Good Bad Ugly

I hope you have had a wonderful mother's day weekend!  It's been a busy few weeks for me -- first, I had the most wonderful visit from my siblings which we combined with a little trip to Vegas (always fun!) and then it was back to work.  And I have to be honest, the last few days of work have left me totally wiped.  So today was the first day I had to really take a close look at what's going on in my garden.  Being the type that saves the best for last like the dutiful hard-working child I was raised to be, I'll go a bit out of order for this:

BAD:

Fuchsia -- Okay, from afar it looks alright, good even.  I am pleased with the bushiness of the plant (in contrast to an overly tall skinny plant last year).

But the aphid wars continue.  I have admittedly only used the insecticidal soap once, in part because that spot on the front stoop has become sunnier than it used to be and I don't want to risk burning the leaves by spraying at the wrong time of day. 

The result, as you can see, is that the aphids target the new growth (flower buds) which causes the blooms to deform at best...

And not even open at worst.  

Attempted solution:  continue insecticidal soap, rotate with Neem.

Begonia -- *sigh*  Mold.  Specifically Botrytis Blight, according to Google.  

A quick synopsis:  It is a fungal infection of the plant which characteristically looks like my picture above, causing mushy brown-grey dead parts.  Optimal conditions for growing this mold, if that is your goal, include high humidity and crowding plants creating poor air circulation (gulp... guilty).  Recommendations to avoid include removing dead plant parts and watering early in the day to ensure the plants are as dry as possible.  Here is a great summary.  

I think this issue began when I planted the begonias and the leaves were touching the dirt which I watered heavily in the beginning.  Those were the first leaves to go and since then, the problem has been slowly worsening.

Attempted solution:  remove all infected leaves even if only a few leaves remain to try to spare what's left of the plants

UGLY:

Sweet jessamine -- It seems that the life span of these climbing plants is only 2 years (recall what happened to my poor jasmine plant) before huge chunks of it die.

Is it possible that this is yet another case of root rot?  Is there a root ball in the bottom of this pot?  Are these climbing plants just not meant to be grown in pots?  (As a gardening guru once told me, "lots of growth on top means lots of growth in the ground" ...except my patio only has space-limited pots)

Either way, I have been keeping an eye on this for awhile and it seems to be a lost cause... this plant is D-E-A-D (well, pretty much).

GOOD!:

Many good things!  I'll keep this succinct and let the pictures do the talking.

Tomato -- It has already grown a lot

Which I found alarming, given what happened with my heirloom tomato last year (HUGE, no tomatoes), until I saw this:

Hooray!

Geraniums -- Glorious

Hydrangeas -- have not mentioned these in a long while!  Well, let's just say there's this:

Tiny flower buds...

More on this to come as we watch and see what happens.

Gardenia -- New addition to the garden!  Thank you Olivia for the birthday gift!  It smells wonderful!  Later this week, I will be buying a nice new pot to put it in.

Definitely more good than bad in the garden... I'm smiling.  Have a beautiful week!

An aside:  A must watch if you have not already seen it...  Kevin Durant's MVP speech

It begins!

Ah, the power of goals and public opinion (in this case my New Yorker siblings'... they arrive tomorrow!).  It was just the kick in the booty I needed to get a move on with my garden.  I realized after I started that the main reason I had been delaying was that I hate cleaning, of any sort (dishes, house, unpacking... you name it).  And a big part of getting the garden back in shape was uprooting, trimming, sweeping, trashing dead things.  It was not pleasant, and I almost got attacked by two large shady-looking black spiders, but it set me up for the fun part -- planning this season's perfect garden, choosing flowers with promise, that fresh smell of new damp potting soil and little wet leaves, and that optimistic feeling you get when everything is planted and looking so great!

I literally spent the whole day gardening yesterday (thus the blog post delay to today!) and now in addition to a good sore feeling in my muscles, I have a garden again.  Here's where we're at:

Dug up the tulip bulbs which are now safely stowed away in my fridge for next year

And then began planting.

Of course, there's the tomato.  

This time, not heirloom.  Armstrong's had this handy sign up, so I chose accordingly:

I went with the Roma tomato, both for its alleged ease of growth in pots as well as its versatility in cooking.

A few of the tomato plants at the nursery already had tomatoes on them.  You never want to buy a plant that's too mature (like a tomato plant with tomatoes already on it), but mine has a few flowers already.  I am feeling good about my tomato prospects this year.

In the wine crate, I went with a flat of Alyssum.

If you pay attention, you'll see these everywhere, especially used as borders because they have a spreading tendency.  I have an inexplicable love for this little plant.  I think the tiny flowers are cute (you'll see right now, I have Alyssum flowers as my background) and they smell really nice.  My hope is that they will spread into a big box of white flowers.  I think perhaps last year, I chose plants that were too tall (like basil or lavender) with the result that the shallow box could not support the roots.  Little box, little flowers... perfect.

Next up, in place of the tulips, I've got Geraniums.

I was never a geranium fan until I went to Italy and they were literally everywhere... little window boxes, restaurant patios, fancy gardens in giant terracotta containers, rooftops, everywhere!  There, they seem to love red geraniums.  I've chosen dark burgundy because I liked the color, but I like to think it's my little Italian influenced corner.

They are supposed to be very hardy and I've chosen an ivy-type variety, so with any luck they will trail down a bit down the ledge I've got them on.

On our tabletop, we've got a new addition, the Euphoriba millii. 

Baby succulent farm at left, new Euphorbia milii at right

It is in fact in the same family as the poinsettia, you may remember, with little red bracts at the top.

I've cleaned up our kitchen window with a few new Succulent additions.

And last but not least, what I am most tentatively excited about, is the Vertical Succulent Garden.

All succulents except top left, Dipladenia aka superhero plant

I did not buy a single one of these succulents, but actually used what was formerly the kitchen window disaster area as well as propagated succulents to mix and match into pockets!  (More on this next week...)

Lots of gardening!  I realized yesterday at the end of the day that I hadn't looked at my phone once, I had gotten so into the flow.  That's happiness for me :)

This week will be a big test for my new plants with their first heat wave.  It will also be a big week for me as it is my birthday this week and as I mentioned before, both of my siblings will be in town which is GREAT -- I can't even remember the last time the three of us were in LA together.  Celebrate!

An aside, before there was Pharrell...  Destiny's Child "Happy Face"

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?

The amazing and the really truly terrible

When someone says, "I have good news and bad news," which do you prefer to hear first?  I have always wanted the bad news first. I wonder if that says anything about your personality...

The Bad News

My mortal enemies have returned.

 

I hate them. I get as angry seeing these worms as Evan does when his favorite team loses (last week it was the Caps. Let's not talk about that). As aforementioned, pests tend to attack sick plants. So unfortunately it was somewhat inevitable.



It is a huge plant now in a tiny pot... like a very big lady with tiny feet (have any fellow doctors or people-observers noticed that that happens a lot?)... and it can't even stand up straight. It's so oversized for its pot that it dries out and wilts daily when it is hot.  Thus the hose.  I just leave it there now.

There are a wide variety of green worms that attack tomato plants.  The largest of which are hornworms (baby versions of future Mothra), the smallest of which can burrow into your ripest tomatoes undetected, leaving a bunch of difficult to see caterpillar skins and eggs inside (!!!!).  That's disgusting.  These worms are somewhere in the middle, and not one that I have yet been able to identify from my friend the internet.  What the internet does say is that solutions for "green worms on your tomato plants" include "picking them off", spraying soapy water at them, and/or using serious pesticides that are likely toxic to humans.  And praying.  

Basically, my tomato plant may be doomed.  I have been picking these worms off (or rather cutting them in half again, Godfather style) and will likely try this soapy dishwater nonsense spray, but I am also going to quarantine it tomorrow.  Let's not talk about this. It makes me sad.


The Good News!

On the upside, this is really cool. It may just blow your mind.

Remember the near death experience of my Echeverria? Well! Turns out it truly is a magical plant.

Not only has a small offshoot grown from the mother plant at the site of amputation...


But the amputated parts have also sprouted tiny new micro-plants!


Mind blown!  I will continue to follow these little plants and update you periodically.

Isn't it is nice to end on a good note? Isn't science cool? Hooray!

Oops, I did it again!

First, a word of wisdom:

On that note...

Oops, I killed a plant!

Soooo, that didn't take long.  I think the problem is too little water for a thirsty plant.  But especially since this has happened to me once before, I have decided that dill may be too fragile for my current gardening abilities (although the other plants are growing like crazy-- the parsley a little too crazy, it's crowding the lavender!  Maybe it's not me, it's you, Dill).

Oops, picked too small of a pot!

Same pot that killed my jasmine! Noooo!!

The rapid growth of my tomato plant was at first exciting.  Until it grew so tall that it started to look disproportionately large for the pot.  So I did some internet research and discovered that for indeterminate tomato plants, the minimum pot size is a 24 inch pot.  "Indeterminate" refers to tomato plants that do not produce all their tomatoes at once (most heirloom tomatoes are indeterminate).  This is in contrast to "determinate" tomato plants that do produce fruit all at once that need a pot at least 18 inches in size.  I don't think my pot is even 18 inches...

And oops, my plants are sick!

Once, a nice worker man at Armstrong Garden Center told me in response to my question regarding a serious pest problem in several of my plants that plants really should not get disease unless they are sick.  "That's mean," I thought, "my plants are not all sick."  The string of pearls succulent (with the mildew) could be a little stressed -- I just repotted it recently and it was looking a little tired beforehand.  But the parsley??  (The whitefly are the tiny little white specks.)  Hopefully it is not anything a little Neem oil cannot fix.

Here's another picture of whitefly, closeup (source from this informative site):

Actual size = 1-3mm each

I hope the whitefly do not become a problem -- last year, they got really out of control to the point that I couldn't stand next to my poor plant without feeling like I was going to inhale a swarm of them...

Well, on the upside, yes, I referenced a Britney Spears song today-- for any haters out there, I will just say she and I grew up together, not literally, and her music videos spawned a thousand late night dance routines in front of my mirror.  Mostly in college.  They were happy moments.

The Heirloom'd Tomato

I love heirloom tomatoes.  I think they are delicious.  And they sound fancy.  Thus, despite the fact that my husband hates tomatoes and literally gags when he eats them, I am very excited about one of the newest additions to my garden:  an heirloom tomato plant of the "Great White" variety.  I hope it produces lots of heirloom tomatoes, all for me.

I am particularly excited because every description I have read about the Great White heirloom tomato calls it an "almost perfect" tomato (whatever that means) with a delicious "creamy texture" (also a weird description for a tomato plant).  I chose it because of its "near perfection" (that sounds pretty good) and because the tomatoes will be smaller than some of the other varieties available like "Brandywine."  Plants with smaller tomatoes do better in pots than the larger tomato'd varietals.  The Great Whites are still pretty big, up to a pound, so I don't know if that counts as small, but some of the other types have 2lb tomatoes (I hear Evan gagging in the background).  

Anyway, here is Great White in its prepubescent state:

I hope the pot that killed Jasmine doesn't kill you too...

A bigger and more interesting question than "are heirloom tomatoes awesome?" (A: yes) is "why go heirloom?"  What is the difference between heirloom tomatoes and "regular" tomatoes?  

Well, there was a fascinating recent article in the New York Times about the science behind it.  About 70 years ago, tomato breeders discovered a mutation that caused tomatoes to have a uniformly red color to them.  Because of the commercial appeal of this, they bred this mutation widely into tomatoes and now pretty much all tomatoes that you see in the store have this gene.  What they didn't know at the time was that this mutation disabled chloroplasts, creating a more uniform color, but these chloroplasts were responsible for sugar production.  Reducing the sugar production (by 20%) resulted in less flavorful tomatoes.  

So heirloom tomatoes produce a bit less fruit and may be more susceptible to disease than newer varieties which are bred to be advantageous in those regards... But heirloom tomatoes lack the aforementioned gene mutation, and as a result, are tastier...

Omg.  Isn't your mouth just watering?  (The above is a recipe with burrata from TheKitchn, which is a great blog).

So with any luck, in approximately 85 days with some sunshine and water and TLC, I will soon have delicious near perfect creamy tomatoes that look like this:

(photo from gardenharvestsupply.com)

Wish me luck, I cannot wait!