I have bought some of the oil, and gave it a try with 1/2 to 2 TBS of the oil in my 24 oz water squirt bottle. I'm wondering if that is the correct ratio, or is it too much or too little? Also, I would like to know how often it needs to be applied. I've also been wondering how hard it is to wash off the spinach or lettuce or some of the other veggies. That is some REALLY nasty tasting stuff!
Amaranth continues to grow. The asparagus came up!!! It is really hard to understand how such a dried up thing could actually produce something green like that! I am really surprised about that. I need to put a little dirt over them a bit. The rain has been doing the watering. I haven't done anything other than dig the hole and put them in there with a lite cover of dirt.
Tomato plants which we bought that had some ‘maters on them have been reddening up a bit. I'm seeing flowers on some of the plants which I started from seed. This is encouraging because I was beginning to think that this was not a year for tomatoes. Darlin’ says I need to squirt blossom set on them.
The red bell pepper plant has a pepper. That's kinda fun.
The cucumbers are going crazy. Darlin and I need to get some kind of support for them to climb on! The cucs and squash plants are all blooming. Haven't looked closely enough to see if they are out of the male homosexual stage yet.
Sunflowers are growing.
Okras are growing, but LOTS of little ants are crawling on them. Do they harm okra, or do they need to be warded off? I squirted them with neem oil, but cant tell if it helped or not.
I have 2 dill sprouts.
Some more lettuce seed sprouted in the pot where the caterpillar had its way. We'll see.
My only sour note is, someone last week mentioned that legumes tend to be easy for beginners. Well, I guess I'm the exception to prove the rule. Few of my legumes seem very happy. Only the black turtle beans seem to be green and growing, but they haven't flowered yet. So who knows??? Maybe they are desperately unhappy too.
The favas, snow peas, great white northern, and cranberry beans are all fading. I have a few sparse pods, but I can see they are not happy. Not sure if the unhappiness has to do with location, wrong soil, or bugs. *sigh* It's discouraging.
I guess, though, that in balance, even with the problems with the legumes, I'm learning. Next year, I'll put the legumes somewhere else. I'll use a better mix of dirt. The really unhappy ones, upon reflection are potted in a soil that I started out with in the spring, and isn't as good as the mix I've been using more recently. In all, I'm probably learning a lot. But I had really hoped for some beans!
Darlin’ was joking around about a trip to a cooler part of the country and I confess it sounds very enticing to just leave it all to the bugs and heat waves.
I’m going to plant some snow peas in my fall and winter gardens also carrots and fennel.
Neem oil worked very nicely on my peach tree last year. Didn’t need to use it this year.
Most of the legumes on your list are cool-season crops. There are other varieties that prefer the heat. I know tepary is one. You might be able to get nunas there, I’m not sure.