robin fledglings

Here are photos I took over the past couple weeks of the robins from the nest just outside my dining room window. Four blue eggs were laid April 22 to 25. Four chicks hatched about a week later. They grew really fast until they didn't fit in the nest. The nest was a pile of feathers, birds stacked on birds. The big orange-breasted chick ("Alpha") was always calm and got the best spot in the nest. Two middle-sized light-breasted birds looked identical to me ("the Twins"). The smallest had a red breast and shorter tail than the others ("Tiny"). On May 19 they all fledged. Alpha disappeared early in the morning. Soon after, one of the Twins was gone. The other Twin stayed in the branches near the nest with Tiny til early the next day. Then Tiny was alone in the branches by the nest. He stayed another day, then disappeared also. For a week I never saw any of then. Now this week, they are back in my yard. The chicks follow a parent searching for worms in the grass. Sometimes she feeds them, sometimes they pull their own bugs. I've seen up to three chicks together. A small short-tailed red-breasted one always puffed up and looking timid (Tiny?), a calm red-breasted one (Alpha?) and a light-breasted one (a Twin?). Well the world is theirs now. They can fly to the tree tops, hide down under the bushes and feast on all the bugs out there.

bugs on the vegetable seedlings

Most of the bugs I have seen in my garden this year have only been eating the very young seedlings and have gone away as the transplants have established themselves.

I was very disappointed by the heavy leaf miner damage to the beet seedlings.  I don't know any remedy for this, so I just ignored it. Now it seems that the new leaves are not getting the same damage. Hopefully the plants will continue to outgrow the miners.



My potatoes have a bit of flea beetle damage - not bad. This is a pretty regular problem in my garden early in the season. The flea beetles like the dry dusty weather, and the rain we are having now is probably reducing their numbers. Sometime I plant marigolds to chase them away, but I'm afraid these only look pretty and don't do a lot for the beetle problem. They look pretty and then they get covered by the vigorous potato plants.

 

I was surprised to see squash beetles already.  A couple weeks ago, there were striped beetles on nearly all of my baby seedlings. I gently tapped the plants to knock the beetles to the ground and then (yuck) squished them (eeu). I haven't seen any since. Fingers crossed. The photo below is a particularly hard hit plant - others are looking much better than this.



I also have some unknown pest damaging spinach and bok choy. I can't see any bugs and its eating fairly large holes in the plants. So my guess is slugs.Oh well. I know there are lots of organic solutions. I will have to look these up. (Or cheat and buy some slug pellets.)




Earlier in the season (a month ago), my broccoli was badly eaten by some pest. Entire young plants were eaten to the stem. I was thinking slugs, white cabbage worm or maybe even chipmunks. Since I didn't see any of these on the plants, I covered the patch with floating row cover. The plants are really beautiful now. I have left the cover on but the plants are starting to burst out if it. I love it when something as simple as row cover can solve a problem.

hummingbird and bumblebee

I took this photo yesterday - A hummingbird and a bumblebee side by side at dusk at the honey suckle.

Photos of my community garden plot this week

Its a super year for the garden so far. My potatoes are growing really fast. I planted them a few weeks ago in trenches and then last week and leveled the soil around the growing the plants. This coming week I will mound up the soil around the plants. Onions and lettuce are doing well. And I have a nice patch of sweet potatoes. I planted a couple of Butternut squashes at the base of my new garden arbor - looking forward to seeing big squashes hanging down later this season. I have a double row of perennial Daisies seedlings that I grew from seed. I'd like to plant these in my front yard next year after they size up. The garlic in some garden plots here is staring to scape, but mine is behind a bit - no scrapes yet. I have a few little strawberries on my two plants - its the first year I've grown strawberries. I have 12 tomato seedlings this year, half here and half in my garden at home. They are starting to grow a bit and the cherry tomatoes are blooming.

Today: Planted in the garden next to my house seeds for two double rows of soybeans (Envy and Butterbean) with soy bean inoculant. Also two double rows of bush beans (Tavera and Royal Burgandy) and two poles of Chinese pole bean. In my community plot, I weeded and spread salt marsh hay in the paths.

cukes, eggplants, and watermelon transplants

Today I transplanted cucumbers, eggplants and watermelons. I put them in the cold frame with covers removed - the warmest place I have. In the morning I prepared the soil - weeded, raked a pile of new compost flat, dug it in a little, and then raked the soil flat. It was so hot that I waited til evening to transplant the seedlings. It was dark when I finished planting and watering.

The cold frame is next to the robin nest - overfull with 4 big birdlets. I keep thinking they will fledge tomorrow. They don't fit in the nest anymore. Today they perched on the nest edges and flapped and preened. To sleep they stack on top of each other. They only know the world of their nest, their siblings and their parents bringing them worms.

I also prepared the beds for planting some bean seeds soon.

a busy week in the garden!

Wow! What a super week. I haven't posted because I've been busy gardening. Last weekend I tended my backyard. Monday I helped my parents in their garden - its all planted now and looks beautiful. Tuesday, I spent a long drizzly afternoon in my community plot. I brought in compost and planted lots of little seedlings. Like my parents, the beds are full now. The only garden still waiting for me is my side yard where the very warm weather plants (beans, watermelon, eggplants, cukes, etc) will go in. I think its probably the earliest I've ever gotten my gardens planted. The weather has been perfect this spring! I have lots of photos and will add them soon.

mom and dad's garden

On Monday, my parents and I worked a full day in their vegetable garden. We planted tomato, pepper, lettuce, sunflower, basil, cilantro, squashes, marigold, cosmos, daisy and cucumber seedlings. Dad staked his recently planted snow peas.

Some type of bug was eating the broccoli, cauliflower and bok choy that we planted a couple weeks ago. My guess it was the green caterpillar of the white cabbage butterfly. I replaced some of the seedlings, searched for green caterpillars (I found one) and then covered the patch with hoops and row cover.

We planted 4 types of pumpkins and winter squashes: Butternut, Buttercup, New England Pie pumpkin, Cinderella pumpkin (Rouge Vif d’Etampes) and a couple giant pumpkin seedlings. The giant pumpkins are at the edge of the compost pile and the other pumpkins an squashes just outside the garden fence. Last year, the squash vines took over the garden and even pulled down parts of the fence. This year they will have room to roam.

Last year I planted much too many cucumbers in Mom and Dad's garden. I thought they wouldn't want ANY this year, but, no, they want tons again. I planted 8 varieties: Diva, North Carolina pickling, Sumter pickling, Boston pickling, Straight Eight, Sweet Success, Tokiwa and Sooyow Nishiki. About 20 seedlings - and then Mom added a few more seeds for good measure. They grow up the 5 ft deer fence around the edge of garden, so they don't really take up any space. When my nephew comes to visit, he runs to the garden to pick cukes and eat them immediately. Then he gets a big grin on his face.

Dad wrote down all the varieties and where they were planted for his records and then we called it a day. As we were marveling about the full garden, Mom remembered the beans - we forgot to leave room to plant beans! Arrgh. Well, as Mom emailed to me later in the week, they found a place to squeeze in 2 rows.

seedlings

These are photos of my seedlings growing this past week. They have been inside til today when I moved them out to my cold frame. I hope the weather will be warm enough to plant them soon.

Skippy

another garden animal .... Looks like I need to start doing some weed whacking on those paths.

robin nest

Today I realized there are 4 chicks in the robin nest outside my window. They are growing very fast. I will live stream video until they fledge: http://www.livestream.com/robininthegarden

photos of my plot

This weekend, I planted bunch of seedlings. Broccoli, parsnips, carrots, beets, bok choy, radicchio, and onions. I see that several plants from last year reseeded: bachelor buttons, borage and dill. I also planted a bed of potatoes and expanded my asparagus bed.

new arbor

I have a new addition to my community plot. My husband made me an arbor. We found a couple of trellises on sale at a local garden shop. He made a cross pieces for the top. I am looking forward to planting squash or cucumbers up and over this.

critters ate my broccoli seedlings

Last Thursday, I planted 12 little broccoli seedlings. Saturday morning I checked on them and some critter had eaten the tops off of 3 or 4 of them. I think it was probably chipmunks (too early for baby rabbits and cutworms don't eat off just the leaves). My solutions was to replant my extra seedlings and cover the plot with hoops and row cover. I hope this works. I haven't had this problem before.