Speaking of unexpected surprises, some kind of critter, or rather, a roving gang of many types of critters, is devouring my plants. Something (a cat? a horde of cats?) ate the ENTIRE catnip plant in about two days (it was a huge plant - 1/100 of the plant would have gotten my cat Bailey cracked out for days, so I'm guessing it was some other critter or I would have drugged-up cats rolling around in the front yard). Something ate most of the leaves on my eggplant plants, an entire tomato seedling (sadface!), and three of my bell pepper plants. I don't think it's a bug pest because the entire plant is getting eaten. Anyone have any guesses about what it could be? The geek in me wants to set up a night-vision webcam to catch whatever it is in action!
Bell pepper buds/flowersThe bell pepper plants that survived the critter night-eating are growing bigger, and one of them has these little buds that are getting ready to bloom into flowers - and then grow into little peppers! VERY exciting!
Sunflower!My big sunflower also has a little flower bud- which means that a real sunflower is imminent! The sunflower plant is now officially taller than the fence (will post a picture next time). I swear it has been growing at least an inch a day! I love flowers more than anything and I can't wait to come home and see a sunflower that I grew blooming in my garden!
What MITE be eating my plants?A couple of my plants had been slowly yellowing, and I assumed it was somehow related to the soil quality or excessive watering. But the plants became more and more yellow, and not all of them seemed to be affected (for example, the bell pepper plants are very healthy and not yellow at all). I did some research and it turns out that spider mites are to blame! They are microscopic little critters in the arachnoid family, and they're apparently very common and very hard to get rid of. They puncture the cells in your plant and suck out the liquid. You can either pesticide-bomb your garden (not an option) or spray each individual leaf with water to wash the mites off. I'm doing that (when I remember, and so far it might be helping) - but in the meantime I removed a couple of bean plants that were severely infested. My roommate suggested spraying the plants with garlic-infused water as a mite deterrent. Anyone else have any suggestions?
My first bean!I started this gardening project back in March when it was still in the 40s at night... and last week I picked my first bean! It is green with a few little purple streaks here and there.
Beans are really easy to grow, and they grow really fast. Here is a picture of the beans I planted three weeks ago - they're already huge and climbing up the fence!
Okra seedlingsIn other news - I didn't have much luck growing most of my veggies from seed, but one of the seeds that did seem to sprout pretty readily and grow quickly is okra. These are some okra seedlings I planted in the ground today - we'll see how they do! It might be too late to plant seedlings and have them grow into real plants, but who knows. It's worth a shot! And I absolutely loooooove okra (it's such a fun vegetable, both to look at and to eat!)
Stevia plantHave you heard of stevia? I had heard of it but thought it was some sort of newfangled (yes, I just said 'newfangled') artificial sweetener. Well as it turns out, it's a type of plant! I saw this little herb at a local nursery the other day and it's a stevia plant. I decided that it would be a worthy science experiment for $3 to buy it and try to help it grow and see what happened. I tasted one of the leaves, and darn if it didn't taste incredibly sweet and just like sugar! I'm going to try and brew some iced tea with the leaves once the plant gets settled (I put it in a pot with some dirt next to my other herbs).
That's all for this post... thanks for checking out what is Blooming in Bloomingdale! :)
That is so weird - I have a stevia plant in my front yard, and it looks NOTHING like the one in your picture. It is neat though, I'm going to try and extract my stevia using vodka or something.
ReplyDeleteOne of my mom's dogs used to enjoy eating her flowers. She responded by mixing some Dave's Insanity Sauce (a stupidly hot hot sauce) with water and using a spray bottle to coat her plants with it. The flower eating ended soon after that.
ReplyDeleteNow, there are a couple *slight* warnings you should consider: 1) BE UPWIND from whatever you are spraying. The stuff will make your skin feel like it's on fire. 2) Even if you think you didn't get anything on you, wash your hands before touching anything else on your body (especially eyes, mouth, or any other sensitive area). It makes your skin feel like it's on fire; imagine what it will do to your eyes. 3) If you spray it on anything you intend to eat later, be sure to rinse it extra thoroughly before eating. There's nothing quite like popping a cherry tomato into your mouth and being doubled over by the fire.
Other suggested uses: spray on the legs of furniture to keep dogs from chewing on them. Prank your friends! Deterrent against children swearing (like a dog with a flower, the threat of another teaspoon of Dave's Insanity Sauce will prevent a 13 year old from dropping the F-Bomb in front of you ever again (I know this from experience)).