I have just discovered the joy of gardening. As I get older (and wiser) I notice that I eat almost everything now that I never would have considered years ago and I enjoy it. Fresh fruits and vegetables from the grocery store are not very yummy, and who knows where they have arrived here from. Plus one day I will (I hope) be an old Southern woman and there is a requirement that we "wear funny hats and old clothes and grow vegetables in the dirt." (Shirley McClain's charactar 'Ouiser' "Steel Magnolias")
So I planted tomatoes and red peppers and cucumbers and summer squash and 2 kinds of basil and some oregano. And I watered. And I talked to the little darlings. And I watched them.
And blooms arrived. And I watered. And I fertilized. Organic, of course. And fruit arrived. And rotted.
I did manage several cucumbers. And a tomato. And a squash.
Ok, new tomato plants and new squash plants and LOOK AT THIS! Peppers growing. On the vine.
And the bugs came.
Nature is a circle. And these bugs provide a service, somewhere in the cirle.
And I do NOT want to use pesticides. So we have donated the pepper plant and 1 tomato plant to these really fat things.
And the cucumbers were taken by what DSD is referring to as 'mites'
But the basil and oregano are coming right along! I think we are going to be eating a lot of Italian food. (Basil/oregano pizza is really yummy! Too bad the sauce isn't fresh!)
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7 comments:
My friend Southern Beale has a post with some recommendations for organic pest control. Check her out at:
http://sobeale.blogspot.com/2010/08/isnt-she-lovely.html
Those Hornworms make me believe in galactic aliens.
Scary and awful, aren't they?
Thank you for the suggestion, I will definitely check out her 'blog. I found some stuff that is supposed to kill on those things and not even harm the birds that may eat them before they are dead.
My organic solution is to pick those ugly things off and throw them away. Ugh. They are devasting to a tomato plant.
I've heard that planting marigolds next to the tomato plants can deter the ugly looking things.
Merrily, they are nocturnal though. So unless I want to sit up all night with a flashlight, I prefer a nice spray. They are devastating to pepper plants also.
Sidhe, I may do that for next year, thank you for the suggestion.
Two things. Plant enough to share with the occasional pest. Second, any caterpillar can be controlled with BT(bacillus thuringiensis). Just go to the garden store and ask for BT as it comes in several names. It is just a bacteria that gives them a tummy ache but it stops them from eating and they starve...works on any caterpillar. It is usually a dust that you can spread around. Completely safe for other bugs like bees and such...
Thank you FM, that is what I have ordered, for some reason I can not purchase it locally. And I am learning about companion planting for next year.
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