God in His wisdom made the fly and then forgot to tell us why.
~Ogden Nash, “The Fly”
Delia radicum – commonly known as the cabbage fly, or cabbage root fly – ate my radishes. Allow me to correct myself…the squirming white cabbage fly maggots ate my radishes. And their name fits their crime! Another weather/garden/pest lesson learned, I guess. Read more after the jump…
Plot #63, Roseville Community Garden. Sunday, June 9, 2013 (Click image for larger version)
Based on the luck I had with radishes last year, I went BIG on my early radish planting: 12 row-feet of Cherry Belle Radish, 9 row-feet of Crimson Giant Radish, 18 row-feet of French Breakfast Radish, 9 row-feet of Short Top Icicle White Radish, and 9 row-feet of Pink Beauty Radish – for a total of 56 row-feet of radish! I was hoping for a good harvest, and the early picking did not disappoint! I had everything planted well before May 1st, weeks ahead of last year. It seems the early planting, combined with a cool damp spring, set me up for the cabbage fly attack. The University of Minnesota’s ‘VedgeEdge’ website states that plants are “more susceptible to cabbage maggots during a wet, cold spring with most of the damage limited to the early spring plantings.” Bingo! They found me.
It seems there’s virtually no reasonable way to guarantee they’ll not bother me in the future. The University of Rhode Island’s ‘GreenShare’ web site states: “The best control method consists of preventing the flies from laying eggs. Barriers (row covers) or netting of fine screening can be used for this purpose. In order to be effective, there must be no gaps or tears in the material, the material must be placed over the crop before or immediately upon crop emergence or transplanting, and no hosts of the pests should have been grown on that site the previous year.”
Ugh. Too much like work.
I planted a small second crop two weeks ago, it will be interesting to see how they fare against the ‘white menace.’ But with the nearly month-worth-of-rain we’ve had in the last four days, I’m afraid the bugs may still be a problem. I’m planning a third planting in the next few days (if the soil dries out some), so there is still hope for a more early garden delights. Fingers crossed.
Other than that, the garden is doing quite well, as you can see from the photo above. Tomatoes are getting taller by the hour, producing many, many flowers. I’m starting to harvest the Black Seeded Lettuce, making for a great lettuce & radish salad for dinner last night! I thinned the Sweet Treat Carrots, and they’ve done very well – far better than last year at this stage. The Neon Lights Mix Swiss Chard and Ruby Red Swiss Chard are getting close to being harvest-ready at first thinning, while the Chioggia, Detroit Dark Red, and Early Wonder Beets are doing great too.
And the squash/zucchini plants? Growing. Like. Weeds! I have to be on the lookout for the dreaded squash bugs and striped cucumber beetles – it’s getting to be their time to ‘ruin the garden’ if I’m not careful. I’m not gonna let THAT happen. More on those efforts in my next post.