Saturday, December 13, 2008

Summer - Beautiful morning!

A day late for this. Yesterday had a beautiful morning! Sun's not exactly out. Not gloomy. Not sunny. Not exactly breezy. Just very beautiful to be out in the yard doing gardening. Checked my herbs - thyme, rosemary, mint, thai basil - checked my tomato plant, sunflower plants, melon, chilli and lavender for signs of pests. Could see the regular white flies. Found a really large ladybug on a blade of grass while feeding my dog in the yard. Brought it to my tomato plant which has grown really well from a small plant. Found a ladybug larva on the peach tree and brought it to my tomato plant too. I have got yellow sticky trap over the tomato plant but the plant has grown so much the trap would probably be a bit out of sight for the existing white flies who love hiding among the leaves below. I am taking all measures to prevent my wonderful tomato plant from being overtaken by pests, excluding pesticides for the time being. The pear and plum trees are not doing exactly very well as their leaves are being fed on my Saw fly larvae - slug-like creatures. I tried to manually squash them to death but they are a lot. I guess I could not do very much especially higher up the trees. Wondering if I would get any pears eventually at the rate they are feeding! They are really pests! Yet to try out the pyrethrum that I have bought. Did some fruit-wrapping work - using plastic bags and stapling them to individual peaches and pears. Hoping that this would help prevent birds from feeding on the ripening fruits. Harvested some plums - sweet and sour at the same time. Since that wonderful morning, it has been raining cats and dogs till now.
Pear slug (Sawfly larvae) on a plum leaf.
A gigantic ladybug on the tomato leaf.
Yellow sticky trap traps a lot of flying insects - unfortunately good & bad - indiscriminate Tomato flowers - flowering in a few areas on the plant
Flourishing tomato plant
The same plant a month ago...wow!

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"All that mankind needs for good health and healing is provided by God in nature...the challenge of Science is to find it." - Paracelcus, the father of Pharmcology, 1493 - 1541