Design

It was a good day in the garden. Feeling much better today after a nasty bout with H1N1 last week, my gardening companion and I puttered happily doing (relatively) small garden projects. Tiring, of course, and it required a bit of rest on both of our parts, but it was delightful to be outside. I cleaned up the rest of the satellite (vegetable) garden, and transplanted some asparagus seedlings that I'd grown from seed (a European variety called Precoce d' Argenteuil) which I'd purchased in an enthusiastic buying session last winter. They clearly must have been described in a evocative way. They were nice hefty young seedlings and I tucked them into a bed rich with organic matter. I covered other beds with nicely decomposed straw, thanks to my hay bale experiment last spring. I didn't actually end up with crops from the hay bales (uh, woodchucks can climb, I guess), but the compost planting holes stimulated decomposition much more rapidly than usual. One of the doub...

There are many different species of nematodes, but since a couple of blocks in my main vegetable garden have developed a root-knot nematode problem (primarily affecting susceptible tomatoes and peppers), I've been interested in ways to reduce their numbers. Root-knot nematode damage on tomato ( University of Missouri Extension ) Rotation management is the primary organic method, using non-susceptible crops and varieties to decrease numbers, prior to trying some susceptible sort of heirloom tomato, for example (actually, my heirlooms are going to go in containers this year). Using trap crops such as rape seed (canola) and French marigolds is another recommended strategy. But, beneficial nematodes that are supposedly parasitic on root-knot nematodes, sting nematodes, and ring nematodes sounded particularly appealing. The notion of having good guys take care of the bad guys in an underground soil contest, hmmm -- sounds promising to me. So I plopped down my credit card for a supply ...