I went out this morning for my regular Wednesday Miracle-Gro application and took a more careful look at the garden. Apparently the bugs reconnoitered and decided to assault my very best Kohlrabi plants after I put the diatomaceous earth on the other end of the garden:

The little buggers forced me to go nuclear, and I applied diatomaceous earth all over the entire garden. Sadly, I had to pull the Kohlrabi plants that were in the worst shape from the field. Oddly the invading troops left the smaller plant growing right underneath the bigger plant. Perhaps the little jerks are planning to come back later once the plant gets bigger and more worth their time. Clearly these are American bugs, going for Shock and Awe:

I ended up deciding to redeploy my troops, and I moved some of the plants that needed to be thinned over to the undefended territory:


I am not confident that I moved these well enough for them to grow — I could hear and feel little roots tearing — but I feel better about having the plants looking a little more evenly spaced.
The tomatoes are looking pretty good, actually. You can see the damage from the storm, but the plants are putting on new leaves. I even have a red cherry tomato that I think I will pick tomorrow or the next day! In celebration I put up a few tomato cages:

The beans are giving me hope, too. I was pretty disappointed when I went out after the storm and saw that only five of the Garden of Eden pole beans had survived:

However, while I was weeding I came up on two more stems. The big leaves are gone, but I can see little tiny leaves starting from the stems. now I’m glad I waited a few days before going out to pull weeds — otherwise I may not have seen the new baby leaves:
Tiny leaves starting from storm damaged beans The other damaged Garden of Eden stem is also sending out leaves
Hooray! Hope springs eternal in the garden, I suppose. I will soak and plant the rest of the pole beans and Lima beans on Thursday or Friday. Germination rate is expected to be 70% for beans, which means my rate of about 55% for 2 year old home-saved seeds isn’t too bad.

