European earwig goes on a rampage of destruction

Oh I was supposed to have more successes than failures, right? I was supposed to have an easy, productive and rewarding first year at the garden to give me the enthusiasm to face the trials and tribulations ahead, right? Apparently the European earwig had different ideas.

It's been about a week since I first noticed something missing. Something being an entire marigold plant (a little one that I'd just planted outside after WEEKS of nurturing it under the growlight). Then the next day another one gone, and the next day another. Since I'd only planted three in that little spot, I guess I thought when they were done with those three marigolds that would be it. Nope. Then the jumped the retaining wall and started on the next two. Saturday morning we went away sailing for the long weekend, and in a last ditch effort to save the biggest and last remaining marigold, I put a toilet paper role around it. At this point I figured it was rodents chewing the plants). Well that did absolutely nothing to keep the leaf chewing at bay.



In fact, now that I know it's the European earwig (or at least it's the best match on this website), I've realized the toilet paper role actually attracted them rather than kept them away. At least it allowed me to figure out what was going on, because when I took the toilet paper roll away the dirt moved and I found these.

In the meantime, they got the carrots, broccoli and radishes, and may be responsible for some chews in the beets and spinach. They seem to have left the lettuce, peas and cilantro alone, if that's any consolation.

Oh and some neighbourhood pet left a big poop in the spinach. Where is the justice?

Well I am not going to let the European earwig get the better of me, so I have laid traps, as the helpful information from McGill University told me to do. Traps of beer. That's right. I thought that was a better first option compared to making a "bug juice" of blended earwigs and water to spray on the other earwigs.

Not all is lost, but my spirit is dampened. Has anyone dealt with these bugs before? Do you think I have it right? Are these indeed European earwigs?

Hypothesis #1: Starting seeds may not be worth it

I didn't even question my plans to get a grow light and start all my seeds indoors as part of becoming a vegetable gardener. That's until I see all these sales this time of year at the nurseries, and how cheaply you can buy a six-pack of this or that, and how much bigger these bedding plants are than the ones I've been nursing in the basement or the windowsill for weeks.

I sowed carrot, pea, lettuce, radish, spinach and beet seeds all directly outside, and that seems to make sense. But the broccoli, cabbage, peppers, tomatoes, cucumber, sage, basil, marigolds and zinnias (impulse seed buy) are all being nurtured indoors. With a little garden like mine, I only need a few of each of these veggies, and there's no way I'll use a whole seed pack. Lets say I want 4 tomato plants, well I can probably buy those at the nursery for little more than the pack of seeds would cost, they'll be bigger than the ones I've started because they're grown by the pros (or maybe fertilized like crazy?), I wouldn't have to spend the time nurturing them, and I would save on electricity use because I won't need the grow light.

So why did I assume that starting my own seeds would be better? Partly I wanted to learn how, but I also figured it would be cheaper, and didn't account for the fact that my plants would be half the size of those you can buy in the nursery. I probably also felt very clever and proud of myself for doing it all from scratch. Perhaps a little bit of ego was involved, like buying plants at the nursery is for lazy people or something. But I'm just not sure my garden is big enough to really make it worthwhile. I spent about $50 on seeds this year, didn't empty most of the packs, and I think I could buy a lot of bedding plants for that.

I'm definitely going to buy my one zucchini plant at the nursery. I've been repeatedly warned that I only need one zucchini plant or we will be drowning in them!

On the other hand, I got 5 varieties of heritage tomato seeds for Christmas, and I probably couldn't buy them as bedding plants in a nursery.

Bees and Blossoms

I had a serious thinning session on the weekend which left me dizzy but satisfied, and I've tentatively planted some of the tomatoes outside, but other than that things are just growing along.

Here are some pictures of strawberry and raspberry blossoms, and the mason bee house (and one bee in the picture)

The Cyber-Gardener

Well why wouldn't there be zillions of gardening resources on the Internet? Of course there are. And there's even an app for that.

There's a Seattle mom blogging about how she manages to supply all her family's vegetable needs from her garden from May to December, Dan from Ontario and his post on toilet paper seed mats, (this is so cool), and City Farmer in Vancouver that has been promoting urban gardening since 1978 (I am obviously not the trend setter here, but I am in good company).

And then, my heart is still palpitating from the absolute joy of discovering The Modern Victory Garden blog and their 2010 garden economics. This is exactly what I intend to do on my blog, but they actually seem to KNOW what they are doing! I haven't calmed down enough yet to be able to actually read through their absolute goldmine of information.

Back here in MY yard, I needed to make more room under the grow lights so moved some of the plants to a sunny window. Pictured here we have 4 varieties of heritage tomatoes, sweet peppers, jalapeno peppers, broccoli and two marigolds.

Basil notes

The basil that I planted indoors, under the grow light, seems to be growing ridiculously slowly. What is going on? I planted it on February 12. This picture was take on May 1. That's over two months, and only two pairs of leaves.
I had a look under the tray yesterday for the first time, and quite a lot of roots had grown through. Are the plants putting all their energy into root growth for some reason?

I might have been too stingy with the grow light. Because I'm cheap I only bought one tube, and put two trays under it. I went and bought another light yesterday, repotted the basil, and put them back under the light.



In other news the carrots, lettuce, spinach, beets and snap peas are all up and looking good. The potatoes are growing quickly. I nearly put some tomatoes outside yesterday but told myself to just calm down and be patient. Another few weeks. I'm going to look into some way of covering them to give them a little greenhouse when they do go outside, but am not really sure how to rig that up. More to come!