A Lesson In Biodiversity

This summer's weather has been unusually rainy and cold. As a result, crop yields have decreased across southern Ontario. City folks don't need to worry about their food supply since most of their food is sourced globally, but those who eat locally might have noticed. For example, there were little or no strawberries at the farmer's market.

My own garden is following suit. The leafy greens, to which makes up most of the garden, aren't growing. I just pulled the entire lot of mizuna mustard, since they were still very small plants (about 1" leaves), but already started to bolt. When greens flower, their leaves become bitter.

But 2 of the plants seem to be loving the cool weather: arugula and peas. The peas were an underdog plant: I planted the seeds very late in the season, only because I had an empty space and figured I would give it a shot. Now, it's my favourite plant. I love how the plant grow arms that hook onto nearby sticks for support, and how the peas poke out right from the flower.

Moral of the story: biodiversity is good. But you knew that already. So if you have the space, grow a lot of different plants. When Nature acts unexpectedly (and she will), your garden can adapt much better.

Tomato Love

My first tomato ripened last week. One yellow cherry tomato, to be exact. Though it's encouraging to see some edibles flourishing in the garden, I feel like a cheated a little... this tomato was on the plant when I bought it. In my own defense, it was small and green at the time. So I did bring it to maturity, I guess. I took about a zillion photos of the lil' guy... my own collection of tomato porn.

In case you're wondering, the tomato plants I grew from seed are a pretty pathetic lot. Most of them died some way or another, and of the 2 that I transplanted, they haven't grown at all in a month. To give you some persective, they are only about 1 or 2 inches tall as it is.

Attack of the Aphids

Think your apartment balcony garden is pest-free because it's off the ground and isolated? Think again.

I was watering the plants, when I noticed that one of the little beet leaves looked fuzzy. Upon a closer inspection, I realized it wasn't green fur... it was covered in aphids.

Little green aphids. They look so small and harmless. Until they infest your garden and kill your plants slowly by sticking in their fangs and sucking out the life juices. I should have checked sooner; the nasturtium leaves (see photo) were looking strangely puckered (see most-left leaf) and yellow coloured (see most-right leaf).

How did they get here? My guess is that they rode in on another plant. Here's a creepy fact: each aphid can produce millions of babies, and aphids are born pregnant.

So at least one time in the morning and evening, I religiously inspect the plants and squish aphids with my fingers. From the You Grow Girl book, I've also tried a few other methods to keep them under control (also as seen in photo):

• making homemade yellow sticky traps -- not too effective; the sticky stuff (petroleum jelly, molasses) isn't too sticky and most of it drips off in a few days
• adding some foil to the plant base to confuse the aphids -- also doesn't seem to0 effective
• making citrus oil spray by steeping orange peels -- seems to kill aphids when sprayed directly

I'm actually finding the whole finding-and-squishing process sort of relaxing and meditative...though it probably also helps me accumulate bad karma. And I've been late for work everyday this week; you can really lose track of time doing all that killing.

May the best organism win.