Stella B's Veggie Ranch

The Bugs and Solutions...

2011-03-21T01:52:00.000-07:00

The field is turned, the seed potatoes have arrived, we have all of our seeds, and we have our controls ready to go. This week we'll be planting our seeds in the greenhouse and as soon as the field is disced, we will be tilling and then planting potatoes.

Last year it was the squash bug and the bean beetle, along with the colorado potato beetle that did us in mostly. This year, we've got a bunch of controls ready to go, as well as having a much better layout for the garden, which will (hopefully) eliminate a few other problems caused by too-close planting and overhead watering.

For the squash bug: there really is no better way than to make sure there are no close cover areas for them to hide and use a "board capture" method to corral the little evil things. They gather under it at night and then you flip it over and crush em. Savage but effective. One must also hunt down the eggs and destroy them, which can be difficult, as they are on both sides of the leaves, but not impossible because the eggs are laid in neat rows and stand out against the green leaves pretty well. As this article notes, there is no substitute in the organic farming for the careful eye of the farmer: HERE.

Our tomatoes were run over with blight last year by mid-season. Part of the trouble came because we started our seeds too soon and our transplants languished in the greenhouse for too long before going in the ground. Then we planted too close together and overhead watering, coupled with the many foggy nights here in the mountains, kept the leaves wet and touching, enabling a rapid spread once the fungus took hold. There is no way to stop it once it starts but it is possible to apply bacillus subtilis in the form of Serenade to the plants at the outset with periodic reapplications and keep it at bay. You can read more HERE.

Tomatoes also get assaulted by the hornworm, which can destroy plants very quickly. To control it, and other caterpillars, we use a form of bacillus thuringensis which comes as Dipel dust, mixed in a sprayer. There are a variety of strains, and while the Dipel wasn't effective against the Colorado potato beetle, it did the job on the hornworm. More info HERE. It is not harmful to beneficial insects.

Pyrethrum, in the form of the liquid Pyganic, is a strong control for beetles, aphids, mites and the like, but it can be harmful to bees, so application timing is important to coincide when bee activity is at its lowest. It is a derivative of the chrysanthemum and provides a knockdown control, which is sometimes lacking in other organic insecticides. It can be mixed with neem/bt/etc.

We use diatomaceous earth to control ants which love to trap the aphids and make em produce "honeydew," a sweet sticky substance they find delicious.

Beneficial insects are a big help, including ladybugs, praying mantis and the trichoderma wasp. Proper mulching to control weeds eliminates hiding places and makes spotting some of these critters easier.

For further info, you can check out this organic grower's resource guide: HERE.

We'll be posting pictures of these bugs in the next post, taken last year during their attacks...not this year though!

Getting Geared Up/Promised Bug Update

2011-02-24T13:00:00.000-08:00

Won't be long now. In the next couple of weeks, we'll get our soil turned and disced, and we'll be ready to go.

More very soon including the "Bug Update" promised so many months ago.

September Update...

2010-09-28T00:40:00.000-07:00

Wildflowers & turkey feathers

Small pie pumpkin

Rose of Sharon in bloom

Citronella blossoms

Dried tomatoes like marigolds

Moon & Stars

September's bounty

Tiny pitcher plant

At the barn

Portrait of old sungolds

Black beetles on yellow blooms

Morning Glory and dried cowpeas

Mr. Miles guarding the garden

Small spider web in the morning

Dried tomatilloes like lace

Edisto 47 canteloupe

Red burgundy okra

Clemson spineless okra

Garden workhorse

Standing tall

Potatoes in cast iron

One of the wide variety of morning glory blooms

With dried limas

Garden statue from my grandmother's house

And her "king"

September was all about acknowledging the destruction the squash bugs wrought throughout the entirety of the garden. These little guys were absolutely voracious, and they spread like fog across a Blue Ridge morning, blanketing everything that was green with eggs and nymphs and then adults mating wildly.

But that didn't stop us from harvesting many delicious winter squash which we frittered and fried along with the plentiful okra which is still pouring in despite temperatures finally approaching some kind of sanity. The melons were delicious, sweet and juicy, and worth the fight. The last beans became a haven for wasps and yellow jackets and I almost fell victim to any number of black widows hiding under every log and rock.

We'll put up a "bug post" next and discuss our plans on dealing with the problems we faced come next season. We have solutions for these things, and no mercy in our farmer's hearts. That's just how we roll here.

August Update

2010-08-28T23:32:00.000-07:00

Well, August was a time of great successes as well as impending failures. We had more beans than we knew what to do with, a massive amount of squash and cukes (Cyn made some truly amazing pickles with some of our own hot pepper vinegar) and beautiful tomatoes before The Trouble set in. We eked out a decent little crop of onions and leeks, we saw the onset of winter squashes and pumpkins, plus the fattening up of vast amounts of melons.

August brought the Okra Avalanche, with every day requiring us to harvest a basket full of Clemson Spineless and Red Burgundy which nearly overwhelmed. Sadly, August also brought with it bugs. Lots and lots of bugs. And some diseases, like Early Blight and Fusarium Wilt. We'll have a post about the bugs and what we did right/wrong very soon. It was a dry month which presented some challenges with making sure everything got a drink, so we learned about our layout problems and will address those next season.

Overall, we're pleased with how things went, even though there was never enough time to get everything done under the searing mountain sun.

Enjoy the photos Cynthia took of the Veggie Ranch in full action:

Portrait of a Zucchini

One of many Black Widow Spiders in the garden

Moon and Stars melon with blossom

Royal Burgundy bush beans

Cherokee Wax bush beans

A multitude of garden gems

Dragon's Tongue bush beans

One delicious table

Italian Red Onions

Rattlesnake pole beans blooming

Crazy purple-pink corn tassels, pre-insect invasion

Corn bursting like fireworks against the August sky

Golden Crookneck, just before the Great Insect War began in earnest

Edisto 47 melons coming in nicely

Okra blossoms

Pumpkin flower (these are really huge)

Dry Black Turtle Beans

Royal Burgundy with blossom

Dragon's Tongue, with tiny garden spider hitchhiker

Butternut Squash blossoms exploding with bees

One of the multitude of Morning Glory flowers that spread throughout the garden curling around the lima beans

July Photos

2010-07-24T13:12:00.000-07:00

Queen Anne's Lace

Corn tasselling

Thanks, bees

8 Ball zukes

Golden Crookneck

Sunset, with flowers

Two of our CSA baskets

Red Thumb Fingerlings

Sugarbaby melons coming in

Royal Burgundy bush beans

Potato trio

Limas and Cherokee Wax bush beans

The garden

Close up of CSA basket, with cukes, zukes, herbs and more

A row of squash

Delicious

Country morning

July...

2010-07-02T19:03:00.000-07:00

We've been fighting the aphids and the flea beetles and the caterpillars, but so far we're winning. We've started our fall transplants in the greenhouse, and are getting ready to till the fall plots in the garden and finish up the flower beds around the cabin. We appreciate our CSA folks who understand where we're at, and we look forward to hitting the markets by month's end.

We've been finding arrow heads and scrapers in the dirt as we've dug and furrowed our rows, which is an amazing thing. To hold an artifact from the Cherokee who roamed these mountains so long ago...the mind reels with the history, the tragedy, all of it contained in a small, carefully crafted piece of stone buried for all these years until we dug it up...

On the art front, we've got our paintings and photos coming along and we'll post some pix soon.

Enjoy these new photos of the crops as they grow...

black eyed peas

sweet corn

moon and stars melons

lemon cukes

ronde de nice zucchini

black eyed susans in the pasture

green zebra tomatoes

the pasture with rainbow slice

A Double Rainbow With Dogs

2010-06-16T21:51:00.000-07:00

June update...

2010-06-15T15:30:00.001-07:00

It rains a lot in June here in the mountains. But we've got everything in, with photos coming soon. The potatoes are giant and doing very well, five different types; the bush beans are up and growing vigorously, four or five different kinds; pole beans, squash, cukes and kale; ten or eleven different kinds of tomatoes, about fifty plants worth; two brocs and two cabbages; ten different peppers in fifty foot rows with some okra mixed in for separation; melons and eggplants and more.

The hardest part was running a big ol' tiller over four thousand square feet of dirt. Twice. But now we can maintain it, fight the flea beetles and slugs and caterpillars and bunnies and raccoons and crows and deer, and then we can eat.

We'll be at the market soon, and we're working on our next step in the evolution of The Veggie Ranch.

Stay tuned.

Some New Photos

2010-05-18T10:54:00.000-07:00

squash blossom beneath threatening skies

tomatillo blossom

broccoli and cabbage

hot peppers coming in

the greenhouse nearly bursting

squash blossom closeup

the first cuke

dark opal basil

We've got the potatoes in the ground, the beds laid out and composted and everything else goes in the ground this week. Except for some of the herbs, we've grown everything from organic heirloom seed purchased locally...

The Waiting Is The Hardest Part...

2010-05-08T01:06:00.000-07:00

The Farmer's Almanac says we're a little behind getting seeds in the ground, though some folks around here have already got some things in the dirt (using row covers and frost protection since we had some spotty frost as recently as a week ago). Our greenhouse is full of life, and the seeds are itching to get started. It's a feat of timing in the mountains since we have such a short growing season...

We added our organic amendments to the soil, rock phosphate for the tomatoes and calcium loving plants, chilean nitrate, feather meal, potash, worm compost, some lime and other goodies, and had Mr. Rice turn it all into the dirt, which is disced up so nice just waiting on our compost delivery at the first of the week.

We'll take that compost and work it into the beds we are laying out, put up our trellises, and then it's all going in the ground Tuesday, we think. It won't be long now...

The Field Breathes at Last

2010-04-10T17:43:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Mr. Rice from up the road a bit for coming down and flipping the earth over for us. Now it will air out and dry for a couple of days and then it will be disced into a fine sandy loam, and then we'll get our beds/rows ready. We'll put the greenhouse up this weekend and get our plant starts and seedlings out to harden up. Time to work...

The garden area with Stella keeping watch in the distance

Hummingbird feeder near the cabin on newly blooming trees

Freshly emerging fiddlehead ferns

Spring...

This Week...

2010-03-30T01:20:00.000-07:00

This week we are going to have the garden area turned and put up our greenhouse, then fill it with our plant starts. Almost all of our seeds have come from Sow True Seeds, and everything we've started so far is growing like crazy! The basil is young and delicious, the cukes have begun reaching up for the light with their little tendrils and everything else is waiting to be transplanted into larger pots before they find their place in the garden.

After the garden is turned we will have our organic compost delivered and till it into the beds, then begin the great fun of mulching and planting. We can't wait. We will also build our potato boxes and purchase our row cover material to keep the bugs and critters out, as well as finish the compost pile(s).

What We're Growing This Year...

2010-03-29T21:34:00.000-07:00

Purple Basil, Genovese Basil, Lemon Basil, Sacred Basil, Garlic Chives, Italian Parsley, Summer Thyme, Greek Oregano, Chamomile, Sunflowers, a wide variety of flowers including Nasturtium, Calendula, Aster, Coneflower, Daisy, Cosmos, Marigolds and many more, Rattlesnake Pole beans, Royal Burgundy beans, Cherokee Wax beans, Black Turtle beans, Black Beauty Squash, Ronde De Nice Squash, Early Summer Golden Crookneck Squash, Calabrese Broccoli, DiCiccio Broccoli, Red and Green Cabbages, a variety of lettuces such as Green Oakleaf and Cimarron Romaine, Leeks, Spinach, Collards, California Wonder Peppers, New Mexico Big Jim Hot Peppers, Cherry Tomato, Yellow Pear Tomato, Cherokee Purple Tomato, Snow White Tomato, Sundrop Tomato, Brown Cherry Tomato, Green Zebra Tomato, Tomatillos, Clemson Spineless and Red Burgundy Okra, Scarlet Nantes and Tendersweet Carrots, Melons, Fingerling Potatoes, Yellow and Red Potatoes, more…

Howdy!

2010-03-28T21:44:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Stella's Veggie Ranch! This is our first year growing produce and producing art in Asheville, North Carolina and taking it to some of the various farmer's markets in and around our great city. We, by the way, are Chris and Cynthia and we live on old cattle pastureland with our two dogs, Stella Blue and Miles. This year we are farming about an acre, and hope to expand in the future once we get ourselves established.

Additionally, we are both artists who will be bringing samples of our wares with us, including original watercolors, hand-painted books of poetry and prose, photography, jewelery and many more hopefully interesting items.

We decided at the last minute to offer a very limited number of CSA subscriptions in order to raise some of the capital necessary to get fully underway. If you don't know, a CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), which is a way to connect the consumer to the farmer, with each committing to a seasonal contract. We, as farmers, grow a variety of vegetables, herbs and flowers sustainably without the use of synthetic pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers. You, as member of a CSA, purchase a share of the season’s harvest in advance. From late May to early October you get a box of freshly harvested produce from the farm every week.

The CSA arrangement helps the farmer with spring start-up costs including seeds, materials and equipment, and in return it allows the member to relax and enjoy the food that is delivered during the growing season. The CSA connects the member, first hand, to the ups and downs of their food production as well as keeping them more in touch with the seasonal offerings from the garden. When a share is purchased, the member accepts the risk of crop failure along with the farmer. However, by planting a wide variety of produce and careful crop rotation, the risk is lessened considerably.

We'd like to offer our thanks to those brave souls and good friends who took us up on our offer and we hope to provide them and our customers at the markets with the very finest veggies we can wrangle here at The Ranch.

We'll be posting pictures regularly to mark our progress and keep everyone informed!