July 13, Monday

Looks like I missed a week again. Today was eventful so I could wait no longer. But first:

Over the last week I pulled up all the lettuce and watered as needed. On Saturday I applied a little blossom set spray to the many blossoms that didn't seem to be setting fruit. This spray is a natural plant hormone that encourages the fruit to get going. It also comes with all sorts of poison warnings, which means that in it's concentrated form it must be handled carefully. But it's not supposed to get into the fruit. We'll see. If the fruit was held back by the recent cool weather, it may help.

As for today. I noticed a beetle of some sort on one of my nasturtiums. Took a good look at it and flicked it away. It, or one of it's friends, came right back and landed on my tomato plant. Could these be Japanese beetles, I wondered? Did a google search and found some good Japanese beetle pics. Looked similar, but I couldn't be sure. Back to the garden, but no beetles found. A bit later there was one, on my tomato plant, and definitely a Japanese beetle. I went into action.

Time to install my insect barrier cloth. It's meant to let 95% of light and rain in but keep insects out. Problem is, when I bought it I didn't count on covering tomatoes staked 6 feet high. No matter which way I wrapped it around, I couldn't cover the whole bed. I decided to focus on the tomato plants and hope for the best with my other veg. Still, it ain't pretty. I'll get a picture tomorrow.

Hope it works. Beetles were landing on the cloth as I installed it. Checked the plants pretty carefully, but I'll have to check again tomorrow. These guys can kill entire trees, and they seemed awfully interested in my tomato crop.