What happens every year is that I get some tomatoes and hings are going pretty good. I get some growth, the leaves seem pretty good but then they show up. APHIDS. Like that deal you make with the devil, it always comes back when you seem to have forgotten. Tomatoes, a seemingly easy plant to grow becomes a pain in the ass. This time last year, those weird little green, sometimes brown guys showed up and started sucking the life out of my wonderful tomatoes. Used soap they said, its a natural defense against the little guys. What they didn't say was that even if you put soap on your plants at nighttime, during the daytime you create a wonderful sun magnifying, leaf suffocating elixir. There went the plans for homemade canned sauce for the summer. Not again this year! I settled on using some Neem oil, and so far so good. It does kill the good insects, but since I live in a city and in an apartment complex, there really aren't that many insects around these days. The spider that has been in between both of the tomatoes survived, so I approve. Most of the other plants are doing decently well. I will have to fix some drainage issues with the peppers and I made holes a little too small in their containers. I also transplanted the Madhu Ras melons into a makeshift, soon to be vertical raised bed contraption. They couldn't be any happier. I also added some perennials, which have already attracted some butterflies.
Sunday, May 19, 2019
May 19, 2019
I had a dream the other night about plants. Something about the cost of already grown tomatoes, versus growing them from seed. When I woke up, I felt a strange sense of guilt. I think I've been obsessing over my tomatoes a little too much recently.
What happens every year is that I get some tomatoes and hings are going pretty good. I get some growth, the leaves seem pretty good but then they show up. APHIDS. Like that deal you make with the devil, it always comes back when you seem to have forgotten. Tomatoes, a seemingly easy plant to grow becomes a pain in the ass. This time last year, those weird little green, sometimes brown guys showed up and started sucking the life out of my wonderful tomatoes. Used soap they said, its a natural defense against the little guys. What they didn't say was that even if you put soap on your plants at nighttime, during the daytime you create a wonderful sun magnifying, leaf suffocating elixir. There went the plans for homemade canned sauce for the summer. Not again this year! I settled on using some Neem oil, and so far so good. It does kill the good insects, but since I live in a city and in an apartment complex, there really aren't that many insects around these days. The spider that has been in between both of the tomatoes survived, so I approve. Most of the other plants are doing decently well. I will have to fix some drainage issues with the peppers and I made holes a little too small in their containers. I also transplanted the Madhu Ras melons into a makeshift, soon to be vertical raised bed contraption. They couldn't be any happier. I also added some perennials, which have already attracted some butterflies.
What happens every year is that I get some tomatoes and hings are going pretty good. I get some growth, the leaves seem pretty good but then they show up. APHIDS. Like that deal you make with the devil, it always comes back when you seem to have forgotten. Tomatoes, a seemingly easy plant to grow becomes a pain in the ass. This time last year, those weird little green, sometimes brown guys showed up and started sucking the life out of my wonderful tomatoes. Used soap they said, its a natural defense against the little guys. What they didn't say was that even if you put soap on your plants at nighttime, during the daytime you create a wonderful sun magnifying, leaf suffocating elixir. There went the plans for homemade canned sauce for the summer. Not again this year! I settled on using some Neem oil, and so far so good. It does kill the good insects, but since I live in a city and in an apartment complex, there really aren't that many insects around these days. The spider that has been in between both of the tomatoes survived, so I approve. Most of the other plants are doing decently well. I will have to fix some drainage issues with the peppers and I made holes a little too small in their containers. I also transplanted the Madhu Ras melons into a makeshift, soon to be vertical raised bed contraption. They couldn't be any happier. I also added some perennials, which have already attracted some butterflies.
Saturday, May 11, 2019
May 11, 2019
The weather is getting muggy, clothes sticking to your body, can't get enough water type of muggy. I felt this as I woke up with a pretty bad headache this morning. This gave me a good reminder why I don't drink alcohol much anymore these days. Nonetheless, I had a good time the night before hanging out at a fire, singing along to Blaze Foley's Clay pigeons.
After I got some Tylenol in my system and a 30 min nap, I started my day and headed out to pick up some containers and a plant to add to the garden. Settling on a Kumquat, I also got some soil to transplant my peppers into separate containers. I got these random assortment of peppers as a birthday gift from my folks and have been postponing giving them their own container. As expected, their roots were a bit intertwined as a pulled them apart. I'm hoping there isn't too much root damage as I did this. I'm suspecting they'll be a bit happier as they won't be competing in the same container. I also added peppermint to the herb garden, moving the Thai basil to its own pot. The sunflowers seem to be doing pretty well as I thinned out the seedlings. However, there were some pests in the soil which seemed to be fleas but I'm not entirely sure. I must look into this further. Either way, the soil also contained a good number of spiders so I got some predators on my side. I also started some Madhu Ras seeds and have been thinking of some melon specific "raised bed" ideas. Garden seems to be in good shape.
After I got some Tylenol in my system and a 30 min nap, I started my day and headed out to pick up some containers and a plant to add to the garden. Settling on a Kumquat, I also got some soil to transplant my peppers into separate containers. I got these random assortment of peppers as a birthday gift from my folks and have been postponing giving them their own container. As expected, their roots were a bit intertwined as a pulled them apart. I'm hoping there isn't too much root damage as I did this. I'm suspecting they'll be a bit happier as they won't be competing in the same container. I also added peppermint to the herb garden, moving the Thai basil to its own pot. The sunflowers seem to be doing pretty well as I thinned out the seedlings. However, there were some pests in the soil which seemed to be fleas but I'm not entirely sure. I must look into this further. Either way, the soil also contained a good number of spiders so I got some predators on my side. I also started some Madhu Ras seeds and have been thinking of some melon specific "raised bed" ideas. Garden seems to be in good shape.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)