Good Bugs vs Bad Bugs

Summer has suddenly decided to appear in San Diego (a little late, in my opinion) and bugs are rampant! Just this morning I went water my plants and found that my basil had been ALL eaten up overnight!!!

And the nerve of whatever it was that ate my plants to leave droppings all over the floor:

And then I found this hungry little guy in my flower bed...

Rookie Tip: A highly diluted soap solution will help get rid of aphids. My friend Rebecca also says that a cayenne pepper solution will work with garden pests.

However much to my delight, I also spotted my first praying mantis in my garden! YAY! I had bought a praying mantis egg sac months ago and wasn't sure if it ever hatched, but I guess it did! This one is about 1 inch long, so it's still a baby! I hope it helps with some of the pests in my garden...

Rookie Tip: Praying mantises will eat all sorts of bugs in your garden, but also know that they can eat the beneficial bugs as well. Regardless, they're fascinating to have in your garden!

Right now for me, I have some many non-beneficial insects in my garden like beetles, flies, aphids, and caterpillars, that I think this little one will have plenty to feed on. I just hope I don't accidentally throw him away when I'm pruning my garden!!

My Garden - 5 months later

Thought I'd give everyone a look at how my side garden looks 5 months after my baseline entry. To remind you all, here's how the Rookie Garden looked in March 2010:

With a lot of sweat, blood, and tears--- well, mostly sweat... and achy hands, it has since been cultivated to look as it does today. A few weeks ago, I covered the bare spots with wood chips, and it really finished the area up.

*ROOKIE TIP: Wood chips are great for your garden not only because they look nice, but they also help to retain moisture, prevent weeds from growing out of control and some types will deter deer (I think cedar wood chips help with that).

I'm so proud of how my garden looks today!!

From the other end:

Sorry the pics are fuzzy... took them with my phone camera. You can click on the picture to see a higher resolution version. I'll have to take some detailed before and after pictures to compare how everything looks now in relation to my very first blog entry.

I've really learned a lot in the last 6 months and continue to learn... Here are some pictures from other areas in my garden:

And look! Siamese cucumber twins!!! Can't wait to eat that one! =)

Thanks for visiting!!!

HOLY MOLY!!!

I got home today after a week of business travel. My hubby's been gracious enough to water my plants everyday while I've been gone, and I was so happy to see that my plants were doing really well when I got home. I went to check out my Italian squash plants and, HOLY MOLY! Here's what I found!!

These were more like Italian Stallion Squash!

I don't know what the hubby did, but WOW!!

Needless to say, we'll be eating lots of squash this weekend. :)

Morning Hawk

I woke up this morning to a shrill cry in my garden. I went outside and found this wonderful creature in my palm tree!!

It's too bad it wasn't a sunnier day so I could get better pictures. I hope they little fella will catch some of the rats in our yard.

My $5 Compost Bin

I don't have nearly enough organic material from my garden and kitchen to create a giant compost heap, but I want to do my part in trying to reduce my carbon footprint (isn't that the cool thing to do nowadays?). I've always wanted a compost bin, but those fancy shmancy bins are too big for my yard, and frankly, too expensive. I started late last year with my first attempt at composting with a small plastic box (about 8 gallons). It served its purpose, and I could see the effects of cold composting, but I soon outgrew it.

Then I ran into this article online: http://organicgardening.about.com/od/compost/ht/storagecompost.htm which shows how to make a compost bin with a plastic bin! And to my delight, Big Lots was selling these plastic bins for $5 a piece! Here is the bin that I bought.

I more or less followed the instructions and drilled holes in the top, sides, and bottom of the bin.

Then I threw the compost from the little box that I had going already, and discovered that I now have tons of room for more organic material!

I added some cuttings from my garden this morning.

Cold composting takes a lot longer, but Mother Nature still finds her way to take care of things, regardless of how small the pile is!!

So, lesson of the day is: Composting can be nice and cheap, as it should be!! Go do your part today!

And with that, I leave you with a picture of my lazy dog. :)

Tonight, we shall have peas!

Sugar snap peas, that is! Freshly picked from my garden!

I think I'm going to give these guys a quick stir-fry and have them with some rice! YUM!!

The fruits-- or shall we say-- Vegetables of Summer

Well, well... how quickly Summer approaches us! And with Summer are the vegetable that are FINALLY starting to show up in my garden!!

TOMATOES:

ZUCCHINIS (Or are they called Italian Squash?)

Snap Beans!




And here's the beginning of a young cucumber!

I've been traveling a lot for work lately, and have found that my garden seems to make more progress while I'm gone for a few days. Maybe it's because I'm not going outside every 4 hours to see if anything's changed!! Hahaah!!