From Planting Alliums to Protecting Brassicas

I remember in elementary school learning about the different biological classifications.  We learned a mnemonic device to help us remember the following:

• Kingdom
• Phylum
• Class
• Order
• Family
• Genus
• Species

I have forgotten the mnemonic device (I think it started with "King Phil") but for some reason can still remember the actual classifications.  Weird, huh?  I can remember that, but can't remember phone numbers to save my life.  If I ever lost my contacts on my phone, I wouldn't know how to reach anyone since I don't need to know their numbers - I just press their names on my phone.

Anyway, onions are in the Allium Genus which include a lot of flowers that grow from bulbs like lilies and also garlic, chives, scallions, and leeks.  Last year I purchased some red onion seeds.  I love red onions.  I planted them all, but did not have any success at all growing them from seed.  This year Tricia picked up some onion sets for me from the feed store.  They aren't red onions, they are yellow, but they'll eat just fine.  I'll educate myself more on growing onions from seed over the winter, but for now, we'll plant these sets.

Onion Sets

Planting onion sets are very similar to planting garlic cloves.  You simply plant them an inch deep and four inches apart, pointy side up, roots down, cover with dirt, water and they'll GROW.

One onion planted...

That didn't take long to get them in the ground.  While I was in the garden, I'll generally pull weeds that are competing and attempting to crowd out our vegetables.  While I was weeding I came across the following troubling sight:

Whoa!

I have a lot of Brassicas planted and every row of my brassicas had damage like you see above. Plants in the Brassica Genus include cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower.  For some reason a pest really likes them.  They weren't touching anything else in the garden.  We've experienced some success with applying lye soap spray to the leaves of plants that bugs are eating. All we do is grate some lye soap into some hot water to dissolve and then mix a few cups of water to the emulsion and put it in a spray bottle and spray the damaged areas.  So let's get that started.  

Lye Soap Spray

I didn't see at first what the pest was that was feasting on our plants, but while spraying, I spotted one of the perpetrators.  Can you see him?

The culprit!

I plucked the guilty party off of the plant and acting as judge and jury, sentenced him to capital punishment.  The hens were all too happy to be the executioner.  I tossed him over the fence and pretty soon the 'eater' became the 'eaten.'

Guilty Worm

I applied a liberal dose of lye soap spray to the vegetables on the Brassica rows to hopefully 'clean up' the problem and bring an end to the damages.

Leaves with a good application of Lye Soap

I'll diligently check the plants to ensure that we've discouraged additional damages. If this doesn't work, I'll try to go through and physically remove the worms.  I've heard that some people put some chickens in the garden for pest eradication and while I'm sure that works, my experience is that they cause more harm than good by scratching the ground and unearthing roots and eating the plants. 

I ain't gonna lie, but I am gonna LYE

The tomatoes are ripening now.  Each day we keep our eyes on the ripening fruit and endeavor to pick them and bring them in before the predators eat them first.  We have birds that will peck on a red ripe tomato, squirrels that enjoy taking a bite or three out of them as well.  But the biggest pest, by far, is the stink bug. We don't like spraying chemicals on foods that we're going to be eating, so we've been looking for a natural method to kill or repel these dreaded insects.

Homegrown tomatoes

As the weather warms up, stink bugs appear in the vegetable garden.  They are kind of hard to spot as they will land on the tomatoes and will circle the vegetable opposite of where you are looking.  I was able to get a picture of this one by running my fingers on the bottom side of the tomato.  This made him circle around to the top.

The Dreaded Stink Bug

If you smash them with your fingers, they emit a chemical from their abdomen that really stinks, hence their name.  The stink bugs cause significant damage to our tomatoes each year.  They will land on the tomato and bite the fruit.  They release a toxin into the fruit that causes the outside of the tomato to turn yellow.  The interior below the yellow sting will turn white and hard.  That is called "cloudy spot."  It is unsightly and ruins an otherwise perfect fruit.  You can cut away the affected pieces and eat the remainder.  But it would be nice to find something to eliminate this pest.

Tricia was doing some reading and came across an article that said that lye soap was used as an insecticide in the past.  We eventually plan on making our own lye soap, but for now we purchase it.  A quick search on the Internet turned up the following post from Appalachian Heritage Soaps by Beth Ann Weber.  In that link, the author says that lye soap has been used as an insecticide for over 200 years.  

She says that the way it works is due to the fatty acids in true soap.  Lye soap contains fatty acids made from animal fat.  Those fatty acids in the soap get into the exoskeleton of insects and begin to break down the cell walls, killing the insect. Sounds interesting.  She has a recipe for making it:  Grate a tablespoon of lye soap and add it to a 1/2 cup of hot water.  Once it has dissolved, add 2 Tablespoons of dissolved soap into a quart of water.  We followed the directions and mixed up a batch.

Lye Soap Insecticide

I went out to the garden and sprayed a bunch on all the tomatoes.  It seemed to annoy the stink bugs, but I couldn't really tell if it repelled them.  I picked a few near ripe tomatoes to bring inside as I was spraying. When I brought the tomatoes in, I discovered that I had a hitch-hiker - a stink bug travelled in with me attached to the tomato.  We had a perfect 'lab rat' to see what the lye soap would do.  Tricia gave the Stink Bug a liberal spraying of lye soap and lo and behold...

A Bug's Life Death!

The Stink Bug turned over on his back and died promptly!!  When we went to the garden, there appeared to be less stink bugs on the tomato plants.  I think this method has promise, but you have to apply every day.  I also have a friend who uses a battery powered vacuum cleaner to suck up the stink bugs from her tomatoes. We'll keep trying the lye soap concoction as it seems to be the best option for organic methods of killing/repelling stink bugs.