Arcanepotato

This week I'm enjoying oats with homemade raspberry jam for breakfast and misir wot (lentil stew) with frozen veg for lunch.

Like the title says, I want to do my part for the climate emergency and go vegan because people say it's the best way an individual can make a difference.

What I don't understand is that if we stop eating cows, they are going to run rampant, right? All those cows going free, terrorizing their former captors and wracking havoc. That's got to have carbon emissions right? And of course their FARTS.

Honestly, I think the best thing for the planet is to keep eating those climate destroying jerks.

Our garlic patch was looking a little iffy and it turns out it's garlic moths. Bummer. These little dudes lay their eggs in the garlic leaves and stems and they eat their way into the bulbs.

Our plan is to remove the scapes and hope for the best. We have planted in the same bed two years in a row which was a mistake. We got over confident because we thought garlic is a pest-free crop that needs very little attention. Unfortunately, in our part of the world they do have pests.

We will be making a new in-ground bed in the fall to plant next year's garlic. We will likely need to buy new bulbs to plant. We may also try floating row covers to exclude the moths. I thought I bought insect netting last year, but turns out it was frost cover 🤦‍♀️.

We are not going to spray BK like some suggest. We did try spraying vinegar, but I think cutting away the scapes will be best. Neither of us are huge fans of scapes and we were planning on giving them away, so no major loss there. Hopefully some of the garlic will pull through! We had over 100 bulbs planted.

Here are some links I found useful. Please note I am not endorsing any of the pest control methods listed, just sharing what I found:

https://www.ontario.ca/page/leek-moth-pest-allium-crops

https://seeds.ca/d/?t=cd226e0400004203-a694088

https://onvegetables.com/2023/05/17/leek-moth/

https://www.mofga.org/resources/pest-control/leek-moth/

Here is a photo of the bed:

And photos of the damage they cause/the eggs:

Lucky for me this little dude seemed to be interested in the hay today.

A principle we are trying to follow is to grow 3x what we 'need' so that when local inhabitants enjoy what we planted we don't become bitter or disappointed. We are also learning what they favor and realizing that maybe I don't get to have that many annual flowers after all 🤷🏻‍♀️ Next year I'll sink less effort into them.

We are also not having luck with corn this year so we will try and start them indoors and hope the seedlings are less tempting than the kernels.

Vegan gardening means adapting!

We have decent luck with tomatoes, appart from the slugs and groundhogs eating some of the fruit. Our main challenges thus far have been keeping up with pruning and trellising to help minimize the slugs and powdery mildew.

We are growing both determinate and indeterminate tomatoes this year and we will try the Florida weave with t-posts for the indeterminate, and regular basket cages for the determinates.

We feed the tomatoes with kelp or alphalfa meal and keep them mulched with straw which really helps with keeping them lush and hydrated, respectively. This year we hope to add more of our own compost as our compost pile grows. We also started some fermented greens to water with.

I'd be interested in hearing from others about what works for them! It the secret to just suck it up and be really ruthless with pruning?

I started my peas directly into raised beds in May, and they are finally beginning to show flowers. The weather was very weird this spring (cold and the very hot) and I am worried the peas will not have enough time to grow before the heat starts killing them. Fingers crossed!