Brandy,

Gardening is ALWAYS a learning experience, no matter how long you have been doing it or how much you think you know!

With the Colorado Potato Beetles, you have three options.....hand pick them and drop them into a bowl of soapy water to drown them, flick them off the foliage and step on them and squish them, or spray the plants with Bt 'San Diego' (be sure to buy the right kind of Bt because Bt 'Kurstaki' kills caterpillars and Bt 'Israeliensis' kills mosquito larvae, but neither one of those two kills CPBs). In years when I have CPBs (haven't had any this year, YET), I handpick AND spray. Also, check the undersides of the leaves for eggs and remove and destroy them.

Corn IS hard to grow organically. Your main pests are Corn Earworms and European Corn Borers and the main solutions are Bt 'Kurstaki' and vegetable oil. I've linked a webpage that describes organic control of these pests. Just ignore all the info on trap monitoring (used by pros to tell them EXACTLY when to spray) and focus on the spraying info.

You are not a garden failure. Gardening IS hard, esp. vegetable gardening because Mother Nature throws you a lot of curve balls.....hail, rain, freezes, frosts, tornadoes, torrential downpours, bugs, wild things like birds, bunnies and racoons, etc. You just have to go with the flow and be prepared to replant as needed.

Feel free to come here and vent anytime. We understand.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Growing Corn Organically

I didn't know corn was hard to grow organically...but then my crowd knows better than to get squeamish on me. The main thing to know about corn is that it likes a lot on nitrogen. We fertilize with chicken manure, spreading it in late fall or winter and leaving it to rot for a month or two before we plant. Then we simply accept that most ears will have a worm at the tip. We simply shuck the corn outside and drown or squash the worms then cut off the tip. The main problems we have with corn are getting the B@#$%^ted blackbirds and crows to stop pulling up the young spears to eat the seed, (I think that they've learned that the snake on the fence is rubber and that the pie pans banging on poles aren't dangerous; ideas anyone) the moles to stop tunneling down the rows to eat the seed (mole bait sometimes works here, but usually after the fact) and the squirrels to stop pulling the shucks down four days before the ears are ready to gorge on the ears. We have to shoot at least one every year; that seems to get the message to the others. Otherwise piece of cake.

Dorothy,

Maybe I should have said corn is hard to grow organically if you can't handle the worms in the tips of the ears! LOL

I manure my beds a month or so before I plant, usually with cow manure, but am going to use chicken litter/manure on that bed in the fall.

My main corn pest is the pesky raccoons. I haven't had trouble with the crows in years. I noticed they always pulled up the sprouts, so I tried to make the new corn sprouts less obvious by mulching lightly (just enough to barely cover the ground) with hay, straw or grass clippings as soon as I planted. It seems to work....since they can't see the little green corn sprouts against the brown soil, they seem unable to distinguish between the newly sprouted corn surrounded by hay/straw/grass clippings and regular grass so they leave it alone.

For the raccoons, I'm hoping that interplanting with pumpkins works this year. It usually does, but sometimes the pumpkins get one disease or another and die, and then it is open season on the corn.

Squirrels don't bother us much. I guess the dogs and cats chase them enough to keep them away. Thanks to those cats and dogs, the moles and gophers that were quite heavy in our small area of sandy soil when we moved here are all gone now. We still have some armadillo problems but not as much as we used to.

Dawn

I love chicken manure more than steer manure because it is more balanced than steer. Has phosphorous and potash in it. Since a lady on the butterfly forum told me about it, I've used nothing else. But, I don't grow a lot of veggies either, so don't know if there would be a profound impact on them or not.

All I know is I put a handful of it around each plant in the garden about 2-4 weeks apart. So far, I've experienced no burn or anything detrimental. The CM I purchased is composted and sold in 40 lb bags at Horn's here in OKC. I buy 2 big bags each year and that lasts me a long time.

I'm also alternating it with the worm castings I bought as well. I have had no burn on my plants from using either organic methods, but when I use the commercial fertilizers, and if I overdose them (by accident), they always show it.

Just please do not use BT corn. It is harmful to other flying insects, beneficials, butterflies, etc.

Susan

Susan,

Well, I would never use corn that has been genetically modified to include BT (nor would I plant any crop that has been genetically modified to make it Round-Up Ready). I am not even sure that BT-modified corn is available to home gardeners, although it certainly is widely available to commercial growers.

I haven't used Bt on anything in several years. For my corn, just dropping a few drops of mineral oil (without Bt added) into the tips of the ears generally works pretty well. And, if it doesn't get all the earworms, I just cut off the tips that have them. Since I stopped using Bt for fear it would harm all the desirable butterflies and moths, I do have to tolerate some caterpillar damage that I didn't have before, but it isn't major.

However, some people don't garden for the butterflies and moths like we do, so I respect their right to use Bt if they wish because in some areas there are so many corn earworms and European corn borers that you can't grow corn without it. I think using Bt is better than using a broad-spectrum chemical pesticide in any given situation.

Personally, though, I tolerate the small amount of damage we get from corn earworms in exchange for the many pleasures of being surrounded by flutter-bys.

Dawn

thanks for the interesting conversation to learn from. . . I read this forum for hours.
For all of the complications I've had in my garden this year (nearly 30 inches of rain since March 1st and cool temps) I now have another issue. Sunday we were working cows and as I was pushing a calf down the lane when he made a deer like leap and pinned my hand between him and the pipe corral. I am left with a fractured finger and a big swollen black and blue hand. (No other broken bones, thankfully.) Now, the garden is going to be hurting. I am pretty wimply to start with and this only makes things worse. hmmph. Oh well, I do have three boys to help and hopefully it won't be a total loss. This gardening is challenging!
Thanks again for the info on the corn and potatoes. My oldest son and I picked potatoe bugs off for about 2 hours the other day and will try to again tomorrow. I think we decided to wait and see with the corn. Might try the mineral oil but I also don't like the idea of the BT unless we have to. We can cut off worms.
Have a nice day!

Oh my, Brandy! Hope your recovery is swift. Tough to have injuries to hands because we actually DO use them a lot, huh? LOL! It is good that you have cheap labor to help out, too. Heehee!

No, I know you don't advocate the use of BT corn, Dawn. I didn't know if it was available to home gardeners or not. But, I always add that little "tag" because a lot of folks don't know that it doesn't just take care of the earworms, but just about any other caterpillar or butterfly along with them. That's why more and more home gardeners are providing host and nectar plants for the flutterbys. The efforts to preserve the Monarch population has been inspiring. If you ever have time (which I doubt you do), check out the Monarch Watch website.

Susan

Here is a link that might be useful: Monarch Watch

Brandy,

I wish you a speedy recovery. Your injury is the type of thing that keeps me nervous around cows and horses. (Not a very good country girl, am I?) I don't even like big aggressive goats or sheep, but I love the babies.

Just put those boys to work in the garden while you sit in a lawn chair, supervise, and let that hand heal!

Susan and I always try to discourage people from becoming overly reliant on BT 'Kurstaki' because of its' effect on the butteflies and moths. But, it is the standard organic treatment, so I always mention it.

Susan: I like the Monarch Watch website and visit it occasionally, esp. during the spring and fall migration. When we bought this land, I spent the first couple of years figuring out (as much as I could) what all the native plants were and then figuring out what wildlife they served as food or shelter for. When all was said and done, there was very little that we could clear away (greenbrier was one) because I didn't want to destroy any creature's habitat or food source. My poor DH would say "Can I cut this down?" with a hopeful expression in his eyes, even though he knew I was going to say "No....the butterflies (or frogs or lizards or whatever) need that." LOL Nowadays, though, I think he is even more into wildlife than I am. For example, he stops and picks up turtles who are in the middle of the road and carries them across so no one will hit them, etc. He's also very good at mowing around all the native forbs, which certainly makes mowing a challenge. It took me a while to pound it into his head that we couldn't enjoy the wildflowers from year to year if he cut them down before they set seed. Now, he's the one who tells our neighbors not to cut their pastures until the spring wildflowers have gone to seed!

I had a lot of butterflies early on, then not so many for a while, and now a lot again. It is just a strange year in the garden AND with the wildlife.

Dawn

I'm glad to hear he leaves the spring wildflowers - there are so few of them that bloom in spring for the butterflies. I am still trying to find some spring blooming flowers for my garden. So far, I just have the amsonia tabernaemonica, and it is mid-spring when it blooms. The dandelions do attract some nectarers. If you can ID some for me, let me know because I'd like to find the seeds or plants.

There are a lot of spring blooming plants, but not all of them are nectar producing. I have lots of violets, but they do not produce nectar. However, they are host plant for the Variegated Fritillaries, so I let them grow. They use only one species that I have, Violaceae sororaria, with the deep purple blooms. I have the Johnny Jump Ups, but they do not use these.

Susan