Hi Everyone!
Welcome back and a hearty hello to all our new subscribers. I hope you enjoy The Frugal Gardener as much as I enjoy writing and sending it to you and please feel free to shoot me an email with any questions or suggestions.
It's August and that means one thing for tomato growers: the horn worm. They are, without doubt, the bane of the tomato's existence and can destroy a healthy crop in a matter of days. In this issue, I'll tell you the best organic and free method of dealing with them.
We'll also revisit the over-wintered pepper plant. It's doing amazingly well. Do you know what a mature scallion looks like in the garden? If not, I have some photos to share. And I've discovered a natural deer repellent which means that my garden this year looks much better than last year!
All set? Let's garden...
By August, everyone is overrun with tomatoes, zucchini, and peppers. At least, almost everyone.
When August hits, I've got to go on safari for the tomato horn worm.
They are very extra-terrestrial looking with a huge dark horn -- hence, the name! -- on the ends of their bodies.
They're also the best disguised insect I've ever seen. They can decimate a tomato crop in a matter of days. Look for telltale signs on your plants: nuggets of poop the size of a mouse turd and chewed up tomatoes.
This will probably sound gross but the best way to get rid of these guys is to pick them off the plant and squish them with your foot. You'll get green slime oozing everywhere but they'll be dead.
The tomato hornworm starts its life as a brown and gold moth. Eggs are laid on the undersides of tomato leaves in late spring and hatch 6-8 days later.
When fully grown, the larva pupate in the soil in the fall and then emerge as a moth in the spring.
Here are some photos of the horn worm. check out that horn coming off his back end -- sorry, guys, I always think of these critters as male. That's where he gets his name.
The right hand picture is a horn worm with eggs.
They seem to come up in August and leave by September. I've rarely seen a horn worm in cooler months and I keep my tomato plants going until late October.
For any of you who have followed my updates on the pepper plant, I wanted to show you some photos of how well it's doing.
For those who are new, last year I over-wintered my red pepper plant by cutting it down to about 3 or so inches from the base of the plant. Once it grew new branches, I transplanted it to a pot which sat on my glassed in porch all winter. I watered it sparingly and come spring, I took it outside and started to feed it. Once it was warm enough, I transplanted it into a large container outdoors and it has produced more peppers this year than in its first year.
My goal is to keep this plant going as long as possible. Here are some photos:
I planted some marigolds around it as a natural bug shield -- bugs do not like marigolds -- and it's been happy ever since. Now, I must admit that I don't wait for the peppers to get red. In fact, I usually pick them when they are babies. They're much sweeter and more tender.
Have you ever grown scallions in a container? If not, I'm here to show you that it works really well.
I planted these from seed back in March and they were ready in July. I've always picked them way too early thinking that they were only a cool weather crop.
Nope. Wrong.
Take a look at how well they were doing just last week:
I grew these in GardenRack which has about a foot or so of planting depth. Just yesterday I had a recipe in need of onion and I had run out. I went out the the garden, pulled some scallions and they worked very well.
Last garden season I lost all -- and I do mean every single one -- of my hosta to deer. Apparently, they look at hosta leaves as candy.
Well, this year I had a black snake problem and the exterminating company we chose used a natural repellent that had cinnamon oil in it.
No snakes. And no deer!
Find a repellent that has cinnamon oil in it and sprinkle it liberally where you don't want deer to graze.
This recipe comes from my good friend, Pam Webb, who is an Episcopal priest in western North Carolina. This is a breakfast casserole that has my picky family asking for it often:
1 lb. sausage
8 slices bread
butter
1 1/2 cups grated cheddar cheese
5 eggs
2 cups half and half
1 tsp salt
1 tsp dry mustard
Crumble and fry sausage and drain well. Trim the crust off the bread, lightly butter, and cut into medium sized cubes.
Prepare a 9 X 13 baking dish with Pam and sprinkle bread cubes in the bottom. Layer sausage and then cheese. Beat all remaining ingredients together. Pour liquid mixture into casserole and refrigerate for at least 8 hours (overnight is fine). Bake at 350 for 40 minutes and enjoy!
Vic's Twist: When I make this with sausage, I use already cooked smoked sausage by Smithfield or Hillshire Farm. That cuts down on the grease because it doesn't haveto be fried first. Just cut it up and add to casserole. And I also use fat free half and half to reduce the calories. I've also done this vegetarian by substituting veggies for the sausage. Just remember that if you use tomato or fresh mushrooms, they'll sweat and create more liquid. Canned mushrooms would be okay as would olives.
That's a wrap for this month. Enjoy the rest of the summer and I'll see you back here just before school starts in the fall.
Victoria
The Frugal Gardener
