Nice harvest! As you can see in my "harvest" pics below, I lost every single tomato in my main stock tank the previous weekend. 4 huge Brandywine, 10 Black Krim, 7-8 Cherokee Purple and maybe 16 black cherry that were the size of half dollar coins. What wasn't scattered about the yard was chewed into enough that they couldn't be salvaged. I haven't felt this mix of rage and sadness in a long time.
I leave water out in the hope that squirrels won't go for my tomatoes, and I use garlic/cayenne spray several times a month, but 2 squirrels managed to ruin my summer in 24 hours. Right now I'm contemplating squirrel stew in place of BLTs. If I wasn't in the city my yard would already be 100% squirrel-free. Those adorable little &^%%$#!
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Originally Posted by wormgirl
What brand of Neem are you buying, fonseca?
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I buy Neem Pro 100%, it's a small 8oz bottle but it lasts me a year. There are several other brands of cold-pressed neem oil that advertize 3000ppm azadirachtin as well. It stops anything eating my plants (obviously not squirrels...) within a few days, and when it's caterpillar season I use it maybe 2-4x a month.
I was big into permaculture about 10 years ago, and Australian permaculture had a large online presence, which is how I learned about wicking worm beds. All my ideas are stolen from down under. I have raised worms in the past, but the castings I buy usually have a good amount of eggs in them, and I assume worms are reproducing in my large containers.
At the end of the year it's hit or miss as to finding worms in containers smaller than 3 gallons, but they always survive in my 27 G and larger containers. I imagine heat drives them away when there's only a few gallons of soil.
The extent of my worm feeding is digging in some additional coffee grounds and dried, pulverized banana peels into the center of the tank mid-season. My mix is so compost-heavy that I don't need to feed. I haven't fed my plants yet this year either, or made any compost tea. Both are on my to do list! Now is a good time for a kelp foliar feed.
I don't think a "boom and bust" cycle would be a bad thing necessarily even if it is the case. That happens in the ground every time it rains. A quality AACT is especially beneficial when using slower release organic fertilizers. I like to think of it as "topping off" the microbial population. I don't brew fungal teas any more, I use a powdered fungal inoculant that also has trichoderma when rebuilding my soilless mix.