Lot's of surprises for the end of April

 I try really hard to keep an eye on the garden.    I consider myself a 'newbie' to gardening so I go out everyday looking for evidence of pest.  I try to make sure the soil is wet enough or not too wet.  I'm constantly checking the blooms for fruit on all my vegetables and look at what I found in my cucumbers.  I put a plea out to my fellow gardeners on FaceBook and did some research on my own.  The conclusion is Assassin  Bug.  Yep, he found my cucumbers.  As a matter of fact, quite a few of them were enjoying themselves to my plants.   I immediately got on Amazon and order Diametrious Earth.

 I also had a birthday this month and much to my surprise I had a package waiting for me when I got home from work.  My youngest son is attending college in Maryland and sent me this Awsome 55+ sunscreen hat and some bamboo gardening gloves.  He is definitely the favorite this year!

 Other than the Assassin Bugs the garden is looking great.  I actually found a young lady bug, but unfortunately I haven't seen any since.  The beans are looking good and the cucumbers are hanging in there.  We're still waiting for the DE to arrive

The Day that the DE arrived we ended up have strong winds out of the south/southwest.

The weather forecast kept promising rain, but that really didn't happen.  I had to water the garden any way.  This was mainly a wind event. Unfortunately this weather system did bring major tornado's to North Texas and 4 people ( as of now) have lost their lives.

This is taken right at a curve in the road as you can see the water is just starting to come across the road.  I moved in after Hurricane Ike , so far this is the highest I've seen it, but we haven't had any strong tropical storms and definately, no significant hurricanes.

 I thought I would see how high the water was on the canal. Not too bad, we're not in any danger of flooding.

 Of course, as many storms do, the next day brought gorgeous weather.  Winds had died down, the humidity dropped and so had the temperatures.

Now with the beautiful weather and calm winds I'm ready to treat the garden for pests. However, before I did I took a good look at the garden and noticed my green bean stalks were being eaten.  Unfortunately, I could get a picture of the pest, but I did decide it was a Mexican Beetle.   The DE should take care of him and his friends with no problem.

 I'm not sure if you can see my first Early Girl, but there she is!







My Grape Tomato's are looking pretty good so far as well!  I have quite a few blooms on them and have some high hopes!




The cucumbers have done very well, in spite of the winds and pests.







Before using the DE I did YouTube some video's to make sure I had some sort of idea of what I was doing.    I also learned that not only is DE harmful to the bad bugs in your garden, but it can also be harmful to bees.  I had a clean color applicator bottle that I cut the tip off to make it wider.  I filled it with DE, waited til late evening (when bees are less active), and then dusted the garden with it.  I tried really hard to stay away from the blooms as not to kill any bees that might be trying to pollinate.  I also went around the raised bed hoping that would help as well.

The weather forecast is predicting rain this next week, possibly heavy.  We'll see if it happens.  I'll have the grand kids next weekend.  It will be the first time they've seen this garden.  I expect we'll be doing some bug hunting!