Stink Bugs, I hate you.

Our Early girl tomatoes are all being eaten and messed up by these shield-shaped stink bugs. Does anyone have any advice other than hand-picking them off? I have read that I need to try to attract parasitic wasps, but I'm worried its a bit late in the season to start planting flowers right next to the tomatoes.

How do you manage pests?

Sacramento Community Garden

Lovely hot day in Sacramento today. As promised, this is a post with pictures of our community garden plot. This first shows Maddy nipping out a few basil buds. That's not her drink, and we don't know where it came from...

In the background, you can see the community compost heaps, the rules for which Maddy has resolved to make a nice display of. What to put in, what not to put in etc. In this shot, you can see (near right) a sunflower volunteer, a few eggplants of different varieties (foreground), a tomatillo volunteer (mid left), and the plants on our frame.

This is our 7-8 year old grape vine which we hear doesn't produce. Maddy gave it some fertilizer and we have been pruning it, but advice about how to make it produce grapes would be well appreciated.
This is a picture of one of our black zebra tomatoes that is yet to ripen. Lovely!

Progress Report Mid-June Sacramento

Here in Sacramento, cool weather and a European holiday mean that us urban farmers have plenty of energy in the garden. So yesterday, we drove out into the county and bought a couple of bales of clover straw to use in our garden. They were $3 a piece from a farm we found on Craiglist.org. Apparently, clover straw is not that valuable when it comes to feeding animals; luckily, I hate animals so much, I won't even eat them. So it is cheaper than the fancy straws they were selling at the farm. Clover straw may help us with nitrogen in our soil (in the long term), and an organic mulch is supposed to:

1. help reduce the amount of water needed for plants, by reducing evaporation;
2. increase the biological activity in our soil, by adding organic matter;
3. reduce weeds, by blocking out the sun.

Here you can see the straw mulch under the zucchinis and yellow squashes. We also spread mulch over at our community garden spot, but we haven't remembered to take the camera over there yet, so you'll have to wait for pictures.

In other news, things are exploding into bloom and fruit all over the show in our backyard. We've eaten two of our Early Girl tomatoes now (just had one for lunch), and we've also had plenty of basil and various squashes. We had our first chili pepper, an Anaheim, the other day, and the chili plants are getting bigger and bigger.

Here are some Early Girl toms lurking in the undergrowth. In the next photo, you can see our corn going great guns and also the chili plants and a bale of clover straw. It smells nice...

The corn are against the fence and the chilis are closer. Our neighbours over that fence have recently changed, and the new ones have removed the amazing weed jungle that was developing over there, which is probably good for our not having to do as much weeding. They are planting some trees, so future gardeners in our spot will have even more shade to contend with.

The corn looks funny. I don't know what else to say about that fact.

Here is a cornflower flower.

And a tomatillo has volunteered and is flowering its little heart out.

And that's all she wrote.

Howdy Hoo

Check out this guy in Pasadena if you haven't alredy seen it. My tomatoes have begun and I am having pumpkin flower appetizers at Grannys tommorow.
http://www.greenwala.com/community/videos/all/392-The-Dervaes-Family-Turning

Garden Progress Early June

Maddie and Peter et al: Here are a few recent photos of the Redding garden with boxes all grided off and planted per Mel. (We have been carrying that book around for the past 20 years and finally decided to follow your example and give his method a try!) As you can see, we are just finishing the planting mode. So far: 3 types of corn, 6 types of peppers, eggplant, a LOT of tomatoes!, lots of basil, green and yellow beans, summer squash (zuchini, crooked neck, and patty pan), winter squash (butternut and pumpkin), and cantaloupe! I have to find a place for the indian corn away from the rest as it cross pollinates the sweet corn. And I want to put in some ornamental gourds for fun. I hope that is it. He promises that it is less labor intensive than the old fashioned open row method of vegetable gardening but we shall see. Hope to see pictures of your garden's progress soon! Aunt Sally P.S. loved the "dancing lesson" on facebook!