Garden Update #9

The garden has really taken off this past week – the weather has decided to be at least marginally cooperative. We have finally had some hot, sunny days which really seems to have benefited the plants. Now, if the wind and the rain could just stay away for a few days that would be nice.

A bit of sad garden news, the habanero is done, it had to go. As of last week’s update, I informed you all that the plant wasn’t doing to hot due to our excessive organic pesticide incident. Well, it seemed like it might be starting to bounce back at the beginning of the week, it had some new growth and we were both really pleased. Then we noticed it – the aphids, all over the new growth, literally infesting it. And the aphids are getting on our other plants. Around mid-week we noticed an ant, and then it all started to make sense.

I’m not sure how much any of you have studied ants, I haven’t very much myself, but they are fascinating little creatures. They are like humans in many ways, one of which is that they herd livestock. But rather than cows, they farm aphids. They don’t eat the aphids, rather, they consume a substance called ‘honeydew’ which the aphids expel out their backside (pretty gross, eh?). Since the ants rely on the aphids, they keep them protected from predators and, well, in nice and orderly rows.

So anyways, we noticed a large ant on the porch and decided to watch it and see where it went. And sure enough, it headed straight for the habanero. No matter how many aphids we picked off, the ants made sure there were more where that came from. So we decided, since our poor habanero was riddled with bugs, and causing our other plants to become new homes for more aphids, we felt it was best to get rid of the plant. None of the other plants have severe aphid problems and a lot of the problem has been solved by Brett and I being diligent and going out multiple times a day and brushing them off the plants. Apparently, once they fall off the plant, they are unlikely to make it back on it. Their numbers seem to be diminishing since we’ve gotten rid of the habanero and started knocking their pesky butts of our plants.

While I’m sad that I won’t have fresh, homegrown habaneros over the summer, I’d rather the habanero not infest all our peppers. Not to mention, there is a vendor at the farmer’s market I lovingly call ‘The Pepper Guy’, who has plenty of homegrown habaneros and red savina peppers to keep me happy.

Check out the progress of the community garden:

We're going to need to weed again already as soon as the ground dries up a little bit. Seems like that is going to be one of our main chores over the summer.

Check out the container garden:

The serrano pepper start.

New Mexican Chile start.

Banana pepper. It's grown a lot in a week!

Cayenne pepper. There are a lot of peppers already on this plant!

Poblano pepper.

Hungarian Wax pepper. Oddly, this new pepper started growing in the exact same spot as the other one that got blown off in the wind.

And finally, I will end with a wrap up of our grocery trip and this week's CSA. This will probably be my last 'grocery store wrap up' for awhile. I will still post weekly pictures of our CSA, as I think it's nice to show others what to expect from such an arrangement between customer and farmer. However, it is quite a hassle to take pictures of all the food after bringing it home from the grocery store. Not only do we carry all this stuff home from the grocery store, but it takes a lot of time to arrange everything, and honestly, lately I've just been hot and not wanted to deal with it. So, you'll see our CSA stuff, and anything we pick up from the farmer's market.

Organic red potatoes, 2 packages of organic strawberries (yay for California), organic baby Portobellas, our last avocado for a month, ginger root, organic spinach, organic yellow onion, organic garlic, organic peaches (according to the label, they are from somewhere in the US, though isn't Puerto Rico considered part of the US?), organic white button mushrooms.

Habanero, a couple of jalapenos, an organic red bell pepper, lots of tomatillos, and lots of serranos.

This week's CSA: (All organic.) Thyme, asparagus, leaf lettuce, green onions, radishes, spinach, and what we think are collard greens, not entirely sure on this one, other than that they are 'cooking greens' (they were good though, we ate them today).

'Til next time.