backstory
In January, I wrote a post about the garden my husband and I were working on. We planned and planted. We added a third garden bed with even more planted within, then the worst happened. Almost everything died.
Vines were growing for pumpkins, squash and zucchini; there were even flowers on the vines. Tomatoes were sprouting. The corn stalks were about a foot tall… then it got super hot. We live in Southern California, we have a peak of heat every august-september but this time the plants acted differently. The plants shriveled up despite regular watering. Everything in this new third garden bed shriveled and died!
the result
Friday, my husband and I went to our favorite local nursery and picked up a couple of fall vegetable seedlings and plants to add to our fall garden. Saturday morning we pulled up one of the older garden beds because the sides were rotting out and my husband added the soil to the other old garden bed and double dug the whole thing so all the soil was mixed together. As I proceeded to replant all the pepper plants which were the only plants to withstand the heat and the mystery problem my husband dug into the new garden bed. To our disgust the garden bed which is about 32 square feet is completely filled with grubs!!
If you haven’t had to experience grubs you are a very lucky gardener! These suckers have a long life span before they turn into beetles and they are fat and disgusting. Unfortunately there isn’t an organic pesticide that we can put on this garden bed that is safe to use with vegetables so for now this garden bed is out of commission. My wonderful husband spent the longest time picking out grubs by hand and he didn’t even get to half of it. Every time you roll over some dirt there are even more of these disgusting grub worms! We now have a Home Depot bucket full of grub worms… and it’s continuing to get bigger as he sprayed down the box and surrounding area with pesticides which causes the grub worms to come out of the soil and then you can to scoop them up or smash them. (We have actually had to do this at my dad’s house a couple years ago because the worms took over and were killing the whole yard.)
sunshinealwayssparkles.wordpress.com 
Yucka nasty!
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Get a couple of chickens. They love those! I totally feel your pain! I hope you can get rid of them. For now maybe plant with new soil in large pots. I miss Cali. Take care, Koko
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I want chickens too!! Maybe I will convince my hubby to let me get a couple!! It seems we have taken care of our grub problem currently… I have a small garden bed that was unaffected and had no pesticides in it. So that garden bed is planted, completely organic and doing well 🙂
Where do you live now?
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I’m in Tennessee. Here for a few years, then back to California! Yippee! 🙂 Raised beds is a great way to control some issues. I have to do hat here as my soil is actually clay! Glad to hear you have a good bed going! Woohoo!!!! Take care and have a wonderful day!!! Koko:)
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