prepping for garden check #2

This week in the garden I prepared for my second graded garden check. Since I wasn't able to do much to my plot last week, this week I had twice as much weeding to do. Also this week I had to do my least favorite gardening tasks: building up the beds with a hoe and evening out the walkways in-between beds with a rake. I'm happy to say I've noted some flowers as well as vegetables on some of my plants!

hopefully this zinnia flower will bloom by next week!

a purple flower on my eggplant plant!

the first sign of a red knight pepper!

Other plants that began to flower include zucchini, squash, and both types of tomato. I fertilized all the plants on my plot that looked stunted and need a little boost. Lastly, I sprayed both insecticides. I was especially sure to spray my bean plants with BT because they are getting demolished by tons of caterpillars! The caterpillars munch on the leaves and then cover themselves with the leaf edge (like a blanket) to conceal themselves.

In lecture this week we learned about various garden pests. A pest is essentially an organism that can cause injury or loss to a garden. The main pests I encounter in my garden are caterpillars and whiteflies. Caterpillars are chewing pests (refer back to my bean anecdote) while whiteflies are sucking pests. Whiteflies are so detrimental to plants because they are vectors for diseases. As I explained in previous posts, BT is used to kill chewing pests, namely caterpillars. BT is a digestive insecticide; when caterpillar larvae digest the insecticide, BT crystals become toxic specifically within the larvae's gut. Contrastingly, Neem is sprayed to kill whiteflies. It is a systematic insecticide, meaning the plant absorbs the insecticide and the pest intakes the insecticide when sucking on the plant. Neem messes with the whiteflies' lifestyle, producing hormonal changes that ultimately kill the pests. These two insecticides gradually kill insects. This weekend, my gardening teacher applied an insecticide called Admire Pro to my plot. This is a soil-applied insecticide that paralyzes the muscles of insects, killing them very quickly.

garden maintenance pt. 2

Unfortunately this week it began to rain during our gardening time, so I didn't accomplish as much as I normally do during gardening hours. Due to several midterms this week, I wasn't able to return to the garden and tend to my plot, so this upcoming Monday I'll have to weed twice as many weeds and give my plants/beds some extra attention and TLC! This week was exciting, however brief, because I noticed several yellow flowers sprouting on my tomato plants! I didn't spray my plot with any pesticides because the rain would have washed away the pesticides before they could protect my plants from insects.

Looking through the vegetable crisper in my fridge in my apartment, I tried to figure out exactly where my produce came from. A bag of lettuce that I bought at Publix was stamped, "Distributed by Publix Super Markets, Inc. Lakeland, Fl 33802".

A pepper mix I have actually had an address label on the underside of the container: "Product of USA 4206 Mercantile Ave. Naples, Fl". I googled the address and discovered that the pepper mix was actually distributed by FreshPoint, North America's largest fresh produce distributor. Upon researching the distribution company a little, I learned that they buy from local companies that support local family farmers.

http://www.freshpoint.com/services/environment.html

WebRep

currentVote

noRating

noWeight

prepping for garden check #1

This week was dedicated to preparing for my first graded garden check. A few of the things that my garden would be graded on included bed formation, fertilizer application, and how well my bed was weeded, among other criteria. None of my plants have flowered yet, although since I planted/transplanted a few plants the second week of class I hope to see some flowers on Monday! This week I weeded, hoed the walkways between my beds, and built up by beds. I built up my beds by packing the loosened dirt from hoeing the walkways on both sides of each of my four beds. Building up my beds was extremely exhausting, but doing so prevents bed erosion and gives plant roots plenty of space to grow. Climate conditions were finally favorable here in Gainesville to transplant lettuce plants into my garden this week :)

on a side note, my sunflowers finally sprouted!

After transplanting, I added fertilizer to both my lettuce transplants and my puniest plants. Finally, I sprayed two types of pesticides. The first, thuricide, I sprayed last week. This pesticide helps kill caterpillars and keeps them from munching on the leaves of my young plants. The second, neem, is a murky yellowish color and helps kill aphids and flies. Luckily this week I saw no aphids hiding out on the underside of the leaves of my cucumber plants!

my cucumbers are healthy and aphid-free!

Essential plant nutrients are needed by a plant in order to grow to maturation. Some, such as carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen are present in a plant's environment (air), and comprise 95% of a dried plant's mass. Macronutrients are required by a plant in larger quantities than micronutrients, although both are equally important to a plant's overall health. Macronutrients include nitrogen (1.5% of dried plant's mass), phosphorous, and potassium, to name a few. Several micronutrients include iron, zinc, and manganese. On most of my tomato plants the lower leaves of the plant are yellow in color, while the top leaves are green. This symptom suggests that the older (lower) leaves are deprived of vital nutrients, such as nitrogen from the soil, due to the newer (upper) leaves "hogging" the nutrients.