Purslane, keep it in your garden

This "weed" is thriving in my garden.

Can you spot the purslane?

Purslane (Portulaca oleracea) is a common weed found in Minnesota gardens. I am finding little purslane plants popping up all over my beds right now. I try to keep a few thriving plants for salads. Some say it has a slightly sour, salty taste. I don't think it tastes like much of anything. I eat it for the nutritional benefits. Purslane contains high amounts of Omega-3 fatty acids, the same fatty acid found in fish and flax seeds.

June garden highlights

Volunteer fennel and dill among the lettuce plants.

Peas please.

There are baby cucumbers planted under those poles.

Mustard greens

Crispy romaine lettuce is ready.

As of June 18th, I have a growing supply of peas and lettuce. If anyone would like any lettuce please let me know nila@thebluearth.com . Just keep in mind that you will have to share with the slugs. I think they are particularly bad this year because of the cool start to summer. If it gets worse, I may have to break out the Sluggo.

Leafminers eating away my spinach

Spring gardening always presents challenges, this year for me it is the insect pest- leafminer.

These elusive insects are destroying my baby spinach plants. In addition, something is attacking my bulls blood beet seedlings, I am thinking it is a fungus but it could also be leafminers.

The UC IPM Program has a really good description on their website about possible methods for controlling leafminers on spinach. One of their tips is to encourage the presence of parasitic wasps, who parasitize the larvae? I think (meaning somehow they get their eggs in between the upper and lower leaf surfaces). I need to look in to this claim further. The other recommendation is to use the natural/ organically approved insecticide, neem. Unless the infestation takes over my entire garden, I am not interested in this option.

I plant fennel and dill throughout my garden every year to encourage the presence of parasitic wasps. You only need to plant once because the seeds will spread throughout your garden and produce volunteer plants every year after. It's the best "weed" possible. I selectively let these volunteer plants grow as my natural pest control mechanism. Unfortunately, the parasitic wasps won't show up until my dill and fennel plants flower, meaning that the leafminer infestation will live on. For now they sticking to the spinach, meaning this will be my trap crop. If I removed the spinach, there would be a risk that these little pests would move on to attack my lettuce. So the strategy is to let go of the spinach in order to save the rest of the plants.

Isn't pest management fun!