Someone was asking me about pests. These have spider mites, they're not super bad but I'm going to spray neem oil anyway. It's not ideal but my ecosystem doesn't have any spider mites predators right now so it's really my only current solution. I'm not interested in non-native predators but if anyone has a line on some Illinois native predatory insects holler at me.
You can also see how well established my cover crop is! I'm a big fan of cover cropping. Monoculture is literally poison to the Earth, so obviously Bizzle don't play that shit.
Anyway the big one in the middle is up to my nose ๐ and they're fully flowering which sucks but I'm learning for next year. Nothing I ever do is a failure, it's just some shit I did.
Are you feeding/amending them with anything or letting them pull what nutrients they can from the soil?
Totally, I started this bed with a bunch of mushroom compost, coffee grounds, and bone meal. At the solstice I'll top dress compost and probably more bone meal, and almost certainly worm castings. At the end of the season I'll do it again. I'm going to do a soil test next March to see what I need after that.
I kid...
That sounds awesome, what kinds of things do you test?
ARISE CHICKEN!! CHICKEN, ARISE!
Holy shit it finally happened.
I'm equally surprised.