Here we go. Again. Dammit.

Thanks to Henri Marlin’s parents, we have four new tomato plants.  A gift brought to our fish fry in a pot.  “Well, they can’t stay there”, The Fisherman says.

 

 

 

 

The Garden Of Love, Dammit, has not been touched for…..at least 7 months.  And actually, the pepper plants have thrived on their own with all the recent rain.  Who would of thought?

So, this afternoon, we put SJ in the pack-n-play out on the garden slab and we started to weed it.  It was not that bad.  Even good enough for a hungry garden spider to make its abode.

SC named it Frasco.

Our big a$$ basil plant is still there and doing great. 

The Fisherman divied up the tomato plants (which already have flowers!), in the ground they went and sprinkled with happy water. Lets see how they do.  Henri’s parents are not sure what type of toms these are, so it will be a surprise.  Maybe cherries…maybe romas.

I am sure in the next couple of days, I’ll be buying some flower seeds, trekking to the Ag Dept for plantlets and asking King Of The Garden (father in law) for some more cow peas to try again…damn leaf miners.  But, now I know.

We’ll give it another shot.  Wish us luck.

Bugs With Lights on Their Hats: Leaf Miners.

That was my vision when I found out what was attacking the leaves of my cow pea plants and starting to encroach on some of my tomato plants.  They are called leaf miners and they are nasty little buggers.  They are TINY larva that live INSIDE the leaf of plants and burrow along the vein lines leafing (ha ha) little trails on the leaves that resemble snail trails….that really threw us off!

I posted a picture of  a leaf on FaceBook, my addiction, and got several responses from the genuine:  “mix soap + water, spray.”  To the Really?:  “Mix equal parts beer + water. ” To the just plain someone had way to much time on their hands:  “It looks like a white squiggly line is eating your leaves! Why fix it? It looks nice….”

In the end, all it took was an email to my father in law with attached photo.  Leaf Miners.  Hard to kill topically because they live inside the plant.  Have been researching my options.  Thank goodness the peas are ’bout ready to be picked.  Not much I can do for them now, but I need to stop the mining on my tomato plants.  I just hope they haven’t formed a union over there or I’ll have to do some negotiating.

Which brings me to admit something.  This gardening sh!$ is HARD!!!  I remember putting the seeds in the ground the beginning of the year and telling The Fisherman that they would sprout right about the time this baby should come outta me.  Ya, sure.  I’ll have PLENTY of time to tend to the garden and take care of it properly.

Reality is, I drag my butt out there to water only because I am DEAD tired.  Cukes died.  Squash died.  Japs are totally stunted for some reason.  Several variety of flowers never took off.  I am trying REALLY hard to keep up with it, it is just bad timing right now.  I would love to be able to spend an hour or so weeding, cleaning, pruning, etc each day.  Having a pretty garden is a healthy garden! 

Just bad timing. 

But, always looking on the positive side:  Our cow peas will be able to be picked any day now.  Our Brussels Sprouts look strong and healthy.  Bell Peppers are producing nicely.  LOTS of tomatoes.  And the marigolds looked beautiful in the ol’ shopping cart.  Not bad for our first real attempt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week, we just put some more cukes in the ground….let’s see if I can keep up with them.