Eww! Gross!! Aphids in the Rookie Garden!

Plant them and they will come. Typically, I am hoping that "they" are the fruits, vegetables, and flowers that sprout from my garden that I so adore. But today, "they" are the bugs in my garden that are eating all my plants, and frankly just give me the willies!

I've been noticing that my tomatoes and bell pepper plants in my side yard have been exhibiting signs of damage. The tomato leaves are getting spotted, and there seems to be something eating up my bell pepper plants. Well, yesterday, a closer look revealed, YIKES! APHIDS and other strange tiny bugs!! I found these suckers on my tomato leaves:

Any ideas about what the heck this is:

On top of that, I've noticed these little blue bugs on my mint plant... in clusters.

In examining them closer, I realize that they're not little blue bugs, but dark green YIKES! APHIDS!!!

How many do you see? I counted 6 above, and 7 below...

Ugh... I'm getting goosebumps just looking at these pictures and thinking about them. I'm also getting itchy all over... they're so disgusting.

So I went online to see what I could do to control these things without pesticides I found this great article from the Golden Harvest Organics website:

Ants "farm" aphids often keeping them in their nest during winter, then bringing them out in spring and placing them on the host plant. The ants eat the honeydew the aphids produce and move them from plant to plant spreading any diseases that are present. The honeydew favors formation of a black fungus known as "sooty mold." Control of the ants may often solve the aphid problem. Aphids abound in warm moist environments and will attack almost anything, favoring succulent new growth.

Predators: Green lacewings, ladybugs and their respective larvae have a voracious appetite for aphids. Larvae from the syrphid fly also consume aphids. Hover flies and praying mantis feed on aphids.

Repellent plants: Anise, chives, coriander (cilantro), garlic, onions, petunias and radish. Nasturtiums act as a trap crop. Aphids definitely prefer yellow flowers.

• Squashing a few aphids around the infested plants releases a chemical signal that makes the other aphids drop from the plants and leave.
• To foil aphids: flatten a square of aluminum foil around the base of plants to bounce light on the undersides of leaves. This also helps the plants in giving them more light.
• Try a barrier of powdered charcoal, calcium dust or bonemeal to keep them away from your plants.
• Stinging Nettle Spray: Aphids & Thrips - Cover 1 quart nettles with water, cover and ferment for 3 weeks. Mix 1 part nettle tea with 7 parts water. Spray.
• Spread out a barrier of tansy around the base of the plant to stop those ants.
• Use a spray made from a tea of tomato or potato leaves and water.
• Chop 12 or so tomato leaves and 1 chopped onion in 1/2 cup of of 70% isopropyl alcohol for a few minutes. Apply the mixture directly on aphids with a cue tip or paintbrush.
• A forceful spray of water is often enough to knock the aphids off the plant and may discourage the ants, well sometimes.
• Put a bright yellow plastic pan in a strategic spot in the garden. Fill it a third of the way full with water. Aphids are drawn to the yellow color, land on the water, sink and drown.
• A soap spray can be used to strip them of their protective wax coating, dehydrating them. Mix 1 tablespoon of Castile soap to 1 gallon of water, spray.
• Garlic oil spray can kill aphids and other soft bodied pests.
• A dusting of diatomaceous earth is lethal to aphids. Wear a mask when using DE.
• Teas made from elderberry or rhubarb leaves can act as a deterrent. Oxalic acid is the compound present in these plants that makes a spray effective. It is poisonous.
• Place banana peels at the base of infested plant. The peels give them a shot of potassium too!
• Also See: Treatments: Horseradish, elderberry and yarrow tea.
• For wooly aphids on apple trees: grow the trailing type nasturtiums training them to wrap up and around the tree trunk to ward off these pests. Very attractive too! Note: nasturtiums will specifically attract the black aphid while repelling others.

Yesterday, I tried the soapy water and it seemed to help. I saw the aphids falling to the ground. I think I'll also try the banana peels and the yellow pan. I've always thought ladybugs are cool... maybe I'll get some of those...

Interesting about the ants farming aphids. I've noticed ants in my flowerbed, and I imagine they have something to do with this!!

I'll keep you all posted on how the Battle of the Aphids at Rookie Garden comes along...

Rookie Tips for Growing Tomatoes

This Rookie Gardener has been experimenting with tomatoes for about a year now. I grow every one of my tomato plants from seed (mainly from store-bought tomatoes that I use for cooking). If I eat an interesting tomato, I try to harvest its seeds and grow it. When I first started, I really didn't know what I was doing, but over the last year, I've acquired some tips along the way, and am starting to see the "fruits" of my labor. These pics are from my tomato plants as they are today... as you can see the fruits are just arriving!

I can't say that I'm anywhere near experienced in growing tomatoes, but I think the following are basic tips in successful Rookie tomato plant growing.

1) If you start your tomatoes from seeds, wait until the seedlings are at least 3 inches in height before transplanting them. If you plan to grow your tomatoes in a container, and you see roots peeking out the bottom of the pot, move the plant to a bigger pot to encourage growth!

1-a) To answer TMCPhoto's question: How to harvest seeds... I've done it two Rookie ways: 1) Just take the seeds straight from the tomato and throw it right into the dirt. 2) Put the seeds in a glass of water. Stir twice a day for 2-3 days. By the third day, the seeds will have settled to the bottom of the glass. Sift them out on a paper towel and they are ready for planting! The second method gives you more control over where you plant the seeds, but either way works well, especially with fresh seeds.

2) Pinch off any leaves growing below the lowest flowers on your plant.

3) When you plant starts growing rapidly, use a tomato cage to guide its growth, so it doesn't get unruly.

4) Tomato plants LOVE coffee grounds! Sprinkle some in your soil.

5) Make sure your tomato plant gets LOTS OF SUN, and I mean LOTS!

6) Occasionally give the top leaves of the plant a light shake so that the pollen from the upper flowers make contact with the flowers below. Tomatoes self-pollinate with their flowers.

7) This is one I need to work on: Patience! Plant it, and the tomatoes will come!


If you've got some tips of your own, feel free to leave them in the comments section! I'd love to hear them!! And if you're a total rookie too, I hope these tips were helpful!

Plant Progress Report #1

My plan is to have weekly progress reports, to show how much my plants are growing, especially since the weather is really warming up and things are starting to grow like crazy!

NEW PLANT!
My parents gave me this little loquat tree that they grew from a seed! I love loquat fruits, and I really hope this one grows!!

TOMATOES

All the tomato plants in my garden were grown from seeds that would have otherwise been discarded after cooking. I have found that tomatoes are some of the easiest plants to grow. I have more tomato seedlings than I know what to do with, so an idea that I came up with was a braided tomato "tree." I took three tomato plants (I have no idea what varieties they are) and braided their stalks together. We'll see how these turn out. I'm hoping that I'll end up with a bush that will produce three types of tomatoes! We'll see!

The behemoth tomato plant below sprouted from some baby heirloom tomatoes that I bought from Trader Joe's. I've had this plan for almost a year now, and it just keeps on growing!! I'm also finally starting to get tomatoes too-- golden ones! These are some of the tastiest tomatoes I've ever had. Any ideas on what this variety is??

CONTAINER GARDEN

I'm starting a little container section on my patio. My mom gave me some tong ho, which is a Chinese lettuce (tastes sort of like watercress, but slightly spicier) and cilantro, which I transplanted to the large container. More tomato plants (again, no idea what kind they are) on the right, and strawberries in the small one. I'm hoping to grow more herbs in this section.

SIDE YARD EDIBLES

My chayote plant (L) is growing pretty well, and flowers are starting to appear on my bell peppers (R).

My dwarf sugar snap peas:

Cucumbers seedlings are starting to sprout!

LEMON TREE
Look! Flowers! And a good number of them! Hope that means I'll have fruits this year!!

SIDE YARD

The bulbs are really starting to grow, but no flowers yet. My poppies and snapdragons are becoming stronger looking. The Alyssum is also starting to bloom. It was looking a little sickly when I first transplanted them, but they're definitely starting to take!

Views from both sides of the garden:


Succulents:

Baseline - How My Garden Looks Today!

Here's where we start. This is the baseline. Since this blog will be about my adventures in gardening, I thought this would be a good place to start. This will help me track my progress, and show the evolution of my garden. This is the beginning of a beautiful thing.

I present to you, my garden as it is today.

My backyard:

Yes, it usually looks like this on any given day (the sun and blue skies, I mean). It's one of the perks of living in San Diego, CA. My grass is way overgrown right now, but you can't tell in the picture. Let's say it's a little too healthy right now (but for the little brown spot). We purchased the Adirondack furniture a year ago from an antique shop for $100 and stained it ourselves. What a bargain! And yes, the giant palm tree is very cool. Love how it's part of our property.This yard/garden really is my little piece of paradise.
But this is the stuff that came with the house, and was done by professionals.

Then there are the parts of the yard that are being cultivated by me, the Rookie Gardener. These are my experimental gardens. To give this rookie a little practice as her thumb turns from black, to the current color: greenish-brown.

Here is the garden on the left side of the house:

Not anything special right now. Just a few camellia bushes along the wall of the house and the kitchen window. Oh, and the ugly AC unit at the end of the row. The stepping stones were there when we moved in, but were hidden under wood chips. I uncovered them about a year ago. I have plans to make this into a little rock garden eventually. At the end of the path there is a potted bamboo plant. It adds to the Asian feel that I want to eventually achieve.

Here is the right side of the house:

This side of the house is my baby because I've built it from scratch. When we moved in, this side of the yard had three dead trees, some out of control ground cover, and lots of weeds that blended in. The hubby and I hated it, and my mom told me that it was bad feng shui to have those dead trees and all that overgrowth, so we dug out trees, and pulled out all the groundcover and weeds. And it sat there as a plot of dirt on the side of our house, with dreams of turning it into a garden one day. Unfortunately, I had never been able to keep any kind of plant alive for a long time.

Then one day, I was at the 99c Store, and I saw these kalanchoe plants for sale. I thought, what they heck, they're only a dollar each, so what if I screw up? So I took a shovel and dug some holes in the dirt and planted them. I knew nothing about gardening. I couldn't have picked a better plant to start with for the clay dirt because they flower forever, and they're very drought resistant. Once I saw how much color they added to this plot of dirt, I was hooked. In fact, the flowers in the front row are the kalanchoe that I started with!

That was a year ago. Since then, I've learned that the clay dirt needs to be prepped, and I have mixed looser soil in as I've tried my hand at planting other things with various levels of success. I'm still not as diligent as hardcore gardeners because tilling the entire plot seems like so much work to me, and is very daunting. Instead, every time I plant something, I dig a hole and fill it with gardening soil. I figure this area will slowly become more enriched as I plant more stuff. I'm in no hurry. And now that I have a basic idea of how to plant stuff, I hope this blog will help capture this area as it develops.

Enough of my hopes, dreams, and aspirations! More pictures!!!

Here is more up-close look at the flowerbed as it is today. The bursts of color that are prominent here are my snapdragons, kanachoe, and poppies.

Here are some bulbs that are beginning to sprout out of the ground:

There are some areas that don't get a lot of coverage from the sprinklers, so I've planted my little succulents here. Each of them are about 2-3 inches wide. They seem pretty happy so far:

The rocks that I use for borders and to surround these little guys are all from the dirt. I like the idea of using the local natural resources for landscaping.

And here is my little edible section. I've got bell peppers, tomatoes, and strawberries growing here. I grew the peppers and tomatoes from seeds that were taken from vegetables that I used for cooking.

Close-up of the strawberries that are appearing. Don't mind the names on the markers. They were for some seeds that never germinated. Thought I'd use them here to keep the fruits above the ground.

Here is the other section for edibles: chayote (left top), tomato, and bell pepper.

Oh, and I also planted some beans with the chayote at the base of the teepee, and they're starting to sprout!! I hope this teepee will be enough to handle both. I'll probably have to divert the plants so they don't tip in over eventually!!

So as you can probably see, I love my garden, and I'm very excited about all the things that are starting to grow in it!! We'll see how it goes!! Wish me luck, and stick around for the ride!!