Romularia Spot

One of the facts of gardening life here in southern Indiana is the yearly occurrence of romularia spot.

See the spots on the leaves, left?  That's romularia.  

It's a fungus whose sole purpose in life, I swear, is to take over my garden.  

I'm pretty sure.

And this is what it did to my tomatoes in just a couple of days.   Loads of brown crispy leaves.  I've seen it take a 5 ft diameter clump of rhubarb down to 2 inch stumps in 10 days. 

This fungus spreads in warm damp conditions.    This means that our humid Indiana summers are a perfect breeding ground for romularia spot, and sure enough, I see it every year.   

Romularia hates hot and dry.    All of our heat this summer really helped control it this year.    However, as soon as it cooled down, the romularia took over.  

You'll see it in the lushest parts of the plants first - that's because there's not enough air circulation to dry it out.  Then it will spread up.

Romularia will kill a plant if it can - by defoliation.   Our weather just got hot and dry again, so I'm not going to panic.  I confess that I've been tempted to put fans in the garden just to dry things off.  Since it's September now and the end of the season, I've decided not to, but I will be pulling all the plants off the beds and burning the debris to kill the romularia leftovers.   That helps control squash bugs, too. 


However, I'm keeping a good eye on my peppers - the leaves got spots and turned yellowish and the whole thing kind of drooped.   The fruit is unaffected and we'll harvest that if the plant loses too many leaves.

Hornworms: Part 2

They're back.    Earlier this summer, we had a large crop of tobacco hornworms.   I got those under control just in time for the blister beetles.   I got the beetles under control just in time for a second batch of hornworms and romularia.

Tomato gardening is not for the faint of heart.

Tomato hornworms and tobacco hornworms are almost identical.  Tomato hornworms are darker, and the white stripes form Vs instead of just white slashes like the tobacco hornworms.   These were so much darker, that I thought I had tomato hornworms, but the white marks are slashes, not Vs, so this is just a fall version of the tobacco hornworm.

They're just as destructive as the early ones and they leave just as much poop everywhere [called 'frass' I just learned.]   They're harder for me to find this time of year because the plants are so much bigger and leafier, but generally, the worms like the sun.   They'll go to the top or outside of the plant and eat and there will be nothing but sticks left.   Also, they get so big they're hard to miss.   Eventually, you'll find them.   I pick them off and feed them to the chickens.  The chickens are the only ones around here who like them. 

Margined Blister Beetle

The next guest on our list of garden enemies is the margined blister beetle.

We've had this pest in our flower gardens before.   For years, they regularly ate our clematis virginiana down to sticks.  We finally dug up the clematis and hadn't seen the bug in a couple of years.   Then this year it showed up on some tomatoes and eggplant - eating the leaves to nubs.    The next day I noticed that the potato greens had been devoured.    We found dozens of these bugs in the straw around the plants.   They lay their eggs in the soil, so we have to wait for them to come up to get them. 

Rumor has it that these guys eat grasshopper eggs - which is great, except they will eat a plant to nothing, too.   Big problem. 

An even bigger problem is the fact that their bodies produce a toxin so powerful it will kill a horse and blister human skin.   Some varieties of blister bug are more powerful than others.

Truth told, I squashed dozens of these bare handed before I knew what they were.   No blisters.   I double checked the photo ID and there's no doubt what they are.   Either Eric and I got really lucky, or these just aren't as toxic as some of the others.

Handle with gloves!   But get them off your plants. 

These beetles leave a characteristic poop trail - messy wet black droppings.  That's how you'll notice them.   Look behind the leaves for the bug.  Careful picking off of these guys seems to control them.    Though we picked dozens off the potatoes the first day, there were only a few the second day and I haven't seen any since.  We're fighting them on the tomatoes now - more hiding places.    

Just drop the beetles in a bowl of hot soapy water to kill them.

Squash Bugs

Anasa tristis: squash bug

So yesterday I told you all about hornworms.    Well, let me tell you, hornworms are nothing compared to squash bugs. 

I really hate squash bugs.   They multiply faster than snowflakes and do just as much damage to my squash.  

The vigilance with which I guard my tomatoes from hornworms is nothing compared to the vigilance with which I watch for and guard my squash from squashbugs.   Nothing, I tell you.

There are only two ways to control this pest:   1.  by spraying awful chemicals that are illegal for me to have and that I wouldn't want anywhere near this place anyway.   or 2.  By hand picking and squishing the adults and by finding the eggs and taking them off and destroying them.  

It's war.

Unfortunately, my adversary is wily.  

It hides.   And it lays eggs everywhere.

OK.  Not everywhere.  Just on the underside of every squash leaf it can find.    I have a lot of squash leaves.   It's not like I can hide them.  Squash bugs find them all. 

See the dark triangle on the underside of this squash leaf?   It's a squash bug egg cluster.   I hunt for them every day.    Under every leaf. 

Yes. 

Every.   Day. 

Every.  Leaf.

Last year I didn't, and I had squash bugs everywhere.   It was awful.   This year I promised I wouldn't let it get that bad.   So I hunt them every day under every leaf.  

Yes, it's a pain.   But being overrun by squash bugs is a much worse pain.   

Once I find the egg clusters, I pinch off that part of the leaf.   It leaves a hole, but a hole is better than a herd of squash bugs.  

Baby squash bugs look like little spiders with blue-ish white bodies.   They hang out together, but scatter when disturbed.   Luckily, they're soft bodied and easy to squish.  [see photos of baby squash bugs]

This year they especially love my pumpkins.   Some of the leaves are getting very holey.

I drown the eggs in a bucket of water and then let the ducks eat them.  

New eggs are light gold.   The older the eggs are, the darker they get.   Eggs that are very dark brown are almost ready to hatch.   

These squash bugs were fornicating right out in the open.   

Eww.

If they had been allowed to finish [and they weren't], the female would have found a cozy place under the leaf in the V of a leaf vein and laid a bunch of eggs. 

Instead, they suffered a different fate.  

My chickens are happy. 

The very good news this year is that all of my vigilance has totally paid off.   I have way fewer squash bugs this year because I've been taking care of the eggs as I find them.  

Tobacco Hornworm

Hornworms are a sad fact of gardening life.    There's no avoiding them, so I just watch for them.

It takes constant vigilance!   

If you've got good eyes, you'll start seeing a single tiny, perfectly round, light colored egg on some of  your tomato leaves.   That's a hornworm egg.   Take it off now and destroy it.  You'll be glad later.

There are a few different kinds of hornworms that attack tomatoes in Indiana.   I get the tobacco hornworms.  That is a medium sized one in the pic above.   They get bigger.

A lot bigger.

And they don't like being removed from the plant.   They twist and squirt green goo at you.  They act really scary.

I have to remind myself that it doesn't want to eat me, it wants to eat my tomatoes, so I should just suck it up and get the blasted thing off.   They don't bite.

It's not always easy to spot these things.    They are perfectly camouflaged in a tomato plant.

It's much easier to see their poop - and to be perfectly honest, when I'm looking for these guys, I look for their poop.

This is the poop from that guy in the photo above.  It's medium sized hornworm poop.   The greener it is, the fresher it is.   The bigger it is, the bigger the hornworm that dropped it is.    [Warning:  there will be another poop quiz later.  You're excited, I know!  It's been ages since the last one.]

The law of gravity being what it is, once you find the poop, you can generally look straight up to find the source.   As the hornworms get bigger, they eat and move faster so sometimes you still have to search a bit.   A little patience is all it takes to find your culprit. 

Not everyone finds these as unwelcome as gardeners do.  My lovely friend Heidi loves them and collects them so they can become adults.

photo: www.ext.colost.edu

Unfortunately, she lives in another state. I told her that if she lived here, she could come over and get as many of them as she wanted and I'd giftwrap them for her.

And I would.    Gladly. 

Then she could raise adult tobacco hornworm moths like this one.

Since Heidi is not here to rescue and revere these beauties, I'll just keep picking them off and feeding them to the chickens.   The chickens love them.