Apparently the stinking aphids! UGH and the leaf footed bugs. They have learned to stay out of my reach. When they see me coming they fly to the top of the citrus trees. I think I'm going to have to break my own organic rules. I think there is MALATHION in my future! I can't stand it any more and I've recently seen a large clutch of young teenager leaf footed bugs being taught first hand how to avoid me. :-( Me not happy! I hate to spray away the good bugs, but some of the bad ones need controlled. The beans are suffering now and my hot peppers have finally gotten some sort of bacterial spot. I wanna cry. I have got to start thinking seriously about my no spray methods. There must be a balance out there somewhere.
This week the garden has blessed us with a pound and a half of limas, 9.5 oz shelled rice peas, 2lb5oz hot peppers, 2 lonely tiny figs, and a single gherkin.
A nice bowl of hot peppers. Serrano, Jalapeno, and uh - well I thought they were cubanelle but they won't go yellow. If I leave them on the plant they just get limp and then start turning brown, not yellow. Go figure. I'm happy with my take. I've cleaned off the plant and I'm taking the peppers young now instead of letting some of them go red because of the bacterial spot. I don't want the fruit damaged and so far only one single fruit has had any signs of it at all. Now I have to decide if I want to fight the disease or rip out and start something else. I've got about 2 more months frost free. Not enough to do too much, but enough for something, just maybe not from seed.
'Till next time!
Barbie~
Have you tried blasting aphids off the leaves with water. Ants farm them on the leaves of my tamarillo but they are easily dislodged by blasting them with the hose and it doesn't seem to do too much damage to the plants - the ants don't look too pleased though....
ReplyDeleteWell its a nice little harvest. Maybe time to plant some arugula and kale and other cool weather greens?
ReplyDeleteThanks for visiting my blog.
Nice harvest, I like those peppers.
ReplyDeleteWhat is rice peas? Do you shell them as you shell lima beans? Silly questions.
Good idea of harvesting all the peppers. I made a mistake last fall of letting them too long on the plants and end up with nothing. Nice harvest.
ReplyDeleteThat is weird that the aphids move when you are there - as my experience with them is that they do not move but rather just sit there on the leaves and make easy targets for a strong spray of water or a spray of insecticide soap. If they really are aphids insectide soap (which is organic) works very well on them and the garden produce is safe to eat afterwards. Based on the fact that they are flying out of reach though, makes me wonder if this is some other kind of bug? Are they actually doing damage to the plants?
ReplyDeleteRather than do "no spray" how about using judicious amounts of the organic solutions - 70% neem oil for fungal problems and powdery mildew or Serenade for fungal problems. Insecticidal soap for aphids and mealy bugs. Bt for cabbage and broccoli worms. And for really bad bugs that don't responds to the insecticidal soap - a pyretherin solution spray usually does the job.