Garden is planted!

It might have been a little early, but I had an appointment cancel on me this morning so I rolled up my sleeves and got everything planted. If we have a cold snap, I'm going to cover the garden in dead leaves and hope that the frost doesn't kill any baby plants, but we'll see how this method works.

Garden #1: Upper Garden nearest the Fody's front door

1. Carrots - lots of carrots
2. Banana Peppers
3. Hot Portugal Peppers
4. Parsley
5. Cilantro 
6. Basil

Garden #2: Upper Garden nearest our side door

1. Asparagus - Year 2
2. Mixed Greens - Year 2 (may need to supplement with some new plants, but waiting to see how well the old ones do after cutting them back last weekend)
3. Red Onions
4. Green Onions

Garden #3: Lower Garden, nearest the Fodys - this one has never previously had squash, so I'm hoping it might keep the vine borers at bay

1. Cucumbers
2. Yellow Squash
3. White Squash
4. Zucchini

Garden #4: Lower Garden, middle of the yard - I saw vine borer grubs in the dirt today! and there have been no squash in this garden for at least the last 2 years!

1. Purple Prudens Tomatoes
2. Grape Tomatoes
3. Purple Tomatillos
4. Pink Mini Corn

Pest Control

We've previously tried both organic and chemical pesticides with similar results. Our biggest problems are the vine borers that eventually kill our cukes and squash after we get several good harvests out of them. We're going to switch back to organic this year and try the following tactics:

• Rubbing the vines with Bt or Spinosad about 1 inch above the soil line starting early in the plants life. This supposedly discourages the babies from digging into the plant in the first place.
• At the first sign of boring, we'll slit the stems open and remove any borers we find.
• If the plant is to far gone, we'll cut out the infected area and soak it in a bucket of soapy water overnight to kill the borer so it can't reproduce each year.
• We'll likely re-plant squash and cuke plants every 2 - 4 weeks so even if we lose mature plants we'll have some backups in the pipeline.
• Have also heard that aluminum foil will disorient the moths if used as mulch around the plants.