Move to California for yourself...

Today is a very nice day.  In all senses of the word.  After all, this is what it looked like outside today while I was working out (which is another reason today was a nice day.  Me working out is a great accomplishment).

While pondering that beautifully scenic vista above, here is some background music, which I dedicate to everybody in my entire family.  (West Coast >> East Coast!  And I miss you, move already!!)

Nice day aside, some lovely things are happening in the garden.  First of all, a third dahlia has bloomed, a lovely fuschia/hot pink type color, my favorite so far!

Three more dahlias are mystery colors and somewhat refusing to produce anything but leaves.  Two are afflicted by a mystery mildew type disease.  But that is a problem for google and I to solve another day, because today, I am feeling pretty good about solving the problem of the nasty green worms.  A couple weeks ago, I went to the garden store and bought quite a lot of loot, feeling bad about the fact that it felt like my entire garden was failing (really, it was those green worms eating away at my happiness).  While there, a nice garden store man told me about something google failed to mention, which is that there is an organic pesticide called spinosad that is like the sarin of insects -- both act via hyperexcitation of the nervous system.  That made me feel a little bad to attack these possibly innocent hungry insects with a neurotoxin...  but only for a second until I looked at all the holes in my tomato plant again.

A brief side note about the tomato plant:  I was walking past Rite Aid this week and there was a dying tomato plant in a small plastic pot for sale with about 35 baby tomatoes on it (yes, they sell plants there, sad-looking ones).  Mine has zero tomato babies, just a few yellow flowers which subsequently wilt and fall off.  My plant is also incapable of supporting it's own weight (thus the life supports).  I'm finding there is significantly more to the hybridized tomato than just the flavor of the tomato...  But at least the worms have been dealt with!

Quarantined to the corner and on life support, but still alive.  Tomatoes to date: zero.

The skinny on spinosad:  As dramatic as the mechanism of action is, it's organic, derived from a type of bacteria called Saccharopolyspora spinosa.  It is fed to dogs and cats to rid them of fleas.  And it's recently been approved for topical use in humans to rid unlucky humans of lice.  Apparently, there is no ill-effect to humans of this chemical, though the bottle states to wait a day before eating whatever you've sprayed.  According to garden store man, use spinosad for chewing bugs (caterpillars, worms, etc) and neem oil for sucking bugs (aphids, whitefly, etc).  The best part of this discovery is....  so far, it seems to have worked!  I sprayed once and the worms are gone!  So I'm quite excited about this new finding.

I've also finally hung the Italian tile in the garden.  It's reminds me of our wonderful vacation every time I look at it, and it's a nice pop of color.  I'm pretty happy with how the garden's looking now. It might not yet be a Better Homes and Garden type garden, but it's significantly better and greener than last year, which was significantly more impressive than any previous years, and that's what's important... Progress!

Where is the tile?  Do you see it?

Aphid Attack!

Yesterday, I went into my garden to take a look at how things were going.  I noticed my string of pearls has been rid of its mildew.  Hooray.  My parsley's whitefly problem is also greatly diminished with what appears to be numerous dead whiteflies on the dirt next to the plant.  Hooray again.  BUT as I looked closer, I saw that the whitefly in 3 days time has been replaced by... WHAT IS THIS??... APHIDS?!  

 

I gag.  Aphids to me are one of the most disgusting creatures alive, second only to the more disgusting cockroach. They hang out in huge groups on plants' stems and leaves literally sucking the life out of them to the point you would never even think of wanting to eat that plant.  Lest you think, "That picture looks awfully similar to the whitefly picture."  The main differences are, 1: they're bigger, about 3mm each  2: they're green (or sometimes black)  3: they're plump little pests  4: they don't fly.

Naturally, my next thoughts were how best to kill every single last one of these aphids.  For me, serious pesticides are out because I plan to eat this plant.  Even Neem oil which is pretty organic (it has medicinal uses) which I love in small doses is not something I really want to douse my plant in -- some sources mention studies that show that at least one of the component chemicals can in large doses cause temporary infertility.  Yikes.  

Fortunately, there are some easy organic home remedies that you can make yourself in no time at all -- garlic oil spray, tomato leaf spray, dish soap + water spray... the list goes on (here and here are a couple sources).  After looking at a couple sources, I decided to combine components of several for what I hope will be maximal killing effectiveness.

Michelle's modified aphid spray
You will need:
3-4 garlic cloves 
A small handful of tomato leaves
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons oil
500mL water
A spray bottle

Cut the garlic into a few smaller pieces.  Put the garlic and the cayenne pepper in the water and bring to boil.  Then toss in your tomato leaves.  Continue to boil for a few minutes and then lower the heat and let it all simmer together for another 20-30 minutes.  Let cool.  Remove the garlic and leaves, then add your oil.  Your aphid spray is complete.

Simmering aphid killing spray

Once you're done, fill the spray bottle with your aphid killer spray, shake and spray the crap out of your plant.  Actually you should probably do a test spot first, but being too impatient for that and knowing that aphids increase in multiples of 80 per week, I decided to forgo the test spot and trust in the fortitude of my parsley.

Die, assholes

We will see if this spray actually works.  I feel like oftentimes, pests scoff at these organic home remedies, "Please, woman. Garlic scented water?"  I will keep you updated.  

On the upside, I harvested my first herb crop of the year... it is quite beautiful.  (Nevermind that I spent about 35 minutes de-pesting my parsley with a leaf by leaf examination.  *sigh*)

Beautiful herbs!