Today is the first day that it isn't "suppposed" to rain in about two weeks. I'll keep my fingers crossed! I was able to go take a sunny peek at the garden, and I found a lot of growth, but I also found some ugly.
I found aphids on some of my tomato plants. I didn't really deal with them last year I don't think. I vaguely remember making a soap or hot sauce spray, but I think I maybe applied it once or twice? I was reading about how to eradicate them, and I'm kind of feeling overwhelmed. I definitely don't want to spray them with streams of water. They've had nothing but water for two weeks, and I don't feel overly confident about my current knowledge of the soap solutions. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
I also have something eating on my broccoli. So far, I can't actually SEE anything eating it. Is this slug damage? Something else?
The strawberry plants are really filling out, and it has been a lot of fun to see them ripen! This one may look pretty, but the part that was sitting on the ground was yucky.
So, I shared it with Solomon. :)
I've got a pea jungle now!
Here are a few that I pulled off today. I should be saving this for Harvest Monday next week, but I'm not particularly good with posting, so it's going on here now.
I've got evidence of my first yellow squash to come!
My tomato plants are vibrant and healthy, other than the aphid issue. The yellow leaves in this picture are my extra roma plants still in their newspaper pots sitting in a flat. They are so drowned from all of this rain. I don't think selling them is an option for me anymore!
My first few cherry tomatoes forming! :)
My first monster heirloom blossom is opening up today too!
AND, Here's my one and only cilantro that sprouted.
Hi Megan, I love your messy garden and your turtle friends. I have one tip for you about fighting aphids, plant lots of sweet alyssum and cilantro around the vegetable garden. Let both of them bloom and they will attract beneficial insects that parasitize or whose larvae eat the aphids. It takes a while to get a good population of beneficials going but once they are there and you maintain a source of pollen and nectar for the adults you will be amazed to see how many aphids the larvae can eat. I like alyssum because once it starts blooming it just keeps on going and cilantro because it bolts and blooms very quickly and is incredibly attractive to beneficial insect adults. I've seen the aphid population come and go this spring and I've not done a thing myself to control them. I've seen lots of aphid mummies (from parasitizing wasps) and lots of hover fly larvae as well as lace wings, lady beetles, and soldier beetles. I used to have huge problems with aphids before I had the alyssum and cilantro in the garden. There are even beneficial flies that lay their eggs in or on the caterpillars that like to chew your broccoli plants, so don't kill any flies that you see in the garden.
ReplyDeleteThanks for following my blog. I'll be back! I really do love those turtles.
I really don't see any damage to the broccoli, if it was cabbage worm or cabbage looper, you'd definitely see the carnage. Those peas look perfect! Gosh, they are really big, too..
ReplyDeleteMichelle- thanks for loving my garden! :) And my turtles! I did plant 9 cilantro plants in there, but only one sprouted, I guess I should put more out there, but I really like to USE cilantro! It'd be hard for me to let it just bolt! I checked the rest of my tomatoes, and while there was some aphid evidence, I didn't find any more leaves that actually had aphids on them. I'll definitely have to remember the alyssum and cilantro for next year though! Thanks again for the tips and for following my blog!
ReplyDeleteEG- I'll have to take a better picture of the broccoli, I'm not sure how to make it so you can "click to enlarge" but what look like water droplets in the middle are holes that run right up each side besides the "vein" on the leaves. I found two centimeter sized caterpillars and one spot with about 8 eggs on them last evening that I squashed. :) I didn't see anything new on them that I can tell.
ReplyDeleteI just went back out there to check, to see if I could find one of the little guys and I found eight. So my post will be following.
I'm not sure what I did with my peas, they seem to be well past a lot of other peoples' that I've seen that planted at the same time. Even the ones I planted at my friends' houses are nowhere close to as tall as these. I do know that I planted them in the spot where my husband had spread coffee grounds straight in... My radishes didn't like that spot, but the peas sure have!
I'm amazed by your "pea jungle"! :-)
ReplyDelete