How big is your garden and how many tomato plants?

[DFB]

Trap crops are plantings that are used to attract the insects to them so they keep away from other crops. It has been recommended to use trap crops when growing many things such as broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, cucumbers. potatoes, and green peppers.

When growing squash those three mentioned varieties hubbard, buttercup, or giant pumpkins have been found more attractive to squash bugs and also the cucumber beetle than other varieties so they will mostly go to them first. In large field plantings outer perimeter rows of those host crop are planted set off from the main crop. When the bugs migrate in from the field edges they concentrate in the trap crop and then can be exterminated there minimizing maincrop losses and pesticide use.

From wiki
Usually trap crop is a plant that attracts agricultural pests, usually insects, away from nearby crops. This form of companion planting can save the main crop from decimation by pests without the use of pesticides. Trap crops can be planted around the circumference of the field to be protected, or interspersed among them, for example being planted every ninth row. Trap crops, when used on an industrial scale, are generally planted at a key time in the pest's lifecycle, and then destroyed before that lifecycle finishes and the pest might have transferred from the trap plants to the main crop


There have been lots of research articles written on trap cropping for over the last ten years. Even some youtube videos have been made.

Found this cool powerpoint presentation

Trap cropping in vegetables 2012

 

[Larro Darro]

Larro,

That's some nice looking peppers. I pick on Friday evenings for the Farmers Market Saturday morning. Last week I picked 2 bushel of bell, 1 bushel sweet banana, and 1/2 bushel of Jalapeno. Attached a pic, bells go real fast.

You may also notice we changed our farm name.


I watch a local TV show last night of a guy in Charlotte NC that is going for the worlds hottest pepper 1.4 to 1.5 million Scoville.

That is a good looking setup you have. [is the millstone the real thing?] Me and my daddy did the farmer's market in Panama City Florida for years. We did more peas and Crimson Sweet melons than anything else, but always grew a few peppers. The bells and sweet peppers always go fastest. But I enjoy growing the hot peppers. [but not as hot as that guy in Charlotte]

I just play around in my tiny garden these days. When I retire I may get back into the truck farming. We always made good money on the peas and melons. But you have to be there regular, so the customers will know to look for you.

I only have thirty pepper plants, and that is about fifteen too many. My wife makes poppers, stuffed peppers, pepper rings and pepper jelly. She came up with a new jelly, cran-pepper. It is made with Cranberry juice cocktail, cranberry sauce or the sauce with the whole berries. She just cooks the peppers for this jelly, but doesn't leave them in the mix like the green pepper jelly.

 

[hunterridgefarm]

Larro,

The millstone is a reproduction. I make planters, sculptures, birdbaths, and millstones in the winter. IT is dark when I get home and I don't want to spend my life in front of a TV.

I have some Crimson Sweet growing, just a little late this year. They sell great and so does the crowder/field peas, and greenbeans.

Our farm is just a hobby, but it is starting to be more like a full time job. I attached a couple of picture of the melons, peas, and beans.

 

[Larro Darro]

Larro,

The millstone is a reproduction. I make planters, sculptures, birdbaths, and millstones in the winter. IT is dark when I get home and I don't want to spend my life in front of a TV.

I have some Crimson Sweet growing, just a little late this year. They sell great and so does the crowder/field peas, and greenbeans.

Our farm is just a hobby, but it is starting to be more like a full time job. I attached a couple of picture of the melons, peas, and beans.

Looking at those melons make me miss it. The peas not so much. My back hurts when I get up in the morning, so a pea patch would be a pain.

I work nights and weekends, so I have my weekdays to myself. When we lived in town my hobby was growing indigenous trees from seed. I grew dogwoods, red cedar, bald cypress, palms, several kinds of oak as well as some seedling orange and grapefruit. I had a real nice setup at my Chipola River camp, and spent a lot of time working with my trees. I gave trees as gifts, and folks started wanting to buy them. I sold them cheap, because I wasn't looking to make money off it. Over time I was spending more time delivering trees or meeting people at the camp to pick them up.

Ten years ago we moved back to the farm and built our house. I moved all my trees up here. [the camp is just a mile from the house] I was selling more trees all the time. One month I was looking back on the tree sales, and I had sold almost $500 that month. It hit me that it had turned into a job. The hobby was gone. I quite that day. I haven't even watered what was already in pots. Although the bald cypress and palm are still growing, all these years later. You can see the cypress already had seed pods on it. [it would take a backhoe to transplant them now. But I do need to reclaim that bit of land. The dog would like it if I added it to her back yard]



Here is a picture of the remains of my hobby.

 

[RandyBell]

Well ran the tiller through some of the rows tonight, and even without rain for a couple days it is still wet! I think I may have to give up on the tomatoes this year none of them are doing anything this year, guess I'll buy my plants next year.
There is a few zucchini ready for tomorrow night, cucumbers are sparse, I'm not even sure I have figured out what the sweet potatoes are doing, green beans are thin, the only thing that is amounting to anything is the sweet corn!

 

[Larro Darro]

The deer found the cucumber vines growing along the outside of the fence last night. I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner. I just hope they stay out of the garden itself.

We had been watching a few little gourds up high, all the while this one was growing lower down. One of the little ones. Lots and lots of blooms.

 

[RandyBell]

Looks good Larro, I had good luck with using an electric fence to keep the deer at bay up here, but this year nothing grew good enough to warrant hooking it up. The only thing that looks like might produce is the sweet corn {fingers crossed}
We have had so much rain this year the garden had standing water in it most of the season, that pretty good when it is on a slope!

Your gourds look promising what type are they? I did the bird house gourds a few times, and have tried to grow the bushel ones but haven't had any success with them yet.

 

[Larro Darro]

Looks good Larro, I had good luck with using an electric fence to keep the deer at bay up here, but this year nothing grew good enough to warrant hooking it up. The only thing that looks like might produce is the sweet corn {fingers crossed}
We have had so much rain this year the garden had standing water in it most of the season, that pretty good when it is on a slope!

Your gourds look promising what type are they? I did the bird house gourds a few times, and have tried to grow the bushel ones but haven't had any success with them yet.

My garden is fenced, the cukes just grew through it. And deer love those vines better than anything. Next year I will plant them in the middle and put up some wire or string for them to run on.

I think the gourds are going to be a mix of the bushel and apple gourds we grew two years ago. I'll have to see how big they get to know what they are. We didn't plant them. Margie gave a dried gourd to the kittens to play with, and they played a hole in it. When the two plants came up right by the porch, I pulled up the grass around them, added potting soil and mulch, then set up the wire cage. They have really taken off.

 

[Larro Darro]

We missed a couple of days picking peppers, and you see what happens. Always wear protection when you are messing with the hot stuff. If you don't, that is when you will wipe your eyes.

 

[sixdogs]

Larro...excellent watermelon. Wish I could grow them to look like that.