Why does growing anything in my back yard elude me? This morning when I went out to feed Mr and Mrs Pigeon, I noticed that my newly transplanted cosmos flowers had aphids all over them.
Upon reading about how to organically rid my plants from aphids, I see that I have to wipe the plants off every day with wet paper towel. A spray of a liquid soap concentrate may kill the plants.
SOOOO — if I’m not filling up beer traps every day (or sprinkling coffee grounds around) to kill the slugs that devour my plants, I’m tenderly wiping off each leaf to rid the plant of aphids. And the sad thing is that my plants tend to die anyway, no matter what I do. Last year I harvested one beet. One. Beet.
***I’m shaking my fist at the heavens***
Here’s a photo of the gardens at Wells Cathedral, though! It’s pretty, isn’t it?
How does YOUR garden grow?
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I’ll bet the gardener at Wells Cathedral isn’t wiping off each leaf in that garden. Hint, grow only truly native plants. I learned that here in Florida to only grow what was here before the white man came along.
I thought the same thing about the Wells garden. They probably use pesticides. Thanks for the tip about growing native plants. Let me now go to google…
Our garden grows across the street. Our neighbor started what has become a four family garden, complete with a scarecrow! In return for weeding I get tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant, patty pan squash — even okra. Though I wasn’t sure what to do with the okra, so I gave it away:)
I could never figure out okra either. I’m married to a black man who likes it, but all I can see is that if you cook it, it becomes a great lubricant for things like squeaky hinges.
my garden grows well, but the mosquitos don’t let me enjoy it. So I would rather have a dead garden in England than a lush garden in a provincial backwater infested w/ mosquitoes. One day I intend to sit outside, at dusk, and enjoy a cup of tea (vodka) without being bitten half to death. Children wear bug mesh suits out of doors here. We only get warm weather for three months, but the biting bugs make it intolerable…. I can’t go on or I may cry…
Oh — an I LOVE Wells. We went there on our last trip. There was a little cat who lived in the cathedral entry gate house. You’re so lucky! Such great side trips!
Holy Cats, J. That cat was there when we were there too and I have a photo and a story. Will be writing a blog post about that soon. So sorry about the mosquitos. I had not idea they were that bad.