November in the Garden

It's a drizzly day today and seemed like a perfect day to take pictures of the garden.  First, though, I had to do a little bug defending.  The squash bugs are persistent but don't seem to be taking over or causing too much damage. I knock them off with a streamed mixture of molasses/citrus oil. Not sure if it kills or just annoys them, but there are definitely not as many bugs as there were weeks ago.

Another nemesis that I met this week is some kind of caterpillar on the cabbage.  I think it's an imported cabbage worm, as they are the bugs that are often described as leaving a trail of 'poop' everywhere.

(Blech) Picked a live caterpillar off the chinese cabbage this morning, then sprinkled the plant (and the neighboring broccoli and cauliflower plants) with some BT.









And speaking of broccoli, one of the three plants I have is starting to show.

(That's the BT dust sprinkled on it.)

By the numbers, I'm having much better success with transplanted vegetables from the garden centers than plants from seeds I start.  But my biggest success from seeds has to be the Small Wonder spaghetti squash I planted from seed. This is my second year growing this variety, and I love them.  Here are the three plants I have growing up a frame. 

That's a basil plant in the foreground.  It was growing there when I first planted the seeds.  Despite the fact that the squash plants now tower over the basil, the basil still seems happy, so I haven't pulled it.

My other plants in the concurbita family aren't producing fruit. The pumpkin plants continue to bloom but only boy flowers as shown below, so no pumpkins.

Other fun stuff growing, Swiss Chard and carrots.

Now I've got to find a way to keep the squirrels from digging in the beds.  They don't seem to be eating the plants, or even burying nuts.  But they are wreaking a little havoc with some of the smaller seedlings I have started.  Sure, chicken wire around the boxes would probably do the trick, but I've been too lazy to measure and buy some. I guess I'm waiting to see if nature will just help the squirrels figure out that there's no reason to dig in the garden because I haven't stashed any peanuts there!