ok you aphids, time to dance

well this year, even though i have been wanting to post more often, the backyard garden just isn't all that interesting. the most exciting thing so far, are all the plans for the garden swirling around in my head. this season i got such a late start on everything and was in such a rush, not a whole lot of planing was done, so it all just kind of fizzled. although there are some things out there growing, i just see all the great veggie everyone else is harvesting, and i get a little sad and extremely jealous. oh well, boo hoo me.

anyway, this is a post, once again, about my complete failure in growing summer squash. you know when you overhear how folk's squash just grow like crazy, and you get in you car or come out your front door, and there lies a basket of perfect and bountiful summer squash in all their yellow and green glory. well, i can tell assure you of one thing. i wasn't me who left it there. and here's the thing, i don't even like summer squash all the much. i am doing it for the hubby. (remember when he pouted, "oh, so you're only growing what YOU like.")

since last year i had an extremely bad time with squash vine borders, this year i took the proper precautions.... row cover.

here are the little squash babies.....

and here they are all covered.

of course, since i didn't have any support in the middle of the cover, 

i had to try a few different ways of trying to keep the row cover up. 

it was a pain to deal with. hard to get under to work on and check the squash. 

but, it was covered. 

the plan was to keep the row cover over the squash the whole time,
even though most of the information i researched said to uncover the plants once flowers appeared. 

i assume that is so the bees and such could do there work and pollinate the fruit. 

however, i figured that since i was such an expert in squash love,

 i could hand pollinate myself and avoid the squash vine boarder all season long. 

which seemed to be working..... for awhile at least. 

i started to get a few male flowers. so i just sat back, 

left things as they were, and waited of the females to appear. 

little did i know that under all that cover, all nice a cozy and protected from predators, 

were those icky little aphids just loving the underneath of all my squash leaves.... gross. 

see the little black dots on the out of focus squash blossoms in the center 

and the little green blossoms to be in the upper right corner.... APHIDS!!!!!!!

you'll have to take my word for it that they were everywhere since the follow picture was taken after i knocked quite a bit of them off the plants. since in my research, it didn't appear that all that much damage was being done to my particular plants, even though they can completely destroy a plant, i choose the route of just knocking them off with a few gently rubs to the leaves and a little bit of water from the hose. once the little buggers hit the ground, that's supposed to be enough to kill them.

then came the debate of whether or not to pull up the squash and use that area to plant something else, since they really didn't look like much was gonna come of them anyway. but in the end i decided to just leave them where they were for a few reasons. for one, i am really curious to see, that now that they are uncovered, if i do in fact get squash vine border. two, the aphids seem to be just concentrating on the squash and leaving almost everything else alone. and three, maybe if i am patient enough, i just might get a squash or two.

the silver lining to all this is i learned something completely new that explained all the crazy ants running around the squash...... ants and aphids love each other. or at least ants love their little aphid friends. as it turns out, aphids, after sucking on my plants, poop out some delicious sweet stuff that ants just think is marvelous. some ants even go to the lengths of overwintering aphid larva in there nest, and then bring the newly hatched buggers to the plants in the spring. they also can milk the buggers for the sweet honeydew, and some will even fight off predators. so if it's not one dang thing, it's the other.

the aphids also attacked the borage leaves as well. which is fine, cause i wasn't really eating it anyway. and since the two borage plants were fairly close to the eggplant and one pepper plant, i left them in as well as decoys to hopefully protect the other plants. in the end that could be a horrible mistake. there is probably a gigantor underground aphid incubator being built by the ants as we speak. just waiting to attack me next year.

see the ant attacking me!!!!!!!

"get away from my little aphid buddies, you giant amazon!!!!!"

but for now, that's the plan. well see what happens.

i'm still here/a quick garden update

will you just look at that!!!

the garden has exploded and is desperate need of tending to. and just where have i been? well, for two full weekends we were out of town, and, i have also started a new part time job. but, since i was in training, i worked a full 40 hours last week, which left little time for the garden, and the neglect is showing. so off the computer and into the garden i go for the morning. right now, the big issue in the garden is the winter squash take over. therefore, room needs to be made so i can re-route the ever growing vines. 

for now, i just wanted to drop a quick post to let ya'll know that i am still here, 

and still gardening, and still cooking, and still posting. 

so, stay tuned, there is more to come. 

p.s. (11:30 am) i was just out in the garden doing some clean up and spotted a squash vine borer moth. oh, great!!! now i gotta go back out there, look for eggs and signs of larva in the base of the plant stems, and figure out how to "cover vines at leaf joints with moist soil, to promote formation of secondary roots that will support the plant if the main root and stem are injured." check out this website for more info on the subject, and click here for a picture of the stinking little bugger.

garden note to self: how to prune winter squash. advise taken from Rob Johnston, the owner of Johnny's Selected Seeds, as found in the NY times... (A typical squash plant will make 20 pounds or so of squash, and that's all you want to ask of it,'' he said. ''So once the plant sets four or five fruits, you can prune it back.'' On each runner, leave a couple of leaf nodes past the last fruit you want to keep, he said. Then, pinch off the growing tip at the next node. If the vine is huge, you may have to cut off quite a bit instead of just pinching. As long as you don't trample the leaves or disturb the main root, you won't hurt the plant or the squash left on it.)