To the novice gardener, the title of this article may sound overly extreme – really, how bad can it get? To the seasoned gardener, the answer is: intense. There’s a war going on out there between you, the gardener, and all the potential enemies that will conspire to take your vegetables away before they can make it to your table! In this article, we’ll discuss some strategies for winning some of these battles, and, hopefully, coming out on top with a successful crop of delicious homegrown vegetables.
The Case of the Missing Eggplants
Let’s start off with a story, which was a unique episode for me this year, but which is also typical of the kind of trials and tribulations you will inevitably face when growing your own vegetables.
A few weeks ago, I went out one morning to check on the status of the “troops” (in my mind, I’ve always referred to all the plants growing out back as the “troops”), when I was shocked to find that two nicesized eggplants (on two different plants) – the first of the season and nearly ready for picking – had been surgically removed from the plants and presumably eaten by an uninvited guest! There they had been the afternoon before, and here they were gone the morning after! Huh; now this was a real puzzler – I had never encountered an eggplant thief before!
Who eats eggplants? Better asked, who eats two eggplants!? (The gnawed remains of one remained at the scene of the crime.) And, who has the kind of teeth (or claws?) to remove an eggplant so neatly from the stalk of the plant? (Eggplant stems are very, very tough; in order to remove them from the branch, you need either a knife or pruning shears; they can’t just be pulled off.)
A deer? No, the deer in my neighborhood go mainly for the leaves, and I don’t think eggplants are on their list of preferred foods. And deer leave big footprints all around and wouldn’t just eat from one plant and not sample another. No, not a deer. A rabbit? No, they don’t eat such a big vegetable – and certainly not two of them. And, since we have resident foxes in the neighborhood, I barely ever see a rabbit anymore. No, not a rabbit. A squirrel? No, what kind of squirrel can eat an eggplant, or cart one off? Not likely. A groundhog? Maybe; groundhogs aren’t called goundhogs for nothing. When they get started on your garden, they really can eat a lot! I went online to check out “animalsthat-eat-eggplants” but didn’t get any answers there.
Okay, so what to do? I had a third eggplant plant with a nearly ripe eggplant hanging off the stem (right next to the other two). I set out a rat trap (the snap wooden kind) right under that third eggplant, thinking “let’s see if I catch something, or at least scare it away.” Two days later, the third eggplant was surgically removed, the trap snapped, and no perpetrator left behind to tell the tale! Hmmm … besides being intrigued, I was getting a bit worried about the possibility of forfeiting all eggplants from this year’s garden. Because, no matter how much you might like our furry animal friends, you don’t really want them ripping off your gardening endeavor.
Time to bring out the bigger artillery. I started calling around to see if anyone had a large Havahart trap, the kind that can catch a groundhog or any other larger animal. I was directed to one of my daughter’s friend’s father (who had two groundhogs in his backyard last year) and set out the trap, using yellow squash, eggplant, and pineapple (!) as bait. (I heard that groundhogs like melon, but not having any, substituted pineapple instead.) Here’s how the trap works: The animal walks inside, steps on a metal pedal, and the door closes – ta da! Neat and animal friendly: no muss, no fuss.
I set out the trap (near the eggplants, of course) early one sunny morning; later that afternoon, I had caught – a squirrel! Not just a squirrel but one of the biggest squirrels I had ever seen, easily twice the size of your normal, garden-variety squirrel! Could this really have been the culprit? None of the bait had been eaten. Nevertheless, I took the squirrel away, and, coming back with the empty cage, I set out the trap again, just for good measure.
Okay, here’s a heads-up: The squirrel wasn’t the thief. And it wasn’t a groundhog, either. Have you figured out what it was?
Three days later, I had decided that I was going to close the missing-eggplant file and stamp it “case closed.” But, when I went out that morning (to check on the troops), I found a very large surprise caught in the trap: It was a raccoon – a very large and not very happy raccoon, nearly filling the entire space inside the trap! Finally, it made sense; this large animal could definitely eat a few eggplants - and he had eaten all the bait in the trap, as well; why waste good food, even under less than ideal circumstances?
To bring this rather long caper to a close, I very gingerly brought the (now heavy) cage to the back of the van and drove past the Druid Hill Cemetery to just south of the Beltway and released the raccoon into the woods there. Did you know that raccoons hiss and growl when cornered and threatened? I didn’t either, but now I do! I wore heavy-duty work gloves when carrying the cage and held my breath as I opened the trap door, not knowing which way he would turn. B”H, he was off like a lightning bolt, making a beeline for the woods, as soon as the cage door opened. And so ends the raccoon’s tail – er, I mean tale
The Moral of the Story
When you plant yummy vegetables in your backyard garden, there are any number of creatures and pernicious agents that think these plants and/or these vegetables are theirs for the taking - and thank you so much for keeping us in mind! I often think that there’s a Critter’s Craigs List out there, listing all the best gardens in the neighborhood. (I guess we should be proud that we’re on it!) When your adversaries show up at your garden doorstep, you can either fight or abdicate. But you can be assured that if you do nothing, you may not have much produce to show for your gardening efforts. And, if you say to yourself, “maybe it will go away” – I am telling you now that it won’t. Do nothing, and the chances are very great that the problem will get worse. Finally, if you decide to fight, you must act quickly and decisively; every day you hesitate will give your adversary an advantage that may become decisive in determining the outcome over time.
First Line of Defense: An Optimal Growth Environment
In the earlier articles in this series, there was a lot written concerning the creation of an optimal growth environment for your vegetable plants: Did you find a sunny location? Does your garden spot have good drainage? Did you prepare the garden bed properly? Did you add nutrients to the soil (by adding humus, compost, and/or fertilizer) and adjust for pH (by adding pulverized lime)? Did you buy disease-resistant varieties? Did you leave enough space between plants and pay attention to their location relative to the sun’s arc? Did you water deeply and only during the daytime? Did you water enough? Did you stake your plants and keep your tomatoes off the ground? Did you get rid of weeds, and mulch and/or cultivate between the rows? Do you visit your garden regularly and make a point of “taking care of business”?
None of this is meant to make you feel guilty if you’ve neglected to act on any one of these often critical matters. Nobody’s perfect and, like us, our gardens are a work in progress. However, all of these points add up to the creation of healthy and vibrant vegetable plants – and the healthier your plants, the more resistant they will be to infestation or disease. However, even the most robust plants growing in the most perfect garden may nevertheless be susceptible to all the battles that develop within the gardening world.
Genetics and Nutrition
It would be impossible in the space allotted for this article to discuss all the problems that arise when trying to succeed in vegetable gardening; entire books have been written on this subject. If you want to read more , I highly recommend The Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control, by Ellis and Bradley (Rodale Garden Books, 1992). However, let’s take a look at some of the more common problems that develop during the course of vegetable gardening, and some solutions to these challenges.
If you notice that your plants are not growing well, that they are stunted or weak, or have yellow leaves (instead of dark green) – and there is no obvious insect problem (i.e. the leaves are intact and no insects can be seen) – your problem may be due to genetics or nutrition.
It could be your plant is just a bad egg and is not programmed to grow well; there’s one in every batch of seeds. If so, nothing can be done except to pull the plant and hope the other plants will do well. If your plant is not disease resistant, it could be your plant is infected with any number of viral or fungal diseases. Viral diseases cannot be helped. (Tobacco mosaic virus causes yellow spotting on the leaves of many plants, including cucumber, squash, and tomato.) Many fungal diseases can be treated (see below). The more experience you have in gardening, the better you will be able to diagnose a problem.
One simple solution you might try to strengthen weak and/or yellowing plants is to feed them, especially if you neglected to add fertilizer or compost when you first planted. Simply sprinkle some 10-10-10 fertilizer around your plants (keep it away from the stems). Also, sprinkle around some pulverized lime (away from the stems), if you didn’t do so earlier. If your plants respond by becoming healthier, you know your problem was nutritional.
It’s also a good idea in general to feed your otherwise robust and healthy plants during August, since these strong and vigorously growing plants will need additional nutrition to keep them going. In Jerry Baker’s Great Green Book of Garden Secrets (American Master Products, Inc. 2000), another one of my favorite books, you can find all kinds of recipes for natural “elixirs” that the author recommends for boosting plants at any time during the growing season.
Powdery Mildew: A Treatable Fungal Infection
If you are growing cucumbers, squash, or melons (as well as zinnias and other flower varieties), know that all these plants are susceptible to a very common fungal infection known as powdery mildew. I’m mentioning it here alone because it is so prevalent and so destructive. It first appears as powdery white dots on some of the leaves, and, if left untreated, soon spreads like wildfire to all the other leaves and all the other susceptible plants. Eventually, it will kill the plant, leaving only brown, curled and dying leaves in its wake.
There are lots of fungicides on the market, but the only one I’ve found that works effectively is Liquid Copper Fungicide, made by Bonide; it controls (but does not eliminate) powdery mildew, as well as black spot and rust fungal infections – so long as it is applied in the early stages of the disease. Since it’s copper-based, its color is a very brilliant turquoise. It comes in both concentrated form (available at Valley View Farms) as well as in diluted form in a ready-to-use spray bottle (available from Home Depot). In order to apply the concentrate as well as all other garden concentrates (see below), you will need a 6-gallon sprayer unit, the top part of which attaches to your hose and automatically dilutes the concentrate in the bottom part as you spray it on your plants. Ask the personnel at your garden center how to use these spray units, which are an essential tool for all serious gardeners.
Insects: Here, There and Everywhere
If you have a vegetable garden, you are also going to have insects populating that garden – all kinds of insects, from the good to the bad to the ugly.
As mentioned in an earlier article, bees and honeybees are extremely beneficial to your gardening, doing the pollinating work while flying from flower to flower, often being the sole instruments responsible for making it possible for your vegetables to bear fruit. There’s really no need to be afraid of bees: when out in the garden, they are not interested in you, and as long as you let them be, they will go about their business and leave you alone. B”H, in all the years I have been gardening, I have never been stung by a bee.
Praying mantises and ladybugs are also extremely beneficial to your garden, since they are hunters of other insects that are garden pests. Praying mantises are voracious hunters, while ladybugs eat many harmful aphids that can weaken your plants and cause disease. When you see them, leave them be.
It would be impossible to list here all the insects that are bad for your garden (see the insect control book mentioned above for more information). However, a number of the more common insect pests should be mentioned:
Cabbage moths (those white “butterflies” that are ubiquitous and hover around your leafy vegetables), lay eggs on your vegetable plants that hatch into green worms, which feed on the leaves – eating a little at first, and then eating a lot as they grow bigger. As they grow, their dark green waste products can be seen littering the insides of your plants. Yech! Similarly, tomato horn worms eat the leaves and fruit of your tomato plants. If you have a small garden, the easiest way to deal with these pests is to look for them and to pick them off your plant. If you have a large garden, you will have to use a pesticide (see below).
Aphid infestation on tomato plants can cause disease and will weaken the plant over time. Aphid infestation on broccoli plants (“white flies”) makes it unfeasible to grow these plants in the heat of the summer; they grow out of control and make it impossible to clear the heads of insects; however, in the cooler weather, their population is kept under control. Insecticides can help control this problem.
There are good beetles, bad beetles, and neutral beetles. Bad beetles include the ubiquitous cucumber beetle (either yellow-and-black striped, or yellow-withblack-dots; relatively small in size), which will bore into a stem of your plant and cause it to deflate and die. One day the plant is healthy and fine, and the next the stem is weak and dying. Also, squash borers get into the root vines of squash, cucumber, and melon plants and will cause the death of the entire plant, causing it to deflate practically overnight. Japanese beetles are always bad and should be removed and stepped on wherever they are found; they are leaf-eating machines and will denude your plants in short order. Colorado beetles (big, round, and striped) eat the leaves off potato plants. Finally, eggplant flea beetles are little black beetles that bore tiny holes into eggplant leaves, eventually leaving them looking like they’ve been buckshot. In all these cases, insecticide will help.
One or two grasshoppers are not a problem; but lots of grasshoppers can eat the leaves off your plants. When you see them, pick them off and kill them; if you have many of them, pesticides will help control them.
Slugs are not insects, but can also be a garden problem. During the day, they hide under rocks and wood, coming out at night to eat the leaves off many vegetable plants, leaving them holey. One remedy is to bury a small cup in the ground and fill it with beer; the slugs will fall in and drown in an inebriated state. Commercial products are also available for killing slugs (Slugetta, Bugetta) and are very effective; these products should be spread around the outside of the garden near their hiding places, but not directly onto the plants.
Insecticide: To Use or Not To Use …
Today, it is politically incorrect to recommend using growth supplements or insecticides; organic gardening is in, while the use of chemicals is out. Of course, who wouldn’t want to be all natural, all green, and, basically, all healthy without the use of manufactured supplements and remedies to aid us in keeping our garden healthy?
By way of a mashal (parable), we all want our children and families to be strong and healthy without the use of external medications and/or food supplements. We hope and pray that good nutrition and a healthy lifestyle will keep everyone on the right track and going strong. But adversity and illness have a way of making their way even into households where parents are doing everything right. So, we try homeopathic and non-medical remedies and bring out the chicken soup and garlic and perhaps some herbal tonics. When these cures fail, however, we do turn to stronger medications, which may be a double-edged sword, having side effects both for the patient and for the population at large. Vitamins are good, but using them without careful planning is bad. And, although antibiotics are the “miracle drugs” that have saved many, many lives, we all know that overuse and abuse can lead to even stronger and more resistant microorganisms. However, when our children are sick and need help, we take necessary precautions and give them what is needed.
By all means, use whatever natural antidotes are available when it comes to fighting the good fight in your garden: Open Jerry Baker’s book and make use of all his homeopathic remedies for garden ailments; peruse the Organic Gardener’s Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control and see what is available to keep your garden enemies at bay. These therapies may work some of the time, but from experience, I can tell you that they don’t work all of the time.
When you’ve got a large gardening concern, and the cucumber beetles are becoming visible at an alarming rate, and your vines are dying a slow and persistent death, then you might consider turning to other methods to maintain an advantage in the vegetable garden war games. Warfare is a dirty business, and I can understand if this is not exactly your cup of tea; everyone must do what they feel comfortable with.
Over the years, I’ve tried many different kinds of fungicides and pesticides to keep order in the garden and chaos at bay. Like the various kinds of art supplies I’ve bought and rejected, which now sit unused in my drawers, I’ve got a whole inventory of garden products I’ve found ineffective and now sit gathering dust in my basement.
I’ve already listed, above, the fungicide I find to be most useful. As for pesticides, I have found Ortho Sevin to be a very effective agent in controlling unwanted pests in the garden. It comes as a powder (Sevin Dust), as a liquid (ready for use in its own spray bottle), and also in concentrated form for use in a spray unit. For small gardens, I think the powdered form or diluted liquid is easiest to use; for large gardens, the concentrated form applied with a garden sprayer is best.
I am very, very respectful of these powerful garden agents (as I am when using potentially dangerous art supplies); I use them only sparingly, spraying only when necessary (on the average of once a month) and in minimal amounts. I keep the kids out of the garden after an application. I diligently follow the guidelines for how long to wait after applying (a couple of days for above-ground crops; a week for root crops), and make sure to wash all pickings well after bringing them in. It’s a good idea to keep upwind of your spray unit when applying, and it’s a good idea to shower afterwards as well. After a day or two, Sevin breaks down and is washed away with the rain and/or sprinkler.
Animal Control: It’s All about Deer
Despite the appearance of the solitary raccoon or groundhog, the biggest problem facing backyard vegetable and flower gardeners these days is deer. They come into your garden and cause tremendous damage, sometimes consuming entire plants and crops. If you wake up one morning to find all your beet greens eaten, or your tomatoes suddenly gone, or your vines missing half their leaves, or your flowers unexpectedly vanished – you can bet that you’ve had a visit from your local deer delegation; they don’t need to leave their corporate card for you to know who’s been calling!
Fencing is the best way to discourage these brazen pests; plastic netted fencing is also available at relatively low cost. I also find that Liquid Fence (which comes unconcentrated in its own spray bottle) is generally somewhat effective in dissuading these unwanted consumers from entering you backyard. Use the spray often – at least once a week – and make believe you’re a big cat marking your territory. Don’t spray your plants, rather, spray vertical objects and paths surrounding and leading into your garden. Re-spray after every rain. I think that this product is now also available as long lasting pellets. It doesn’t take long to apply, but it must be done religiously if you are serious about keeping these large herbivores at bay.
Final Note: Plan Now for a Fall Crop
Plant seeds now for a fall crop of coldweather vegetables. This would include broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kohlrabi, radish, beets, and all other root crops. Small plants can be set out any time in August, and you will be reaping the benefits of these plantings in October and even into November.
Kol tuv and hatzlacha rabba! â—†
Have you missed earlier articles in this series? Write to Avraham Cohen at avcograph@aol.com and I will send them to you.
