Squash bug on a winter squash leaf in my Arkansas garden

Human child next to infected patch of winter squash

My winter squash plants are being attacked!

Squash bug nymphs on dead leaf

Squash bug nymphs

Squash bug nymph looking for refuge on a squash leaf

Soft, white, squash bug nymph

Squash bug eggs on underside of winter squash leaf

Squash bug eggs

Squash bug adult

Squash bug adult

How to Kill Squash Bugs Organically

The video below shows an organic way to kill squash bugs and cucumber beetles, using dish soap. It’s amazing how fast it works! [ Credit: georgem21275 ]

I tried this and it works!  Fast!  I just used dish soap mixed with water and poured it over a gathering of squash bugs and they were all paralyzed within seconds.  It was just a little soap and mostly water, shaken up.

How does dish soap kill bugs?

The soap suffocates them.  These insects breath through their outer covering and not through their mouth.  Air enters the insect’s body through valve-like openings in the exoskeleton.  [ source ] A soapy liquid covering their body keeps clogs up these openings, preventing Oxygen from entering their bodies.

Other Common Squash Pests

The video below shows several of the common insect pests on squash plants. [ Credit: NMSU ]

Here are all the gardening videos from my garden on May-13-2010.

Hungarian Heart heirloom tomato, looks almost deformed while green on the plant. Will it fill out by the time it's red and ripe?

Arkansas Garden Tour – Part 1

In video above: Garlic growing on a hill next to sunflowers.  Also in video:  Using paper shreds as mulch; Guatemalan Blue squash; Charantais Melon (some call it cantaloupe); Cilantro / Coriander – blossoms / flowers; Chives; Tomatoes; squash, yellow Dixie Hybrid; pumpkin; buckwheat; watermelon; Zucchini, Black Beauty; green beans…

Scapes

This is my first year growing garlic.  I chose to grow the variety called German Extra Hardy.  I just learned that you can eat the flowers and the immature flower shoots, called scapes.  They can be roasted in olive oil.  Video showing them cooked:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF6xpezTNIs

Here are some scapes I picked from the garden on May-15-2010 from the tops of some garlic plants:

Scapes fresh from the garden in my basket.

Scapes (immature shoots or flowers from garlic) sautéing in olive oil and sea salt. Only cook a couple minutes - more than that and all the garlic flavor will be cooked out! After cooking these, I went back to the garden to get one more fresh scape and ate it raw. They are a little hot, but work well raw if you take a bite of the scape just before eating a bite of your meal. The scapes not only tasted good, but made me feel alive and excited after enjoying so much flavor in one meal.

Arkansas Garden Tour – Part 2

In video above: Aunt Molly’s Ground Cherry; Cherokee Purple tomatoes; Jimmy Nardello’s Sweet pepper; Tendergreen bush green beans; Long Red Florence onions; oregano; chives; yellow squash; Green Arrow peas; okra

Aunt Molly's Ground Cherries growing on the plant and still in their husks. The first couple cherries I've eaten so far this season tasted great! The flavor of these orange fruits is a cross between a muskmelon and an orange.

Growing Bean Vines Up Sunflowers

In video above: Green beans, pole variety, growing in an Arkansas garden, ready to start climbing Titan Sunflowers.  The seeds for the sunflowers came from sunflowers I grew last year and saved.  (The parent plants are shown fully bloomed in the video: Solar Panel Charges Truck Battery)

Titan Sunflower head full of seeds from 2009

Peach Tree: Contender

In video above: How old does a peach tree have to be to start producing fruit?  This 3-year-old tree is loaded down with fruit. Thinned to make sure remaining peaches are as big and sweet as possible. Growing in Arkansas.

It's hard to believe that just two years ago I was taking this tree out of a box!

I bought this tree from Gurney’s for $32 plus $8 for shipping.  It does not appear that they sell this tree now.  It was described as “PEACH CONTENDER STD DLX/PREM”.  The tree is grafted to another tree’s root stock and I don’t know which one.  I planted this tree on rocky, compact soil and it is now doing very well.

When the peach tree was just 1 year old, it was tiny!

It's hard to believe that just two years from this photo, the tree would be loaded with fruit, as shown in the video above.

When will the Contender peach tree be ready to harvest?

According to uark.edu, we should expect to start harvesting ripe peaches on July 14.

Garden Harvest – Beets, Detroit Dark Red

In video above: Did you know you can eat beet greens? I didn’t until this year. I picked some out of the garden, cooked them up, and ate them. Sautéed them for 3 minutes with onion and salt.  I confirmed that they taste good and after eating them, I felt good, too!

The chive blossoms also attract bees.  I was happy to see a busy bee visiting the garden with me.

Well, it turns out that the flowers tasted good to me, too!  They taste and smell like chives, but add a different color to your plate.  I added 5 flowers to my lunch, leaving most of the blooms behind for the bees to inspect.

With lunch, I also ate up the last of my spring radishes.  Here is a picture of some radishes I ate on a previous day.

I cooked the greens with garlic and ate the radish bulbs raw.  But that was a previous day.  For today’s meal, I collected the last of my spring radishes along with the chive blossoms and returned to the kitchen to cook lunch, as shown in this video…

While this is my first time consuming chive blossoms, I regularly enjoy chives with the following foods:

• tacos
• nachos
• sprinkled over a stir fry
• in sandwiches when no onion is available
• mixed with tuna casserole
• mixed with french onion dip
• just about anything that contains cheese or sour cream

… and my favorite:

• sprinkled over a baked potato with sharp cheddar cheese and sour cream

I bet the blossoms would work with any of the foods above.

Update, Apr-21-2010

I used the blossoms again, this time on a mix of chicken and potatoes.  Here is the lunch before the blossoms:

I used 10 blossoms fresh from the garden.

And here is my plate with the blossoms sprinkled over it.

It tasted good.  The chive blossoms gave a taste very similar to onions, especially the after taste.  When I was done eating, I still could taste an onion-like flavor that lingered awhile.  The purple blossoms added flavor to an otherwise boring dish.  Besides flavor, it also added nutrients.

]]> http://www.elperfecto.com/2009/09/29/spider-spins-web/feed/ 0 http://www.elperfecto.com/2009/09/15/box-turtle-is-a-predator/ http://www.elperfecto.com/2009/09/15/box-turtle-is-a-predator/#comments Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:24:48 +0000 Earl http://www.elperfecto.com/?p=374 Watch as a box turtle enjoys a swim before lunch.

For lunch he eats a grub, snail, and a large beetle.

This cute turtle is actually a vicious hunter.  Watch the video to see…

My daughter found this box turtle on our property in Arkansas, USA.  We borrowed him from the wild for a week.  After a week, we released him back from where he came:  the woods behind our house.  We sent him on his way with a full belly.

Surprisingly, my first few attempts to feed this turtle failed.

What do box turtles eat anyway?

At first I offered him different kinds of fruit, like banana and  grapes.  I also offered him a carrot.  The turtle refused to eat these and I was afraid he was going to starve to death while visiting us.

I read online that box turtles also like to eat small bugs.  I put some bugs into the 18-gallon plastic container we were keeping him in.  The turtle immediately turned into a vicious predator.  He gulped down many bugs, including grubs, a worm, a snail, and rolie polies.

Where do you find food for box turtles?

I found the bugs in two places:  in my compost pile and around my garden.  The big beetles were found under logs that I use to border some garden beds.  I found a grub slithering across a garden bed right after a rain.  The rest of the bugs were found in my compost pile.  I simply took a shovel and dug into the pile, uncovering rolie polies and a worm.

My biggest surprise with this turtle was how much of a carnivore he was.  He refused to eat his fruits and veggies but loved to eat live prey.

The turtle was released yesterday and is again wandering around on our property where my daughter originally found him.  The way I convinced her to let him go was to tell her that if we let him go, we could have lots of baby turtles on our property later.  After our turtle finds another adult turtle, they will lay eggs and make baby turtles.  She was excited about that and was motivated to let him go without a fuss.

We enjoyed meeting this turtle, seeing how turtles swim, and learning more about what turtles eat.

Update:  Aug-6-2010 —————————

Who’s Been Eating My Melons?!

This is a melon that made it safely out of the garden and into the house.

This year I have seen many more turtles, mostly hanging around the garden.  These turtles love to eat melons!  Nooooo!!!   My garden has turned into a turtle sanctuary!

VIDEO