One Little Bugger

The leaves on one young plant went missing. Only a single stem was left. It puzzled me for a moment, until I noticed a chubby green caterpillar sitting on an adjacent plant.

You can see him in the background at the top of this photo, directly above the pathetic looking single stem left from the plant that used to have leaves. If you look closely at the caterpillar, you can see the self-satisfied smile on his smug little face.

Garden Update: mid-July

These past few weeks have been nothing short of wacky… earthquake, G20 protests, another trip to NYC, heat wave … and here we are, already knee deep into July!

I just took a peek at my last garden update in mid-June. In comparison, the plants have grown considerably in 1 month. The pole beans have climbed to the top of the trellis, then to the top of a taller stake I added later, and is now bending over the divider and onto my neighbor’s side. The dill has grown almost 4 feet tall, with tiny yellow flowers all over. Cucumber plants are flowering and also climbing uncontrollably. Chives flowers have dried up, and their tiny black seeds are being saved. And I just saw the first signs of a tomato budding from a flower yesterday.

Unfortunately, aphids have found their way onto my balcony again. They attacked the arugula plant that I was trying to seed, so I ripped it out in my madness. Now that I've calmed down, I started using a very diluted solution of Dr. Bronners peppermint and spraying it on the plants twice a day. It seems to be working to get those buggers under control.

Here are some photos of dill, cucumber and nastursium flowers. Love, love, and love.

Haiku

Sick tomato plant.

What was green and growing is

Now yellow-purple.

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.