One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Dear friends,

Yesterday I had great plans to spend the day in the garden planting some new daylily bulbs, dividing the comfrey, yarrow and oregano to transplant to the sides of the house where there is (HORRORS!) bare dirt from when we cut all the evil nandinas back to paint the house.

So, I walked outside and saw a literal cloud of insects hovering over one of my new pepper plants, an experiment in growing things right beside an herb bed in the backyard. Last week, I had identified the culprit--the four-lined plant bug. I saw a few of these last year, but they disappeared (I thought) so I forgot about them. They re-emerged last week on some of my salvias, the comfrey, my oregano and skullcap. I jetted them with water and thought the problem was taken care of.

NOPE! I think they just enjoyed the spring shower. Girding my loins and with the knowledge that I'd have to do something more drastic before they reached my baby Porter tomatoes (next door in the bed to the comfrey), I proceeded to demolish the little buggers. Or carpe Poecilocapsus lineatus, as the Latins say.

I got some great advice on dealing with them from my online gardenistas and Howard Garrett's website and Garden Gate magazine.

http://www.gardengatenotes.com/2010/02/09/four-lined-plant-bug/

And a pic, from Fine Gardening magazine:

Turns out, there are about a bijillion bugs similar to this. They leave brown fungal-spot like marks on leaves so you might think you have some sort of fungus going on. Look underneath the leaves and you might see the insects, quickly scurrying to hide.

Using what I had on-hand, and always the organic approach, I mixed some orange oil, molasses and dish-soap in a spray bottle and got busy. I could tell that the little darlings didn't like the spray. I just hope it either kills them to sends them packing onto the neighbor's Bermude grass lawn.

It's always something when you're trying to tend a garden. I've been doing a lot of thinking about garden size, when it's time to downsize and make things easier to maintain and enjoy. As Husband says, I've reached the tipping point. More about that later!

Go plant something! And don't forget to smell the roses. . .

bobbi c.

Easy-to-Water Strawberry Jar Video

Dear garden friends,

I've been a fan of the publications from Taunton Press ever since they published my Fabric and Fiber Sourcebook years ago. I really miss their old Kitchen Garden magazine, but their Fine Gardening Magazine is pretty good, too. It focuses more on landscaping than KG did, but the articles are all accessible to "common folks" and useful to home gardeners. I get an e-mail newsletter from them, and this issue included a video about making an easy-to-water strawberry jar.

http://www.taunton.com/finegardening/

I've always loved the idea of strawberry jars, especially for herbs, but here in this frequently hot climate, they dry out too fast. I think this might just be the answer to that problem.

The video is on their website, take a look if you're interested in a cool idea for planting strawberry jars for your container or patio garden. And of course, you can grow strawberries in them, too! (If you want to sign up for their free newsletter, there's a link on that page, too.)

Dig it!

bobbi c.