug out soil around the black chillies but no worm could not be found. I'll be in my garden in early morning tomorrow and try to hunt them.









-- from iPod touch

Bug hunting

All vegetables in my garden are growing but not mature yet to be harvested by us. But bugs have been "harvesting" their "food" before we do.

Today I and my wife did bug hunting and found about 6 or 8 bugs from inside and outside of my Chinese cabbages. They are destined to be killed by me for our good harvest. Oh, God, please forgive me to kill them..but we have to. I'm not a christian but I can not help feeling sorry for bugs to be killed.



- from iPad