Weeding with a Hoe at Dusk

Ahhh...nothing like a few stolen minutes alone in the garden at dusk. The little one fell asleep last night at 6:30 and I was able to sneak out to pick some greens and check out the goings on out there. I have some huge Daikon, and it looks like I'll have some turnips in another week or two. It's no longer difficult for me to tell that this is the kohlrabi.



I came inside with a nice basket full of greens - collards, a little lettuce, some mini red bells (they're under the greens) and a generous handful of jalepenos.



Funny, I think I dreamed about peppers last night...I had a big bag full of jalepenos and serranos and I was handing them out to my father-in-law and brothers-in-law.....My serrano that I potted and that has been on the deck doesn't look fantastic, but it's putting out peppers lilke crazy, and has peppers all over it, and it's getting ready to bloom again. It's getting crisp around here in the evenings, so I brought it inside last night and put it in front of the window, where I'm hoping it'll live through the winter...

My cabbages look like they want to start heading up. I did find two little green worms on one head last night...

And this!!!! Yuck! This cabbage is FULL of eggs.

I checked out out all the others and this seemed to be the only one that was infested. So I trooped inside for a spoon and a big pitcher of water and I dug out and smushed the eggs as much as I could, and then doused the whole thing really hard with the water to wash the rest of the eggs away. I don't know if that was the best thing to do, but I had to do something. I figured that even if some of the eggs lived, hopefully without hatching on thier food source they wouldn't make it...

I did find some kind of clear slug-looking thing on a broccoli leaf too. Some of my broccoli and brussels sprouts are getting a little eaten, but not too bad. I haven't seen any more harlequin bugs. I hoping to get a chance this weekend to pick up some manure compost and give the broccoli and brussels sprouts a side dress of it. I could also use more straw (and some newspaper). I did weed quite a bit last night with a hoe, which went pretty well as the weeds are all small.

One additional note: I'm having so much fun doing this blog, that I've decided to start an additional blog chronicling various non garden-specific self-sufficiency issues. If you're interested in you can check that out here.