2010
04.11
I’ve returned to my gardening project, and returned to my blogging. Mr. Intensity is absolutely right in that I need to actually keep a log of what I’m doing with the plants. As for the topic of the day, though… The fucking aphids are back. I loathe these things. So far, I’ve only found them in Plum2′s pot, and they’re mostly on the mint–but there’s serious damage to the plum’s leaves. They killed one of my plum saplings last year–along with three morning glories, easily HALF of my mint and an assortment of other veggies. The little bastards have gone to work on one of the plums that survived last year’s debacle, and I’m just furious! I did some research online, and I seem to have three options: Attract ladybugs to the garden, hose them with a mix of household goods and suffocate them over a couple of weeks, or bring in some hardcore pesticides and get all genocidal with them. While my natural inclination involves the genocide option, with a side helping of flamethrower, that DOES present problems for my plants, and I can’t have that! Looking into the ladybug option reveals problems with that plan. In addition to finding it hard to attract ladybugs up to a 3rd floor balcony, if I DO manage to get them coming up here, there are just so many aphids that the ladybug population may get out of hand, not to mention the damage already being done while I get new flowers planted to attract them to begin with–although this might be a good plan for next year… That said, I’m going to have to go with the home-brew solution. I have a spray bottle filled with 1c vegetable oil, 1c water, 2tbsp dish soap. I’m supposed to spray this on the plants daily for 2 weeks, according to the guide I found online. I just got done spraying, and I’d already dislodged a handful of the little bastards, and the spray is supposed to suffocate them, killing off the colony. I’ll see how this goes for the next week. That failing, I’m ripping all of the mint out of plum2′s pot, and getting the heavy-duty insecticide. We’ll see how that goes. Now, without any further ado, I’ll get right into today’s report:
This morning I went out at midday to check on the garden, as I wasn’t home long enough yesterday to do so, and things are looking good. The grass looked great, the flowers are starting to bloom, and all of the veggies are looking pretty solid–I DID notice today that the strawberries are starting to do their thing; I got pretty excited about that. Doing a left to right:
Morning Glories have gained another inch this weekend and all four vines are now climbing the lattice.
Plum 1 is looking good with two new branches spreading out from the main plant.
The mystery plant inside Plum1′s pot has started flowering and looks very nice. I’ve no remote idea what it is, but I have two of them and they’re quite pretty.
Five of the six snapdragons are looking good, while one is rather stunted in its growth. Despite taking a massive beating in the windstorms, the taller ones are holding on and getting a little more stiffness back in their stems.
Chives look great, taste great–need to bake more potatoes.
Potatoes are just… being potatoes. They’re in the ground and growin’. I’m just kinda going to let them do their thing.
Strawberries are spreading out and filling in their new pot nicely. I’ve got 3 new blooms, and several baby berries starting to weigh their leaves down. I might get a pint or a half pint out of them–should make for a couple of nights of very nice dessert.
Grasspot 1 is cruising along and looks like a little miniature jungle. I love it, and it’s attracting some bugs to come along and eat up some of the pests, but the aphids are breeding WAY too fast for this to matter much.
The catnip was completely wilted and hanging limply out of its planter when I got outside, but after some water and about an hour or two of sunlight, it perked right back up and is looking smashing.
The rosemary looks and SMELLS awesome. Doing great there. I actually used a few leaves in some spaghetti that the girl and I made the other night. It was faaaantastic.
Much to my chagrin, I noticed that Plum2 isn’t looking so hot. The storms whipped him around pretty badly and he’s got a pot buddy, so I thought that he’d just need a couple of days of water and sun after the storms to perk back up. Not so–the aphids have jacked him up. The aforementioned spray has been applied, and I’ll keep watching for results. We’ll see how that goes…
Blackberry1 is still completely dormant. No sign of activity from the sunflowers planted around it. The grass is looking good, but was planted sparse to avoid competition with the blackberries. As the plant has made no signs of life, I’ve gone ahead and seeded the whole pot to be another grass pot, with the possibility of the sunflowers coming up, in time.
Blackberry2 is looking great! Lots of fresh growth, no aphids. Just looking good.
Grasspot 2 is full, healthy, and feels GREAT between my toes… Makes a GREAT footstool.
Grasspot 3 is just like Grasspot 2, but smaller.
Grasspot 4 is still sparse, and there’s some kind of weird, tiny red plant growing in there. I’ll post pictures and see if I can’t get some identification on that bad boy soon…
So, yeah–we’ll see how things go, and I’ll return in a couple of days with more.
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