Aphids Suck!!!

All six of my crabapple trees as well as my key lime tree are currently infested with aphids, which are slowly, but surely killing them. Aphids pierce stems, leaves, etc and literally suck the fluids from the plant.

Below is a closeup of the little blood suckers:

Once I noticed the damage, I was unable to treat the trees for several days, during which time they multiplied rapidly. Still, an application of Neem oil should do the trick. I plan to follow up with a second application in a week's time just in case.

Funny, just when I felt like I was running out of ideas for my Examiner page, Mother Nature throws one in my lap. Learn about the full course of treatment here.

The Tomato Hornworm Strikes Again!!!

I did pretty good this year considering it's the end of June and I've only now encountered my first tomato hornworm. After reading about it in a Lowe's Creative Ideas magazine last year, I diligently planted marigolds (btw French marigolds are the most pungent, therefore best for repelling hornworms) around my tomato bushes to keep the hornworms at bay. So far so good. But one of my potted bell peppers was not so lucky.

Just yesterday I picked robust bell peppers from the same bush and didn't notice anything amiss. 24-hours later I check it out and the entire top portion of the plant lost its leaves. Upon closer inspection, I found an enormous mature hornworm sucking away at a remaining unripe bell pepper. This thing was so huge I was able to notice its white sucker feet which left their imprint on my poor bell pepper. Gross. Hope it enjoyed its last meal.

There he is...dead center.

So where did it come from? I don't know. Everything else looks fine but apparently looks can be decieving. Need to break out the BT and Neem oil pronto! In the meantime, guess I'll be planting marigolds with the bell peppers too. Think Lowe's will pay me for that tip?

A Bit of Misfortune. A Bit of Luck.

Upon another infestation of tomato horn worms, I dug the bushes up. It's such a shame, since I thought I'd gotten rid of them all. The bushes recovered and I even got to harvest a few more tomatoes. But I'd missed two applications of Neem treatment, and quick as that, they were back. Obviously Neem treatments need to be consistent during the growing season.

In other news, one of my birdhouses was severely damaged when it's post collapsed. It was a combination of termite damage (the post was untreated so this wasn't entirely unexpected, but sooner than I thought) and carpenter bees burrowing tunnels up and down the post. The thing nearly felt hollow when I picked it up and was filled with young bees buzzing inside. Couldn't get that curbside fast enough!!!

However, every difficulty presents an opportunity. In one of the areas where extra tomato bushes were planted, I created a new flowerbed. It's early yet and the plants still need to grow in, but I can't wait to see it next spring. Especially since it includes bare root Red Dragons which should be spectacular.

My Dad came for a visit, and built a birdhouse to replace the one I lost. Porch and all. We couldn't put the new birdhouse in the old location since we couldn't dig up the concrete without damaging existing plants, so we put it in an even better location. Can you say opportunity for a new flower bed!!!!!! Maybe in the springtime.

2nd Neem Application

It's been about a week since I treated my tomoato bushes and rose bushes with Neem Oil. Typically, the treatments should be applied every two weeks in the growing season, but can be applied once a week in severe cases. I found a baby tomato horn worm this evening on one of my bushes and applied a second treatment.

Neem Oil is a summer oil which acts as an insecticide, fungicide and miticide. After picking off a bushel of worms, the tomato leaves are slowly growing back. But I'm unsure if this is a result of my labor or the effectiveness of the first treatment. I do however see a slight improvement on one of my rose bushes. The leaves are healthy and shiny and green, the blooms are robust and plentiful, and new growth and old growth are existing together for the first time ever. My rose bushes also got a second treatment. We'll see how the other six do in another week.

I Hate Tomato Horn Worms!!!!

This year, I was a little distracted by installing new flower beds, and didn't spray my vegetable gardens as often as I should have. After being away for a few days, I went out to admire my backyard yesterday morning, and noticed a few tomato bushes looking less than stellar. Upon closer inspection, I noticed a rather large lime green catepillar moozeying along. It was a tomato horn worm. Just like mice, if there's one, there's more. So I broke out the garden gloves and tweezers, and went hunting.

From my 18 tomato bushes, I extracted (and smooshed) 27 tomato horn worms!!! There were babies, adolescents and morbidly obese adults. All disgusting and all happily eating away my hard labor. Do you know one even had the nerve to raise its head and observe what I was doing!?! Sick, sick, sick! Putting up with a cute little rabbit is one thing, but this is ridiculous.

After this horrid chore, I went to task spraying my bushes with Neem Oil. Of course there was a rain storm yesterday afternoon so that was in vain, but I tried.

I'll be back out there this evening equipped with garden gloves, tweezers and my handy dandy spray bottle. If those little buggers know what's good for them, they'll moozey on to the next house.