10 MONTHS SINCE LAST POST... MORNING SICKNESS, PREGNANCY, NEWBORN!

It's been about 10 months since my last post. It will only take four words to sum up the reason for my lapse in gardening (because I have done very little in my garden since last summer) ... morning sickness, pregnancy, newborn!

Below you'll recall my beautiful garden around this time LAST year.

Spring 2014 Garden

Let us take a look at my present garden.

Spring 2015 Garden

Grapeleaf Skeletonizer larvae

So much work to do! At least my herbs are growing nicely. I actually didn't get the squash and peppers planted until just a couple weeks ago. The tomatoes, my husband and I planted the beginning of April. Last year, I over watered everything. It was great for all my lettuces because they were lush and green. Unfortunately, though my tomato plants were lush and green, they did not yield very much fruit at all. This year my husband was determined "he" was going to plant the tomatoes and regulate their watering. I must admit, that while they look terrible, they are already yielding fruit quite nicely. (Though, I still think they need more water.)

I was out this morning removing leaves from my grape vines that are infested with the grapeleaf skeletonizer. Now that I know what to look for, I was determined to catch them early this year. I did notice the moths a few weeks ago, but I just haven't been able to get outside to do anything about it. This morning I removed numerous infested leaves and hosed the grape vines down with water. Tonight after the sun sets, I'll spray the leaves with Neem Oil.

LEMON BASIL SUGAR COOKIE

Sean Fly Fishing 4th of July

"Maybe herbs don't belong in a cookie!" Or so said my husband in a recent conversation that went something like this...

Kelly: "I have all this amazing basil! I want to try and make a citrus herb cookie. I just can't find very many cookie recipes with herbs."

Sean: "Maybe there's a reason for that. Maybe herbs don't belong in cookies."

Perhaps herbs don't belong in cookies, but I wanted to try anyway. There is something light and refreshing about citrus and herbs and perfect for our hot summer days in Las Vegas, anyway! So... while Sean went fly fishing in Utah for the 4th of July weekend, I set out experimenting with a lemon basil cookie recipe. This recipe below is attempt number six, and I finally got the consistency I was looking for. This is a soft sugar cookie, and the best part is you just scoop your dough from the mixing bowl to the pan!

Lemon Basil Sugar Cookie

LEMON BASIL SUGAR COOKIE

1 cup salted sweet cream butter, softened
1 cup granulated white sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 Tablespoon lemon peel, finely chopped
3 Tablespoons basil, chopped
2 Tablespoons lemon juice
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cream of tarter

In mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars. Mix in eggs, lemon zest, basil and lemon juice until smooth. Add flour, baking soda, salt and cream of tarter. Mix well.

Drop rounded tablespoonfuls onto a lightly greased baking sheet. I like to use the cookie scoop.

Bake at 375 degrees for 8-9 minutes. Makes 40 cookies.

The trick for this cookie, as with most cookies I bake, is to remove them from the oven before they appear golden brown. I want them to look like they could use another minute in the oven. Then I let them sit for several minutes on the baking pan before transferring to a wire rack or wax paper. This ensures a soft cookie!

Lemon Basil Sugar Cookies
Dough balls, what they look like when I take them out of oven and then far right what they look like after several minutes cooling on baking pan.

Note: Try adding more basil or a few drops of lemon essential oil if you want a stronger flavor. I'm going to try this same recipe using limes and basil and see how they turn out...

SUMMER VEGETABLE FETA PASTA

This Summer Vegetable Feta Pasta is light and refreshing and perfect for Las Vegas gardeners, since garlic, bell peppers, green onions, tomatoes and basil all grow beautifully in our summer Las Vegas gardens! Technically, garlic is harvested in May and early June, but the other vegetables grow all summer long.

Summer Vegetable Feta Pasta

12 ounces pasta, cooked

3 ears sweet corn, husked and cooked

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

2 large garlic cloves, chopped

1 red bell pepper, chopped

1 orange bell pepper, chopped

5 green onions, chopped

2 cups chopped tomatoes

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 cup crumbled feta cheese

2 tablespoons fresh basil, chopped

1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped

Cook pasta according to package directions. Normally, I like to use fettuccine noodles. However, the noodles in this photo are a gluten-free rice spaghetti noodle. I had my brother over for dinner last night for the 4th of July, and he eats a gluten-free diet. 

After cooking corn, allow to cool slightly before cutting kernels off the cobs. 

Heat olive oil in skillet and add garlic, bell peppers, and green onions. Cook until tender. Remove from heat. Stir in corn, tomatoes, salt, feta cheese, basil and parsley. 

Drain pasta and place in large serving bowl or onto large serving platter. Top noodles with vegetable mixture. Sometimes I like to add shrimp, too. This recipe is very versatile. You could add just about any vegetable you want. Customize it and make it a family favorite!

4th of July Fun, Food, Fireworks & Family

CUTWORMS

Cutworms

I encountered my first cutworm in May 2014 when I began working the ground in preparation for planting my tomatoes. Unlike the little green cabbage looper, there is nothing cute about a cutworm.

Cutworms are actually not worms at all. They are moth larvae that hide in the soil during the day and come out in the dark to feed on plants. Since larvae usually attack the first part of the plant they encounter, which is the stem, and 'cut it down', they are called cutworms.

There are actually a variety of different species of adult moths whose larvae are considered cutworms. Different species vary in color and can be solid, spotted and striped. When they are not moving they tend to curl into a circle. Supposedly, tomatoes and bell peppers are among their favorite plants to attack, so keep a closer eye on those.

An easy way to keep cutworms from getting to the base of your plants is to collar them. I took plastic cups, cut them in half and wedged them over my newly planted tomatoes.

An easy way to keep cutworms from "cutting off" the stems of your plants is to collar your plan

CABBAGE LOOPER

Cabbage Looper

There is something seemingly cute and innocent about a little green caterpillar, isn't there? 

The Cabbage Looper is a member of the moth family. The caterpillar larvae is a measuring worm with a smooth and pale green body. It is called a looper because it arches its body as it crawls. The adult is a grayish brown moth that lays their eggs on the underside of the leaf. The eggs hatch in 2-10 days and the larvae begin eating holes throughout your plants.

The cabbage looper is very destructive to plants as I discovered in spring 2014. I started finding holes throughout mainly my brassica plants: collards, Brussels sprouts, kale, peas and broccoli. I also found them all over my calendula leaves, too.

Cabbage looper and leaf damage to peas, calendula and collards. 

I found it easiest to go out in the cooler mornings and just pluck them off the plants (or enlist my youngest son, Brandon, on bug patrol duty and offer to pay him 5 cents for every bad bug he found.)

GRAPE LEAFHOPPER

In our efforts tonight to find and remove as many of the grapeleaf skeletonizers as possible, we also discovered that our grape leaves are infested with what we believe are grape leafhoppers. I thought, at first, they were white flies. However, after comparing pictures online, I am more inclined to go with grape leafhopper. In fact, the grape leafhoppers appear to be far more plentiful than the grape skeletonizers and have caused just as much damage.

Grape leafhopper and damage to grape leaves.

Leafhoppers are among the sucking insects that damage plants by sucking the juices from plant tissues and leaves. The leaves become yellow, wilted, deformed and may eventually die. According to several university agricultural websites, they also transmit disease. What I thought was perhaps just sunscalded grape leaves were in actuality leaves that have had the juices sucked out of them by leafhoppers. There are very few unaffected grape leaves remaining, and you can see the difference in the picture below.

Healthy grape leaves along side damaged leaves from grape leafhoppers.

I like to try the least invasive means of ridding garden pests as my first line of defense. After the sun went down, I hosed off as many of the grape leaves that I could. I let the leaves dry and then sprayed them with a Neem Oil solution I picked up at the local nursery. I made sure to spray both the tops and bottoms of the leaves. I've been told by other gardeners that during the day you never want to spray your plants with water (much less any type of solution) lest they burn your leaves. Thus, I waited until after sunset to hose them down and spray with Neem Oil.

GRAPELEAF SKELETONIZER

Adult Grapeleaf Skeletonizer

The joys of gardening do not include the abundance of garden pests that infect and infest various parts of my garden. Every time I encounter a new problem, I'm driven to the internet to research similar symptoms, pictures, insects, larvae, etc. Since I am new to gardening, every pest situation is, well, new to me.

The lovely grapeleaf skeletonizer, just one of the new little pests that I've encountered, appeared a couple months ago in the adult form of the moth. I was out in the back garden by the grapes with Sean one evening and said, "I wonder what kind of insect that is. I've never seen a metallic bluish moth before, but it doesn't quite look like a normal moth. Huh."

It started out with just a few here and there fluttering around my beautiful green grape leaves. I looked at the grapes, and they appeared to be unharmed by this interesting metallic blue black flying creature. As the weeks progressed, I noticed more and more of the metallic blue flying moth-like insects flying around the grapes, but they just appeared to land on the grapes. I didn't really think much of it.

I didn't really think much of it.

Seriously, Kelly?

Ignorance is rarely ever bliss in the long run. And this, sadly, is one of those occasions that didn't end well...

One might ask me, "At what point did you realize you had a serious problem?"

I wish I could say, "When I first noticed the strange metallic bluish moth-like insect." But, no.

I wish I could say, "When I noticed dozens of the strange metallic bluish moth-like insects." But, no, again.

I wish I could say, "When I noticed the grape leaves starting to turn brown and paper thin with just their skeletons left." Alas, the answer is still a resounding no.

I didn't really think much of it.

Perhaps this is what grape leaves look like in the heat of the summer months. It was nearing mid to end June when I noticed the grape leaves starting to turn brown and paper thin with several just remaining with their skeletons. We do live in Las Vegas and it happens to be summer, so I didn't really think much of it.

Grapeleaf Skeletonizer Larvae

Until yesterday. I was walking under the archway of the grapes. "Wow, so many leaves are brown, paper thin and wafer thin," I thought to myself. I casually turned a leaf over and saw a plump little caterpillar with yellow, gray and black markings. I plucked off the leaf that had the caterpillar, placed them both inside a Tupperware container and sat down at the computer. Research.

It didn't take long to realize I had a problem. The Grapeleaf Skeletonizer was definitely this cool looking caterpillar inside my Tupperware container. The metallic bluish greenish black western grapeleaf skeletonizer moths fly during the day and are the adult form of the western grapefleaf skeletonizer. They do no damage themselves to the grape leaves but lay their eggs on the grape leaves. After the eggs hatch, the larvae feed side by side on the underside of the grape leaves. There are five different stages of larvae as they mature. Then they crawl under loose bark or into the ground litter (which is plentiful under and around our grape leaves) and spin a cocoon to pupate.

The grapeleaf skeletonizer larvae damage the grape leaves by eating them away so that only the veins remain with a paper thin brownish leaf. This leads to problems with grapes maturing, sunburn of the fruit and overall quality loss and weakening of the vine. The grapeleaf skeletonizer larvae also have poisonous long black spines which can cause skin welts when plucking them off, so wear gloves and don't let them brush your skin.

"I don't have time for this today," I sighed. A busy day didn't allow me an opportunity to deal with my problem yesterday, so this morning I arose early, traded my morning run for caterpillar hunting, put on my thickest garden gloves and grabbed a 5 gallon bucket.

It didn't take long for me to realize my little 5 gallon bucket was not going to be sufficient. I had to get an empty trash can.

Grapeleaf skeletonizer in various stages of growth. Pictures taken summer 2014 from my grape leaves.

As I began to really look at the grapes, I found hundreds upon hundreds of the grapeleaf skeletonizer in various stages of growth! I stopped counting how many leaves I plucked off. I didn't even attempt to count the little creatures. I was in shock. I spent the morning plucking off infected leaves, cutting off entire runners with larvae infecting every leaf, and wishing I had known what the strange metallic bluish moth-like insects were two months ago.

For our family home evening "activity" I enlisted more forces! 

My kids and their friends grape skeletonizer hunting.

Fortunately, I was able to identify the problem and will be on guard next year. In our efforts tonight to find and remove as many of the grapeleaf skeletonizers as possible, we also discovered that our grape leaves are infested with what we believe are grape leafhoppers. I thought, at first, they were white flies. However, after comparing pictures online, I am more inclined to go with grape leafhopper. In fact, the grape leafhoppers appear to be far more plentiful than the grape skeletonizers and have caused just as much damage.

Grape leafhopper and damage to grape leaves.

Leafhoppers are among the sucking insects that damage plants by sucking the juices from plant tissues and leaves. The leaves become yellow, wilted, deformed and may eventually die. According to several university agricultural websites, they also transmit disease. What I thought was perhaps just sunscalded grape leaves were in actuality leaves that have had the juices sucked out of them by leafhoppers. There are very few unaffected grape leaves remaining, and you can see the difference in the picture below.

Healthy grape leaves along side damaged leaves from grape leafhoppers.

I like to try the least invasive means of ridding garden pests as my first line of defense. While wearing gloves, I physically plucked off as many of the grapeleaf skeletonizers that I could find (with the help of my own reinforcements). After the sun went down, I hosed off as many of the grape leaves that I could. I let the leaves dry and then sprayed them with a Neem Oil solution I picked up at the local nursery. I made sure to spray both the tops and bottoms of the leaves. I've been told by other gardeners that you never want to spray your plants with water, in the heat of the summer, during the day (much less any type of solution) lest they burn your leaves. Thus, I waited until after sunset to hose them down and spray with Neem Oil.