Buddistuff Antiques Collectibles.....& books!

 Naw, not me.............

Some would say I am obsessed with my gourds.   It could be worse.  I could be obsessed with a person and be a stalker!  I could be obsessed with my next fix or robbing banks!  Or, I could be a dork and be obsessed with the weather (uh, OK, maybe a little) or God knows what other thing.........................so, here's my story (and yes, I'm sticking to it).

Around March I started going through all the seed catalogs I could get my hands on and going on eBay looking for cool gourds to grow.  I then ordered.  Three times.  And bought some at a garden store.  I decided not to start any indoors.  Probably because I'm lazy.  So I got them in the ground end of May/beg. of June.  And waited.  And waited.  One day while waiting, I noticed baby plants.  I was so excited, like a proud parent, I guess!  Two days later I see the babies are gone (3 out of 6) on the bushel gourds but everything else OK, with little striped beetles chomping away.........so out comes the Seven dust (the most potent thing I had).  That took care of that!  I had managed also to keep up with weeds so thought that would help!  We were on the right track!

Fast forward to a week ago.  After keeping track almost daily of the plants and their babies, pulling weeds, surveying the situation at least once a day and reading countless articles, books and web stuff,  I decided to try my hand at hand pollinating.  Even though I got great advice from my gourd group, I still just couldn't get it.  Probably from being too busy swatting mosquitoes off me the whole time.  I was bummed.  While out there I started seeing those #**$&&^# cucumber beetles again!  They were back! With a vengence!  But what to do?  I didn't want to kill the GOOD bugs we need to pollinate and get rid of the bad stuff......... so I bought some BT but that is just for the leaf chompers so haven't bothered...........  I even tried to re-direct the ducks into the gourd gardens so they would eat the bugs!  They didn't go for it.  They think I'm nuts.  Which isn't saying much, since they are ducks.

I tossed and turned at night wondering what to do.  Probably the excessive rain we have had is to blame for most of the problem.  And not rotating the crop from last year in one of the gardens.  When I asked my honey what he thought, and explained the problem and asked him to take a walk through the gardens with me, he said I was WORRYING TOO MUCH (is there such a thing?) and implied I was being obsessed with the gourds.  To quote him, "the plants look good and there's gourds, what's the problem?  Just leave it alone". 

Yeah, right!  Yesterday I saw two gourds covered in white fuzzy fungus , and a plant with mosaic virus  And more beetles.  And some plants with pale leaves.   

As of today, I am happy ? to report that no bugs have been harmed since the initial Seven dusting back in June.  Tomorrow morning I will try a dose of some wood ashes mixed in water, supposedly the beetles hate it.  But this isn't over yet.  I plan to have the last say ! Stay tuned!