Tag Archives: Association

Greetings from the Raincatcher’s Vegetable Gardens

Posted on March 26, 2025 by Dallas Garden Buzz

March 26, 2025

We are enjoying the mild weather and it appears the vegetables are too. Last year was productive both in vegetables donated and new lessons learned.  We came pretty close to doubling our yield from the previous year (from 966 to 1833). 

The tatume squash was the star producer with 727 pounds donated to North Dallas Shared Ministries.  We would have had more but the stink bugs cut the harvest short by a few weeks. 

We left a large volunteer hybrid squash in place as a trap crop for squash vine borers.  An infestation of stink bugs quickly followed the borers on this weakened plant and spread to the tatume despite our best efforts to control them. This led to the early demise of our tatume plants and many long sessions of spraying soapy water to rid the garden of stink bugs. We are grateful to the Master Gardener interns and new volunteers who kept working with us despite this challenging (and frankly, gross, infestation).

The best advice for controlling stink bugs in small gardens is to remove the eggs and nymphs as soon as they can be found.  They can be brushed off into soapy water or vacuumed.  We missed some early opportunities but ultimately were able to get it under control in time for fall vegetables. 

Z

Image of brown marmorated stink bug eggs and nymphs from stopbmsb.org

Learning to identify stink bug eggs and nymphs
Tatume squash harvest in June
Crop loss in July

Beverly Allen, Dallas County Master Gardener class of 2018

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Salad From The Garden

Posted on May 25, 2021 by Dallas Garden Buzz

May 25, 2021

Thank you, Starla Willis, for the video and Beverly Allen and Sharon L. Wright for teaching us about salad gardening. It is my understanding that your lettuce varieties were planted the first week of March and may last through June.

If you are like me, and hate to see your salad garden coming to an end, make summer plans!

I hear Beverly is trying a heat resistant romaine lettuce from Johnny’s seeds called Monte Carlo. Along with using a location with part shade, she plans to harvest often and early to beat the effects of our summer heat. She also said with this cool spring, there might be time to get one more round of quick growing radish seeds such as Cherry Belle or French Breakfast planted and harvested before summer. Her favorite sandwich consists of thinly sliced radishes from the garden and arugula. Sounds good, Beverly!

More summer salad ideas-Swiss Chard and Malabar Spinach. Buy transplants from your local garden center and put them in your garden when your spring lettuce begins to bolt or turn bitter.

Ann Lamb, Dallas County Master Gardener Class of 2005

Beverly Allen, Dallas County Master Gardener Class of 2018

Here’s more information from Johnny’s Seeds about heat resistant varieties. We can’t vouch for them yet, but plan to try some in our gardens. Dallas Garden Buzz readers, what do you grow for your salad bowl when the heat comes on? We would love to know.

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