Improving
I haven’t written anything lately since our little garden was in a pretty bad shape and I was just on the verge of giving-up. I went from checking nearly every single leaf every morning and evening to just giving the pots a quick look and watering them. Partly I had my mind on other thing, but mostly I was sick and tired of not seeing the army of pests being reduced. One night I went out and nearly emptied a small container of pepper after Michelle had read that we can water the plants and then sprinkle pepper on them (the water makes’em stick).
The next morning, I repeated the process.
And in the short term, I saw no real gain and I attributed this to the fact that the pepper bits were stuck on top of the leaves while the little buggers were eating from the bottom.
The past few days, however, I must admit I had not seen as much lil’buggers as I used to. I still see a few but not nearly as much as when I started checking leaf by leaf. So maybe the pepper treatment did work.
Here they are:
More room for everyone
As you can see, we’ve also bought a new pot and took out five lettuces and placed them in their own pot. I can’t imagine how crowded things would’ve gotten had we simply used the two original pots. I have to thank my girlfriend for moving them in her usual “kick the front door and shoot everyone” approach and getting them done in record time. Granted, seeing her carefully grab’n yank each plant before plunking them into the new pot nearly broke my heart, but at the same time, if I had done it then I’d have been out on the balcony for a good hour or so. A day or two after the move they looked pretty dead but I’m happy to say that nearly a week later they look good.
Here they are in close-up:
Lettuce
I think this is cos lettuce (romaine)? Maybe they’re a bit on the small side, but aside from that one scarred leaf, I’m tempted to eat it now. But given that we can only pick 1/3 of the leaves at a time, this won’t really give us much. Maybe for a small sandwhich?
and more lettuce
And here we have another one of the healthier plant … not quite sure what kind of lettuce this is though. But whatever it is, it looks good to me as well.
Parsley
And here’s a peek at the parsley. Looking healthy except for a few of the yellowing leaves. Supposedly parsley and mint shouldn’t be around each other, much less side by side. We’ll see I suppose. We’ve already taken advantage of the parsley by using it in one of my dishes. Though given its small size I really can’t wait to be able to eat some of the lettuce leaves so that I can actually say I’m eating (and substantially chewing) stuff we’ve grown ourselves!
Mint
The one stalk in the back looks a bit bare because I’ve pulled off quite a number of leaves as they were being attacked by the little green worms. Starting this morning though I tried to just take out the offending creature and squashing it on my balcony instead of plucking every leaf (then again, what leaves I’ve plucked were pretty sad looking).
And no, I have not forgotten about the tomato and basil plants. Just that they aren’t looking so great and I’m really trying hard to care about them at the moment. They don’t seem to be under attack anymore but the basil is starting to show signs of injuries again.
The unforgotten tomato and basil and stuff
Unwelcome visitors
I’ve developed a new after-work routine this week. Leave work and head home and check on the plants regardless of the time and available daylight. The past few days I’ve noticed new holes in leaves, new brown spots, etc. and last night it paid off as I discovered one spider looking creature on one of the lettuce leaves. After killing it I did a few google searches and determined we’ve got maybe aphids, spider mites, and who knows what else. I was pretty happy with killing that one creature and hoped all was solved.
I woke-up this morning to discover that there were more holes on the leaves and it became obvious to me that I was not facing an army one. Following one of the pages I read the previous night I began to look at the underside of the leaves on almost every plant and discovered a few more here and there. I killed them off and yanked out leaves with black dots on them–I wasn’t sure if they were droppings or eggs. I went to work hoping I had finished them off.
To my dismay, I got home tonight to discover yet more damaged leaves. Armed with a flash light, I again began to examine the underside of the leaves.
I began with the tomato plant and discovering nothing moved onto the basil plant and zeroed in on a leaf with a nice round hole on it. I examined it with a flashlight, lifted it up and peeked underneath and discovered Exhibit 1:
Basil leaf and worm thingy
I inspected as much as possible all the other leaves and discovered a few more. Unlike the first one whom I granted a brief career in modeling the rest went straight between the mini gardening shovel and the balcony floor.
Next to be examined were the the mint leaves. Again, I looked under the damaged leaves (hmm … I should start looking under the un-damaged leaves as well) and after one or two (or maybe even the first) I discovered a similar worm looking creature. Here I present Exhibit 2:
Mint leaf and another worm thingy
As you can see, this is one fucking hungry little bugger. It too briefly tasted the modeling life before tasting crushed mint. (I have to admit I really enjoyed crushing the little shits on the basil and mint leaves as the leaves produced nice aromas.) I found a few more and they too enjoyed crushed mint fairly quickly after discovery.
Then I moved onto the lettuce pot and after a few leaves discovered an aphid looking thing:
Possibly aphid on lettuce
Lettuce, unfortunately, does not produce any aromas when crushed. Too bad. One or two more and then I discovered another one of the spider looking thing I saw the previous night:
Possibly spider-mite on lettuce
I discovered only one or two more of these and further inspections of the other leaves and plants yielded nothing and I called it a night.
I decided to water the lettuce and herbs pots but left the basil/tomato pot alone as it has a water well at the bottom and I found out that both basil and tomato plants only needed to be watered 2-3 times a week, not to mention that basil “hates” having water on its leaves.
Here’s hoping no more damaged leaves tomorrow morning! Else we’d really have to start looking into creating home-made fertilizer (organic of course).
Oh, and if you wanted a close-up look of the bugs, here they are:
Tonight's cast of characters
A week later
As I mentioned in my previous post, our little herb garden isn’t doing so hot a week later.
For one, it seems that we were supposed to put the fertilizer fairly soon after potting them. So when some leaves turned yellow we thought it was just a case of malnutrition and we poured some liquid fertilizer late last week.
And as of this morning, the herbs and veggies are doing okay though two of the lettuces seem rather dodgy:
Herbs and veggies galore
And here’s a close-up of the dodgy lettuce:
Dodgy lookin' lettuce
However, if that looked bad, what I saw on the free tomato plant we got surprised me even more:
Time to go ...
While this surprised me, I didn’t do anything about it except water it. I figured the dead leaves will wither, fall, and turn into compost. Michelle, however, checked it online earlier this evening and decided it had a case of either a fungal or viral infection. Either way, it was time for the freebie to go. So shortly afterward I yanked the plant out, put it into a plastic bag and tied it up, hoping the other plants will be okay. We saw some of the other leaves and we think they’ll be okay.
Herb garden
My girlfriend (and I) decided to start a herb garden. As usual, this remained just a “decision” until last week when we got a chance to see a herb garden at her godparents’ place. After remarking how we’ve been meaning to start one of our own they took us to town into a gardening store and we got ourselves a few pots, potting mix, and some starter herbs and veggies. Here they are in the first morning after we re-potted them:
Lettuces
Above are several types of lettuces … four types in fact. But hell if I can remember them all. I’m not quite sure why some of the leaves are broken. Throughout the week last week I noticed as I watered them that there were quite a few broken leaves. Maybe the wind? We did have some windy days last week.
Herbs
And here we have eggplant and capsicum (aka. green bell-peppers) along with parsley and mint. The eggplant and capsicum will be moved out this coming weekend, time permitting.
Tomatoes and basil
We got a free tomato plant from a good food event at Hyde Park last week and we had also picked-up a cherry tomato plant at the garden shop, and one of the other kit actually came with another tomato plant so we’ve got three tomato plants growing here along with basil as we’re told that ought to keep flies away.
I’ve got visions of the Hanging Garden of Kings Cross (you can think of Kings Cross as a modern day Babylon …) but as I’ll detail in a follow-up post, we’ve ran into issues just this past week and I’d be happy if at least one lettuce survives long enough for me to pick-up some leaves for a sandwhich or salad!
