Hi! What a great pleasure to see the sun again!

Pjsatsaco, what is scarping? My garlic is getting mature. And I am jealous that you have turnips. I forgot mine. Maybe it isn't too late.

Have you planted sweet potatoes before? What variety? Do they take up a lot of room?

My grass is still long in the back. It's so wet back there.

I didn't lose anything to the rain. The south got more than the rest of Maine. My raised beds saved me too. Peas are out of control, about 3 foot tall. My potatoes are in the highest and dryest area, and are growing like weeds. So are the weeds, which is a problem. And my hosta garden wouldn't look out of place in a movie set of the Jurassic period. I never saw such huge hosta and fern growth.

Well, I did it again...got my words/terms mixed up. I mean to say "scaping" as to my garlic, not scarping! I did find an excellent summary of Garlic scapes on the Allium Forum...so see this entry: RE: Help me please---my garlic has bulbs on top, and what are scapes? Read the 2nd entry as listed here: "Posted by gardenlad 6b KY (My Page) on Wed, Jun 7, 06 at 21:52" All one needs to know! In Mid-July the curled tops (scapes) become another tasty treat in my kitchen.
By all means,Paulaj, plant turnips in the days ahead. I had some all last season, planting more than once and at the end of the year I had a bunch of big turnips that seemed to keep forever in the refrigerator! I let the end of the season ones not be used for greens but for winter use for stews, soups etc.
Sweet potatoes are fairly easy, I was surprised, but this is my third year now and a must do item. You need to dedicate a bed or definite spot for the vines really grow thick and spread. But they do generally stay in the same area compared to winter squash they will run half way down the block if you let it. You can't count on mixing other thing in the same spot but last year I had cukes in the same bed on a trellis that climbed above the sweet potato vines so that worked out. They need to grow a long time and I usually harvest as the first frost hits and they keep very well for me just in the basement in a basket at 50-55 degrees. Centennial and Georgia Jet seem to be good varieties for Maine's climate. Read up a bit on the "how to's" of sweet potatoes but they are easy and tasty! I never get them in the ground before early to mid-June. Companies don't even ship the order until after June 1st. Hope you can find some and get them shipped quickly. Maybe if global warming keeps up our growing season will continue late like last year and we won't have a killing frost until well into October again! Don't tell Al Gore I said that!

Good info on the bottom link I have included here on how to plant and treat sweet potatoes. It also says, "For their ornamental value, sweet potatoes are often grown as ground cover or in hanging baskets, in planters and even in bottles of water in the kitchen." Hmmm, that sounds interesting.

I would like to learn more about the bush ones they mention but then don't give us any types by name.

http://victoryseeds.com/catalog/sweet_potatoes/index.html
OK, that page mentions two of the bush types. I have limited space here and if I try these, I may need the bush types.

Joanie D.

Here is a link that might be useful: Info for growing sweet potatoes

You can eat the garlic scapes, I have a few Chinese recipes that call for them cut in 1" lengths in a stir fry, they're delicious.

I've eased up on the vegetables this year due to the landscape/garden renovation projects going on. I do have bush beans, lettuce, one summer squash, and some eggplant growing. A few potato plants volunteered, I must have missed a few potatoes last summer. And I have potato beetles worse than ever on them--this is all kind of ironic. I said I wouldn't grow that many vegetables this year to cut down my work load (overwhelmed with other projects)--and here I am picking potato beetles on potato plants I didn't even plant!

Veilchen,

I didn't plan to, but I planted potatoes (a bunch of grocery store potatoes were sprouting in a basket in the kitchen.) But, oddly, I am hand picking potato bugs off of my eggplants. And the usual tortoise beetles.

I have four tomatillo plants growing as an experiment. It turns out that my tomatilloes are a virtual trap crop for striped cucumber beetles. I destroyed several pairs on them yesterday and a few from my potatoes. I guess it's a good thing I don't have any cucumbers planted yet.

Like you, I am focusing on garden infrastructure this year. To support that, I had 28 cubic yards of sand delivered. I used a lot of the sand to create some terraces for an expanded strawberry garden.

{{gwi:294336}}

Some of the sand is being used in an ongoing garden levelling and expansion project. I rigged a homemade dozer blade for my tiller to help with that.

MM

Ingenious, MM! I could have used that tiller when I (attempted to) fork over our previous driveway that had been torn up, loam deposited, then COMPACTED. Never again will I let an excavator compact my soil.

And are you sure the bug on your tomatillos are striped cuke beetles? I have a kind of potato bug that is thin and striped, similiar to cuke beetles. This bug is also happy eating anything in the solanae family, which includes potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant, and tomatillos.

Good luck with the projects!

Veilchen,

"And are you sure the bug on your tomatillos are striped cuke beetles?"

Good catch. I'm not sure they are striped cucumber beetles. In fact, after a closer look at them and a little research, I now strongly suspect that they are Four-lined Plant Bugs. My laminated Mac's Field Guide good bug/bad bug identification sheet that I bought at Barnes and Noble lists them as "Eastern Plant Bugs". Perhaps that is a generic term. The little animals that are showing up in numbers on my tomatilloes are most likely four-lined plant bugs. I have potatoes, tomatoes, and eggplants, but they are showing a very strong preference for my tomatilloes.

They looked like beetles to me, but apparently they are actually true bugs (members of the order Hemiptera).

MM

That looks very similiar to the bugs on my potatoes. I was calling them "eastern potato bugs" but they may very well be 4-lined plant bugs. I'll try to take a pic of what I have. Mine prefers potatoes, but I sometimes find them on my eggplant. I don't grow tomatillos.

Anyways, they are very different than what people usually refer to as potato bugs--The colorado potato beetle, which I had a few of one year but never again since.

Veilchen,

I hand picked maybe half a dozen colorado potato beetles last year and one so far this year. I think one of my neighbors must have a better supply of them and a few fly over here.

I still have some doubts about the so-called Four-lined Plant Bugs. Mine do look very beetle-like, with the first wings converted to hard wing covers and the second wings fold out -- just like beetles.

I don't know if I have a camera that can get a decent picture of them. I'll give it a try in a couple of days. When I finally do buy a digital camera, it will have a macro lens or a close-focusing telephoto. Our 35mm camera recently developed a mechanical problem. I have been relying on my DV camcorder for my recent pictures, but compared to still cameras, they are rather low resolution.

On a different matter, I have been having serious cut-worm-like damage to potatoes and tomatoes. And, dig as I might, I couldn't find any of the culprits.

This evening the mystery was solved when we encountered the culprit -- it was a large snapping turtle! With my son's help we got him/her re-located into a nearby pond. Hopefully that will be the end of the mysterious damage.

MM

I've had a couple new pests this spring. Two caused cutworm-like damage.

One turned out to be black ants. They invaded my corn row, made a big nest and cut down 1/4 of the row plus girdled the sunflowers at the end of the row. I poured boiling water on them today, will probably have to do it again.

The other was an unidentified pest. Maybe someone can help me with this. The creature is black as night and seal-like in shape, segmented and tapered, with I think 6 legs. It looks like a larvae of some kind. It grows from 1/4" to almost an inch. I first saw one biting an earthworm. Then I found 2 in the soil at the base of corn seedlings. The seedling's stalks had been bitten off below the soil. I kill them as soon as I see them so I have no pictures.

Something else is eating my okra as soon as they sprout. Maybe it is slugs, but I do have collars made of plastic milk bottles arounf each seedling.

I have bigger snails than I've ever seen this year. It's turning out to be a great year for pests and weeds!

snapping turtle--now there's an unusual pest!

Paulaj, I have no idea what you describe. Sounds scary, whatever it is. Is this a kind of bug whose tail end points upward?

Paula,

"I kill them as soon as I see them so I have no pictures."

You might spare the next one long enough to take its picture. It would be hard to make an identification based on the description you gave.

Also, it seems odd that a meat-eating carnivore that would attack an earthworm would turn vegetarian and eat your corn.

Aside from the behavior, your description somewhat suggests a ground beetle larva, but I think they are, for the most part, "good bugs."

MM

MM, I took a pic of the bug that eats my potato plants. It is not a good picture, not very close up, but maybe you can tell from the image. I'm not sure it is 4-lined plant bug:

Veilchen,

"I'm not sure it is 4-lined plant bug:"

Me either. But it most certainly is the same little beastie that is showing up in numbers on my tomatilloes. Its identity is, for the moment, a mystery. I can't bring myself to believe it isn't a beetle. But you are right that it isn't a striped cucumber beetle.

MM

Veilchen,

Incidentally, your picture is quite good. We both need macro lenses, or close-focusing telephotos, for insect closeups. I think the picture at the bottom of this Cornell Entomology page is strong evidence that the insect we are both seeing is a Three Lined Potato Beetle (Lema trilineata). Mystery solved???

MM

Veilchen,

You can refer to this page to see the three lined potato beetle mentioned as an insect pest on tomatilloes. I feel somewhat relieved that it isn't considered a serious pest.

As I mentioned previously, you could consider tomatilloes as a trap crop for this pest. I have both potatoes and tomatilloes (as well as eggplants and tomatoes), but the vast majority of the three lined potato beetles congregate on my tomatilloes.

MM

Well now we have a name--the 3-lined potato beetle! I have been lazy picking them off--I hope the larvae don't grace me with their presence.

Finally got a good soaking rain with last night's thunderstorms. After all the rain we had earlier, I thought I'd never hope for rain again, but we needed it.