War with bugs and birds for the crops

Summer means fruit, it also means pests.
Aka bugs and bird, esp when birds turn and instead of eating bugs eat all your strawberry when they get under bird nets, all your currants and junberry.
Pests combined are not good. So the war was declared by using traps (oil for bugs, caught lots or black ants too which was sadly not intended... was going for earwigs and caught those too)
Berries were wrapped because red robins and grackles (aka flying rats) were getting in under the bird nets.
I'm seriously thinking of ultrasonic bird guards during currants ripening season.

I tested sluggo plus, not sure how effective it is still have lots of bugs and it was deployed several times as well, under the plates it seems to do better, and under cedar scrap wood.

Defenses:
oil trap with earwigs, old cups re-purposed. Ask for some chipped, cracked ets from your local folk, use them like so

Here is farmers almanac about earwigs

 This is the extent I have to go for juneberry...

 these buggers dive bomb

 2 got in under that wrap, ate a lot and one did not end up well the other escaped with the tail missing, wrapped that plant double... seriously, they get through bird nets
that's how currant is warped now.

 They are trying to switch on grapes... now sure what am I going to do next

Some flowers.

 And gardener fuel. Jun and kombucha, good batch and plenty to share

 Juveniles with the broody, she is doing well after the hawck attack last year, that's why her tail is not straight and one wing is damaged, but she is managing these 3 young roosters and 2 more young hens (hoping... not all 5 are roosters, have seeing that)

 Lavender is doing well, but pink one I can not establish at all...

 Now about buying overfed-over-fertilized to make them look good goji berry from nursery - never do that, ever.

 That's the fertilizer withdrawal... Another young goji is just fine.


I lost some juveniles to predator and that's very sad. 2 days later I had her sit and RO considered not broody... makes me wonder if they know that their chicks were killed and have to do it again... I did not expect her to do that almost right after the attack.

My roses are doing ok, I was so hoping Julia Child is not all dead, and it is not, not sure how will I nurse that one back so...

that's all for now.
Later I'll post some from my iris collection.

The heat, the earwig traps, and some summer food just because...

No rain and the heat. We get it hot and high altitude sun adds to it. It gets very very hot.
All the birds are hiding in shade and not willing to come out till the evening even for the food.

Here what does hot sun do regardless of daily water schedule during the heat wave on some of less heat and drought tolerant plants.
That includes new transplants as well

Established shasta daisy. Even that gets it..

Not established lavender in 1 gal container store bought, planted 2 weeks ago. Not doing well.

 Heat shot gladiolas, very short blooming time this year

 Hear struck roses. deadheading needed.

 Another rose, same, but Purple cone flower at the back is as big as that rose and doing very well

 Heat on pale green roses, many flowers are browned and burned, needs major removal or damaged flowers

 Brandiwine tomato. Does not like it much.

Some things do like it. This very well established currant.

 And hops, also established (3-rd season, first season they did suffer heat a lot and I thought the would not make it, 2 out of 3 did)

 '
Garlic. One row pile...

And there is more, that is exactly what does happen when one does not get the garlic head last year, it does turn into garlic bush. I was harvesting these from early spring. Now need to water that a lot and try to get these this year... or that will be already very problematic clump...

And this dweller...

Hyssop.

 it grows in rock, literally...

Also in this heat I've got some unusual thing, summer mushroom under blue spruce log...

Now about bug traps.

Roly-poly are still caught on watermelon rinds under paper plates and collected every morning, and I do not see the end of it so far, I do not recall that many... Even reduction of the water in the garden does not seem to do it, so I put the water schedule back where it was and hoping my strawberries will recover, I did loose not established hardy fig, it did dry off...

Earwigs however... I found more permanent kill trap.

I'ts very simple. Paper plate, has to be placed at the angle. It has about 1/4 cup of oil, first I tried olive oil as it was suggested, but that's expensive,.. so my single test trap was full of bugs in  3 days all right. I replaced that with canola and here is 1 night catch. It does seem to work just the same as olive oil, maybe a bit less, but still they land in there

Trap one, in same spot where olive oil was, it's a mixture of old olive oil and new canola.

 Trap 2, canola

 Trap 3, got some rollies too.

 Trap 4, next to my most suspect hot spot...

 And I was right... yack, but chickens should love it

 Trap 5

Now about more pleasant things. kebabs are good in summer.

It makes a simple meal like this, nothing fancy to serve, but summer is summer. This meal works very well for hungry man :)

 Load one... very reduced till I got to camera

 corn

 load 2 :)

 and load 2 done.

these are marinated 3 ways in red sweet wine and pomegranate with garden herbs and garlic, then twist on teriyaki and sesame, and pinot grigio and some special spices for chicken.  Worked well.

Late spring snow, early summer storms

February in May past last frost date for the area

For 2 days the temp has dropped. stuff that I could cover I covered, but lots was left to ride.

Beginning of the 2 day late May storm (these lived through 3 hail storms after that... yea...)

 Rain turned into snow, maybe that did save some of the plants... full second level drain dish, so good I put that one in this spring early, I'd be in heap of a trouble...

it kept coming as wet snow melting on some hot rocks (mind you there was above 70 for over 2 weeks before that...)

but next storm roaring water washed part of dirt under one of the supports of this bridge, will have to fix that one...

And it kept coming for 2 days

Yeah... what did we get... half-to-foot-ish...

One knows the mulch pile that is composting in freezing weather...
That's when it started melting in 2 days

 Cold tolerant plants lived just fine
Here is the same snowed in area

 bumble bee

By the way all that goodness now bolted to seeds... and you do not want to know what chickens did to sorrel when they got into the garden :)

Use of the row covers

After the freeze there were cold below 50 nights, and that's at very end of May almost June, last days...
So Wall of waters came up (they do not quite help for 2 days in 20F and below...)

After that there was beginning of June, relatively uneventful except of several hail storms, some areas got 1-2 inch hail and that was bad, We did get smaller one and thankful for that, in some areas cars and houses were shredded by 2 inch hail.
We did get some very impressive rains. It did happen at night, so no good pictures of any of it, but there was sort of... busy time.. foot deep dry creek at the beginning of it, it looked like a flood, took measurement in wheel barrow in the morning and it was 3 inches dumped monsoon style in less than 15 min, it was short, but powerful, bottom line my drains were not enough and some french drains under the road most likely will be needed... Not sure what am I going to do about it. something.

Road was washed like so, compared to not getting at the back in any kind of a car for 1.5-2 month...
it's a big improvement. That's after heavy 2 wood chippers trucks that bring about 20 yards load of chips/logs. My little berm did soak it in. have to do some french drains there for the flood case and some different grading.

 After the little berm it's a lot better.

For now wood chip it to make it smooth.

First asparagus sprouted. Have to find some bright things after 'the element' rolled in...

 Cucumbers planted, but many did not live, earwig and roly poly are bad this year, way more compared to predators I have

 This is rhubarb, supposed to be poison, not so, eaten

But grape transplant lived. So that's good. It will turn around eventually, will take longer to establish so

All the water did help the orchard. Watered once during the heat wave, not really needed...
There is no bad without good. But there is also bad. All these 3 May freezes killed all the fruit. No apples, pears or plums this year,last 2 day end of May freeze did the rest.

New chickens... babies of the current flock, mixes

Feasting on roly poly bugs.

Not sure what will be harvested this year with all the bad weather and rolled in heat wave in mid to upper 90F with nights in 55F... in less than 2 weeks after the freeze... Not sure what to think of this season...

Roly poly did some damages. And if frost will come early there is no way I'll have heirlooms harvest. Maybe I'll have to look for early harvest Siberia tough varieties. It supposed to be zone 5a-5b. 

Right now transplants are stunted in the heat wave and bugs are moving in and eating stressed plants big time.

It does fit what BTE 

I did see Woodlouse spider several times before the late May freezes, I did not see any after. It is possible they made it, hope I have enough of rocks and other hiding places for them

I found garder snake under one of my row covers, hope it sticks around, I did hear a toad. Still these are not enough to eat enough wood lice.

I see some new birds, red robins do not come often,most often I see this one Common grackle. I thought it could be black bird, but it did sound like a grackle  , that screechy kind of sound... This one has a habit of harvesting my watermelon traps with watermelons naturally, flipping them upside down, so they dry in our weather in a day. do not have enough watermelon for that. So diatomatious earth (DE) went on affected the worst areas around bases of the plants, will see what that would do. 

I need more traps... I did not use any DE in any areas where I did see tiny mantises. Hopefully they will find a way to avoid spiders and other things... They do not control roly poly but maybe they do among the other things.

It is an unusual season for sure.

2 weeks after the snow ride front bed. Recovered.

Here is the heat damage on roses. This is Julia Child variety, it has rose-hips, edible.

 Columbines naturalizing

 And currants made it and baby currants are doing ok too (branches I set in autumn to propagate.