beer as snail bait, fruit fly bait and more aphids

Picked up five additional fruit fly lures at extension office on Friday. Have three bottles so will make fruit fly traps on Monday. The Crop Production Services, Inc. is only a mile or so from the extension office. I drove up and asked about the Albion chelated iron. They generally carry it, but had none in stock. It is $48 for gallon container. He would order it special but only by the carton plus shipping, would be around $200, which is expensive and more iron then we could use.

Picked up two bottles of beer on my way to the farm this morning. Cheap beer to use as snail bait. I cut the bottoms off several plastic bottles to use as bait holders.

Took kitchen waste to the chickens. In the green coop the waterer had been knocked on its side.
There was a large rooster in the tiny coop next to the large coop. The water had been knocked over, I re-filled it and gave the rooster food. In the large coop I found two eggs in the corner and one broken eggshell.

Transplanted eight tomatoes to the area around the lemon balm and cucumbers. Also transplanted yard long beans to fill out the remaining area under mesh on bed #8. Also moved to additional swiss chard plants to bed #8.
The pole bean vines on the makai end of bed #8 are full of flowers and there are actually beans growing!

Treated the nursery and garden for aphids and sprayed fruit fly bait.
Several of the vining plants are showing signs of fungus infestations. Sprayed with baking soda mixture.
Set six snail bait bowls in various beds in the nursery. Set an additional six snail bait bowls in various spots in the garden, mostly around beans and cucumbers.

I culled out the damaged eggplant. Picked a few that were ripe for baba ganoosh. Cut the leaf lettuce on bed #7. This is the east-west mix from Fukuda. Left the greens for etm. There were a few leaves showing slight yellowing.

Spoke with Jeff about the aquaponics. Asked him about the pH and he tested it. Turns out the pH is rather high, up at 8. This clearly ties up most of the nutrients so they can't be taken up by the plants. Jeff had an interesting graph illustrating the effect. Jeff explained his research about adding a bacteria to speed up the natural process of moving the pH down to the high sixes. Jeff gave me the name of the product: Proline Nitrifying Bacteria concentrate, comes in a one gallon jug. Probably available at Waimanalo Feed Store.