Over the past couple of years, we’ve had a bad aphid problem. In the past we’ve normally sprayed a with a mixture of dish soap and water on the infected plants. This year we decided to purchase and release 1500 lady bugs to help out from It’s About Thyme Nursery. Owner Chris Winslow is a walking encyclopedia of everything organic and natural.
The packaging from Natural Pest Controls states:
For the control of aphids, whitefly, plant mites, and also eats many insect eggs.
I found some goodies hiding in the garden today! Pumpkins, Onion, Carrots, Jalapenos, Tomatoes (which are still surviving!) and my Tabasco plant hiding on my Bonsai Shelves. Since my tomatoes are still going strong, I’ve trimmed back the withering tops with the hopes that these will regrow.
I am getting ready to plant my fall 2009 garden so I grabbed some fresh compost out of my horizontal composter today. It really needs to be screened and all the organics that haven’t broken down to the correct size will be mulched again and put back into the composter to help start the new batch. Looks like I need to bust out the old compost sifter!
Here is some of the produce we picked during the spring of 2009. 25 pounds of potatoes, 10 lbs of cucumbers, 5 lbs of chive onion, some lettuce, squash, tomatoes, snap peas, etc.
This is the greenhouse I constructed for the winter of 2008-2009. It cost less then $50 to construct. Thanks to my buddy Nick for helping me skin it with plastic!
This is my 2nd DIY composter. This model is based on a vertical tumbler and cost less then $40 to construct. Below are images of the vertical design in-action and a close-up of the axle construction.
