We found cucumber beetles on several of our squash and cucumber plants a few days ago.  A quick trip to the Grange Co Op and an organic solution was purchased.  The next morning the bugs were back resulting in another spray.  Then another bottle and the notice that the limit is 6 applications per year.  After four, there just wasn’t any stopping the bugs.

Enter Sevin. One treatment and no more problems.  I’m all for organics but there’s a limit on how much I’ll go out of my way for something that had no effect.

Each year the garden gets upgraded somehow.  The first year was a simple “deer fence” with posts tied to the existing fence T posts.  The deer fence worked well until the deer decided they wanted in.  Watering was with an oscillating sprinkler that we moved around.

Year two we built a true 9 foot fence to start.  Midway through the year I picked up a bunch of 3/4 inch pipe and a few sprinklers to mount on the fence.  The system was fed by a hose and controlled via two quarter turn valves.  Great progress but required manual control.

I picked up the upgrade for the garden this year, an automatic sprinkler controller. In addition to installing the controller, I moved the hose connection to the front of the garden to allow for a shorter hose.  Watering every morning to kick the year off and will add a second cycle when needed.  So much easier!

I’m starting the first batch of seeds this week.  Corn, tomatoes,  and squash.  They are in the small peat holders that come in their own tray.   The exception is the corn.  It is in a 6 pack container to avoid having to transplant it so quickly.

I’m going to use the Garden category to track all the different work this year to get the garden ready and comment on when I should have done things as opposed to when I did to help next year.