I have what looks to be assassin bugs on my jalapeno plant in a pot. All I can see online is that they are beneficial. wanted the OB advice.
another idea, my plant is not right next to my raised garden. 1st time doing a garden. have zucc, squash, cuc, tomato, and bell pepper. MAYBE if I move the jalapeno plant to the raised bed they'll help with the other veggies???
I think I saw aphids on my zucc yesterday so I sprayed with Captain Jacks Deadbug spray. It's worked well for leaf miners on my lime tree so hoping it does well on my veggies.

advice on the assassin bugs and pesticide use in general is appreciated!!

You can go one of two ways: spray regular harmful pesticides, mild or pesticides, or organic.

I personally go with organic or mild pesticides. i use 7/10 dust, neem oil, soapy water, and companion planting. for companion planting, marigolds, nasturtium, etc.

You also want to be careful of how you water your garden. Something like a sprinkler, which gets water on the tops of the leaves can lead to fungi attacking the leaves of plants like tomatoes. Setting up an irrigation system or hand watering at the base of the plant is much more beneficial.

zoo,
thanks for the response. when you say 7/10 dust, what does that mean?
are you saying you combine all of those and treat every 7-10 days?
So far I've been spraying the captain jacks which is organic. both sides of leaves. It had been 10 days since I sprayed when I saw aphids on one flower of zucc.
I do have 7 dust I could use
for watering, I have been hand watering at base. Live in Humble and we've had decent rain the last week or so. I did apply a liquid fungicide for take up thru the roots. However, the other day I bought irrigation tubing and stakes/drippers to run. It's just one bed and only about 30 feet from faucet so I'm putting on a splitter and a timer. All to make life easier and will set to avoid watering the leaves.

It's just another name for seven dust.

I use mostly Neem oil. I have tried not to you Sevin or harsh pesticides because they're indiscriminate and can kill bees that I rely on to pollinate the garden.. There are some other powders such at BT that are considered organic that are effective on tomato horn worms. I'm also trying to keep my squash dusted with diatomaceous earth to see if that can prevent some of the squash vine borer destruction.

We have had good luck with bt, especially on corn. We have also had good results with worm tea spryayed on tomato leaves. Grasshoppers and other pests stay away from it. And the worm tea is the best fertilizer I have seen. But we have our own worms and it seems the fresher castings make a better tea than dried ones. I still haven't found a good organic control for my peach and plum trees.

Got a little problem for you, Ags.

What's happening with my spaghetti squash?




And green beans

I'm by no means an expert, but just looking at your soil I see quite a bit of wood. As it degrades it really sucks the nitrogen out of the soil. Is this new dirt you just brought in?

CaptnCarl said:

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This thread inspired me to start a garden, so thanks to all of you. I built 3 raised beds 8' x 4' x 2' high. It's been a huge chore, but a blessing during quarantine.

Now I'm installing a rain bird auto drip system with the timers. Now I need to know: how often should I water?

Right now I'm set at everyday 6AM and 4:30PM for 6 minutes. Any advice?

I have peppers, lettuce, onions, cucumber, herbs just about everything.

Yep everybody will have a suggestion. Mine is once establish once aweek for 6 mi But if young once every 3 days

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Dont know how my answer is in your thread

But. That was my response

CaptnCarl said:

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This thread inspired me to start a garden, so thanks to all of you. I built 3 raised beds 8' x 4' x 2' high. It's been a huge chore, but a blessing during quarantine.

Now I'm installing a rain bird auto drip system with the timers. Now I need to know: how often should I water?

Right now I'm set at everyday 6AM and 4:30PM for 6 minutes. Any advice?

I have peppers, lettuce, onions, cucumber, herbs just about everything.

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I believe it's better to water less often but longer. I currently have my drip system set for every other day. Probably going to move it to every 3 days as the plants mature.

Caught a squirrel digging in the bed. Looks like he's trying to get the roots of the tomato.

It's on like donkey Kong. I exterminated 4 last Saturday. Still a few to go until the next bunch moves in.

I have a drip system as well. I have 17 plants in 2 beds on drip. I water for an hour which most of the time delivers around 17 gallons 3 days a week, if you believe the b-hyve timer. Sometimes that's enough. If it's real hot and no rain they want more so I add in a day or two depending on how they look. Less water is better. You can tell by the way they look if they need water. Harder to tell if too much.

Ive been experimenting with how much soluble fertilizer to drip. I got a Little hot in the first go so I've dialed it back. I'll fertilize again when the current rain is over in Houston.

So some of the wood is part of the soil I got from Yard Depot in Houston. Some of the pine straw you see is my not-quite-degraded-attempt at compost.

Threw some of the "compost" on in some areas to see if jt would change anything. No dice for now.

I don't go to daily watering until it's extremely hot outside. When we're over 100 I will go to twice a day for the cucumbers. I don't think six minutes will get you a good deep watering. I would go up to 30 probably.

Streetfighter 02 said:

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I don't go to daily watering until it's extremely hot outside. When we're over 100 I will go to twice a day for the cucumbers. I don't think six minutes will get you a good deep watering. I would go up to 30 probably.

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Yeah, I'm at an hour of watering every other day with my 1gph drip line. Thinking of going to every three days and then can spot water if necessary.

Every 3rd day with a drip line for an hour or two is fine. Just make sure the ground is saturated.

I'm home all day now so my work break consists of pest inspection, pollination efforts and hand watering.

CaptnCarl said:

---

This thread inspired me to start a garden, so thanks to all of you. I built 3 raised beds 8' x 4' x 2' high. It's been a huge chore, but a blessing during quarantine.

Now I'm installing a rain bird auto drip system with the timers. Now I need to know: how often should I water?

Right now I'm set at everyday 6AM and 4:30PM for 6 minutes. Any advice?

I have peppers, lettuce, onions, cucumber, herbs just about everything.

---

I normally do 15 min in the AM 3 days a week. I've got my raised beds connected into my sprinkler system with each "head" connected to valve and sprinkler hose. I have the valve open just enough to keep the water from coming more than 1-1.5 feet in the air out of the hose. With the all the rain weve been getting, I haven't turned on the sprinklers in atleast 2-3 weeks.

That's an awesome setup!

Thanks. Need more space. Have a bad habit of over planting because I want to produce more. All the kid toys in the pic are because there is huge sandbox in the middle of the 3 beds. Once the kids grow out of the sandbox I plan to put a U shaped raised bed in its place with a permanent A-frame trellis.

I'm curious about the bed next to your house. Does that get a lot of shade? I want to do something similar but hesitated because thought it would not get enough sun.

The way my house is positioned it gets PM sun from noon-ish until atleast 7 before the sun starts falling behind other houses. I've shifting things around a bit but find that the onions do best in that particular bed. Not sure if it the amount of light or what.

Thanks for the info! I guess I need to get started on my onion patch. I would say I'm too late but from the looks of it the rest of your garden is way ahead of mine anyway.

When do squash vine borers usually show up? Plants are flowering. Nothing in traps and no eggs on the stems. Checking every day.

I had the first of the tomato pin worm show up two weeks ago. I caught them very early since I'm out there everyday during this plague. I found one little guy on a leaf that had some damage. Couldn't find another on all my 18 plants. I sprayed again. I've sprayed with Spinosad first time, and the Fertilome triple action today which has Pyrethrins. I'll give it a week or so and hit them with some Bt next.

I like to rotate the bug juice just in case. Now to keep the squirrels and rats from getting in there. So far so good.

Is there a bug or worm that cuts the roots of plants under the ground, causing overnight withering?

I looked into cut worms, but those appear to cut plants at the surface. I've had a couple of days where there appears to be small burrowing tunnels in some of my beds, and when those tunnels come into contact with where a small plant was, the plant stem is completely severed one inch below the ground.

It's only happened to seedlings or slightly-larger-than seedlings, but in each case, the plant has completely withered overnight.

moles?

CS78 said:

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moles?

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Haha, not that big of tunnels. The critter inside can't be any wider than a pencil. That's what leaned me toward a bug or worm of some kind.

How do I murder them?

XpressAg09 said:

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How do I murder them?

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The best is diazinon which I use but it's not allowed for residential use. My garden is on the ranch. Lowe's and Home Depot sell several grub control - one of the older and common ones is Sevin, There are others. Sevin is very multipurpose (but many don't like it because it is known to attack the bee population). Get something specifically labeled as grub control. Maybe someone else can say which are more effective as I've not tried them as I have access to diazinon which works great. If you've got a farmer/rancher friend, they might have some diazinon you can "borrow"

There are topical granules and sprays for grubs among other things. Be careful thought to make sure it's safe for garden vegetables. I bought some Hi Yield grub granules for the yard but the label states not to use on gardens/ vegetables.