Bush Early Girl

I’m not much of a fan of Early Girl Tomatoes, but the owner of the fertile garden loves them, so I grew some bush Early Girls. I chose to grow Bush Early Girl because I have no inclination to grow in any very large home-made tomato cages. The 5 foot tomato cages are generally my standard cage size and I prefer determinate varieties due to generally less disease issues and reduced need to clean up the vines post-harvest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The plant was quite productive. The owner seemed to enjoy them and the couple that I tried tasted pretty good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spiders and Others

Here are some other spiders and insects that I saw throughout the season. I hope that you enjoy.

 

Katydid Nymph

 

Wild Bees in Suisun Valley, California

Plume Moth

Achemon Sphinx moth

Wolf Spider

Adult Katydid on Manzanita

A couple Mantid photos

No season is ever complete without me taking time to enjoy the mantids. Here are a few pictures of some mantids that I saw throughout the season.

Cucumber Beetles Aplenty, Cucumber Beetles Galore!

While many other astrological and lunar calendars were marked by the presence of one animal or another, 2023 was, for me, "The year of the Cucumber Beetle".

 

 

 

 

 

Never have I experienced cucumber beetles in such numbers in my life. I spent well over 50 hours combating them in order to realize a harvest of some of the varieties that I was growing. Two-thirds of the varieties that I was growing were so profoundly impacted by them that they produced a drastically decreased harvest that was not worth sharing with others.

 

 

 

Altogether, the only good thing about the cucumber beetles was when I was done with them. The end of the season provided me with much needed relief. Given the amount of work I put into these plots, I am hesitant to attempt growing in those plots again.

My Experience with Cucumber Beetle Traps and Lures

In a desperate attempt to control the onslaught of cucumber beetles infesting my two Suisun Valley plots, I purchased some yellow sticky traps and pheromone lures for cucumber beetles. Let’s just say that they did not produce the desired results.

Instead of mostly killing off cucumber beetles the traps mostly caught bees and butterflies. I even checked to make sure that I had purchased the correct product for the species of beetle I was trying to remediate. The results were was pretty sad. Either the beetles have undergone adaptations that make it so that they don’t care for the traps and lures or the traps and lures never worked to begin with.

 

 

In any case, I returned the remainder of the traps and lures to the company that I purchased them from and hope that I will never purchase another product that will unintentionally injure or kill off my beneficial insect friends.