My poblano pepper was doing exceptionally well with one pepper almost three inches long and another maybe one, and a dozen flowers. But wait didn't it have those flowers a week ago and how come none of them had become tiny peppers? A further inspection revealed that they were covered with some mysterious dust and looked wilted and kind of eaten away.
Aphids! A quick ride on the googlemobile and I was filling a spray bottle with dish soap and water and spraying it. Nothing dramatically changed but a little later the white dust had turned brown. Looked like it had worked and I returned to the computer for further reading. What happens is the soap dissolves the membranes of their cell walls. You know me guys, I am a peacenik and a big proponent of kumbaya, but I have to say that grisly news brought a smile to my face, That's what they get for invading my garden.
I have maybe half a dozen sunflowers who are doing pretty well. Sunflowers are very devout growing straight up in an unbranching stalk thrusting themselves at the sun. They are vulnerable to the high winds 21 stories above the ground though. I woke up one morning to see one bent back and applied a splint to it like I did last year to one and it is similarly effective.
Most of them have morning glories twining around them which does not seem to hurt them at all, and I believe it strengthens their stalks and when the purple flowers bloom below the big yellow flowers it is a beauteous sight.
After a slow start, they like really hot weather, they are doing quite well twining up the sunflowers and the railings, and the pepper plants. I've had kind of a Darwinian attitude towards the battle between the morning glories and the hot peppers, but the morning glories have always won, so this year I am peeling them off the pepper plants to give them a chance. We'll see.
The tomato plants are bright with yellow flowers and there are some tiny green globes, but they are not growing as fast as I would like and it is almost the 4th of July.
In the winter I had a rowdy gang of sparrows who drove away my more genteel finches, but they seem to have moved along and now the finches are back. Also pigeons. Mom and Pop and I am assuming Junior.
You are not supposed to feed birds on your balcony and you can be fined. I didn't worry much about the finches because they are pleasant songbirds, but I know a lot of people hate pigeons. Myself I like them fine, I see Tyrannosaurus Rex in their bobbing bodies and blood red eyes. I don't feed them every day to discourage getting a whole pack of them on my railing.
So far it is just these three and they are quite tame. I can approach them to where I can almost reach out and touch them before they flutter a couple feet down the railing all the while watching me. I shake the bottle that holds the bird seed and they look at me attentively, and when I pour some into a little bowl and sit down in my lawn chair they look around nervously and then flutter to the floor and eat from the bowl as I read my newspaper/
Everything is hunky dory in the garden. So far.
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