Beans (bush): Dragon’s Tongue died back too quickly (earlier than others), possibly shaded by tall soybeans? Green variety did better, but still died back earlier than usual
Beans (dried): germinated and vined well, but matured unevenly so some were still green for first frost and were lost for harvest; those that were harvested were lovely
Beans (pole): all did well, but Romano type wasn’t a proper Romano; alternating colors worked great for identifying varieties; TV was earliest, others about 2 weeks later. Kentucky Wonder better of the green varieties (less stringy than Blue Lake); maybe grow with Kentucky Blue next year
Fava Beans: slow start, but did well; some aphid damage, controlled with careful insecticidal soap application; sadly, most of crop picked by vandals, with a few strewn on paths
Lima Beans: needed some reseeding, but were productive; research optimum plant spacing
Peas: Spring crop: did well, except for bad germination on Tall Telephone; trellis particularly successful. Fall crop: germination good, especially under 2 layers of shade cloth; sadly, all were eaten by bunnies
Soybeans: new variety very tall; did well, but had some beetle damage
Notes to the Future
2020 Nightshades (end of season notes)
Eggplants: a solid year overall, productive and good-quality; the best Italian type yet (Galine) though some had worms; White Egg slower than usual; some leaf damage
Peppers: reasonable year overall, significant leaf damage (beetles?); Lunchbox, King Arthur, Serrano, Thai and Cheyenne productive; Poblano not as productive; Hot Lemon slow but large; consider topping/pruning taller varieties to reduce immature peppers left at end of season
Potatoes: blue most productive, then red, then gold; blue slowest, red fastest; some wilt, but all plants produced; a little beetle damage
Tomatillos: bad early beetle damage, but checking/treating every few days for a few weeks got them through; topped plants end of August, but still had tons of small ones at end of season; research pruning, topping, put on fertilizing schedule next year
Tomatoes: overall very good; don’t plant Sun Gold, Supersweet 100 and Juliet together next year; snakes (dangling from strings) and marigolds worked well (didn’t need CDs). Darkstar had a different type of disease (look up); Brandy Boy did well; look for a new paste type; Ramapo seemed determinate this year; a few seedlings got mixed up as seedlings; smaller-fruited varieties did best
2020 Root Crops (end of season notes)
Beets: first crop: very good, do again; second crop: should have been planted 2-3 weeks earlier (put in where fall broccoli should have been planted) but was super cold-hardy
Jerusalem Artichokes: bad bug damage to leaves early and some mildew, but good flowers; not as productive harvest, with lots of stringy tubers; consider buying fresh stock for replanting in spring
Radishes: first crop ok, but bolted in heat; second crop not as robust as first, try fertilizing more?
Rutabagas: spotty germination (cover seed with remay next year); transplanting seedlings set back timing, but worked well
Sweet Potatoes: seed potatoes planted too closely in tray (slips came up together and couldn’t tell different types apart); harvested tubers were fantastic: large and numerous, despite bunny damage to leaves
Turnips (cooking): very good, do again
Turnips (salad): first and second crops: very good, do again
2020 Squash Family (end of season notes)
Butternuts: Metro PMR productive and larger than usual, feeding schedule good; trimming/thinning of extra leaves helped with air flow and Serenade helped with mildew; new variety (Honeynut) was stunted (probably from bad real estate in 3 sisters bed), try on trellis next year; think about no squash in 3-sisters bed
Cucumbers: productive and healthy until premature die-off from wilt: look for wilt-resistant varieties, research bugs for potential traps
Delicata: more productive than usual; fewer vine borers (alternating planting with butternuts and sticky traps worked well); Serenade helped with mildew; feeding schedule good; long harvest season
Pumpkins: productive and larger than usual (one was enormous); less borer damage due to sticky traps; feeding schedule good
Summer Squash: not as productive as zukes; try fertilizing more; Serenade helped with mildew; vine borer damage not as bad due to sticky traps; look for new variety?
Zucchini: very good, do again; vine borer damage not as bad with sticky traps
2020 Garden Pests
Each season brings a new set of insects to the garden. These are some of the insects we found and the pest management we tried in the 2020 season.
| Month | Insect | Plant | Treatment used |
|---|---|---|---|
| May/ June | Aphids (black) | Artichokes and fava | Insecticidal soap |
| July/ August | Beetles (Japanese and Asiatic) | Basil, sunflowers, rhubarb, peppers, marigolds | Neem oil (peppers) |
| July | Striped cucumber beetle | Cucumbers | None |
| July-Aug | Squash vine borer (SVB) | Winter and summer squash | Sticky traps with SVB lures |
| July | Horn worm | Tomatoes | Hand removal |
| July | Flea beetles? | Tomatoes, eggplants | None |
| July | Flying aphids? | Jerusalem artichokes | None |
| July-Sep | Cabbage worms (green and striped) | Cabbage, kale | Hand removal |
| Oct | Aphids (grey) | Rutabaga, kale, brussels sprouts, cabbage | Insecticidal soap weekly |
[May/June] Spring aphids on the artichokes
The artichoke seedlings were beautiful when they were transplanted, but within a few weeks, the undersides of the leaves were covered with black aphids.
Aphids on artichokes: 6/16 
Leaf burn on 6/27
We sprayed the artichoke leaves with insecticidal soap to reduce the aphids, but the leaves were seriously damaged after spraying (leaf burn?) and the aphids continued to be a problem through the summer.
Lisa grew one of the extra artichoke seedlings in a similar-sized pot at her home and did not have any aphids on the plant. We aren’t sure what caused the aphid infestation on the garden artichokes or how to manage it.
[July] Beetle damage on the basil, peppers, rhubarb and sun flowers
July 25 peppers 
July 18 rhubarb 
July 20 Skeletonized basil plants
The basil and rhubarb leaves were decimated quickly. We never found any insects on the plants, but the skeletonized leaves were consistent with beetle damage. In addition to the leaf damage, some peppers also had bug damage in the fruit. We didn’t use any spray or treatment early summer, but later in the summer, around August, the peppers were sprayed with neem oil once a week. Results are inconclusive, but there seemed to be some improvement with the neem spray.
[July] Cucumber wilt from striped cucumber beetle
In late July, the cucumber plants began to wilt and Lisa noticed these yellow and black striped beetles on the cucumber vines and took the photo below. The beetle has a black head as opposed to the similarly striped potato beetle which has a yellow head. Adult cucumber beetles can carry and transmit a bacteria to cucumber vines that causes wilt and damages the fruit. The articles below have some information about the beetle and treatment options.
- http://growingideas.johnnyseeds.com/2010/04/pest-of-week-striped-cucumber-beetle.html?m=1
- https://extension.umn.edu/yard-and-garden-insects/cucumber-beetles
[July] Squash vine borers
Squash vine borers typically attack the summer squash, delicata and pumpkins in the garden. We monitor the vines closely for frass and have to hand remove the larvae from the stems. The butternut squash is usually resistant to the borers.
This summer, 2020, was the first time we tried using traps to catch the squash vine borer moths. We purchased 2-packs of the trap from VivaGrow! and placed two in the garden in late June. We hung them about 2 feet above the ground in a bed a few feet away from the squash plants. Within a week, there were several squash vine borer moths (and other bugs) in the traps.
We added two fresh traps after about 2 weeks and caught a few more moths. The majority of the moths were caught in June, though.
In July or August, we did find some borers in the summer and winter squash, but it seemed like fewer than normal and the plants survived and continued to produce squashed much longer than normal. The traps felt like a successful experiment and we will probably repeat it next year.
[July] Flea beetles?
Several varieties of the tomatoes had small but densely packed holes in the leaves and some small insects were observed on the leaves as well. The leaf damage appeared consistent with flea beetles, but this has not been confirmed. We did not apply any treatment to the tomatoes to try to mitigate the leaf damage, but the productivity of the plants was great and the fruit did not appear damaged with the small holes. Since the impact to productivity and quality was not noticeable, we probably do not need to worry about treatment for flea beetles on the tomatoes.
The eggplants also had small, densely packed holes in the leaves that might be due to flea beetles or something similar. With the eggplants, the holes were not limited to just the leaves — some of the fruit also had small holes and bugs inside. The bugs inside the eggplants appeared to be small larvae a few millimeters long, so this may be an unrelated pest.
[July] Flying aphids?
For a short period (a week or two), the jerusalem artichokes were covered with small insects plus a few larger flying ones. The initial thought was that they might be flying aphids. They did a fair amount of damage to the leafs of the jerusalem artichokes, but we didn’t see them spread anywhere else in the garden so we did not spray or treat them.
[Jun-Aug] Cabbage worms
Green cabbage worms are usually found on the green cabbage starting around June, but the worms are also occasionally found on the collards, kale, cauliflower and broccoli. They are difficult to spot since their color blends in so well with the leaf, but usually the tell-tale sign is the frass near the new growth in the center of the cabbage. When we see fresh frass, we keep searching until we find the worms and hand remove them to stop the damage. Sometimes, large amounts of frass are from one large worm like the one in the picture, but it can also be from multiple worms in the same plant.
[Late Oct] Fall aphids on… well, just about everything!
The second round of aphids in the garden hit around October and they are light gray rather than the black aphids found in the spring and summer. These gray aphids appear quickly and cover the plants. We spray with insecticidal soap regularly, but it seems like once the gray aphids infest a plant, it is next to impossible to get rid of them.
Kale 10/18 
Rutabaga 10/24
Lima Beans
One of our experimental crops this summer was Henderson’s Bush Lima Beans from Rohrer. They are described as a prolific heirloom variety with smaller 3-4″ pod.
By early August, the plants were loaded with flowers and beans and they can continue to produce for months until the first frost. Since they have a long growing season and pods can be at different stages of maturity, we weren’t sure how to decide on whether a pod was ready to pick or not.
The pods grow to about 3-inches long and seem to go through 3 stages once they reach that size:
1) relatively immature where the pod is full length, but it is still flat-ish and the beans inside are very small and difficult to shell
2) mature where the pod looks about the same size, but the girth fills out as the beans expand inside
3) dried.
The pods dry out on the plant surprisingly quickly, so the transition from mature to dried might happen in week or so. Some of the earliest dried pods we found had very small beans inside. It was discouraging at first because it seemed to suggest that the limas would be small, no matter how long we waited to harvest them. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case though. After a couple weeks of harvesting, the mature limas beans that we picked were larger.
With the first big lima harvest of the season, I decided to try sorting the beans as I shelled them to try to figure out what signs we could look for when deciding which beans are ready to pick. The biggest limas had a pod that felt full to the touch and I think the shell starts to turn a little paler green in color like the unshelled pods in the second column of this photo:
On the left are the dried beans. Those are easy to tell apart. In the middle are the mature beans. Most of the mature pods were plump to the touch. On the right are the less mature beans which were a deeper green on the outside. These took a lot more effort to get out of the shell and the beans inside were smaller and still a little green instead of the bright white color of the mature limas. It was tricky to tell some of these immature pods apart from the mature ones because the immature ones had also filled out, and were plump to the touch. I found the slightly yellow/pale color on the plump pods to be the best clues that the pod was mature and would shell easily.
Both the green and white limas tasted good. The main difference was the size of the bean and the effort to shell them.
Take way: Harvest pods when they are plump to the touch and the color is just starting to pale (lighter green).
In the end, I had a nice pile of shelled limas, some were big, others small; some had turned white, others were different shades of green:
I just boiled the limas and served them with salt and pepper. They all tasted pretty good, even the little green ones!
As for the dried beans, they were extremely easy to shell but there are only a few of them, so not sure how the dried ones taste yet. Interestingly enough, the dried beans seem to be a little smaller than the mature limas. Perhaps they shrink a little as they dry out?
