You can try either a garlic or pepper spray. Most things that eat the leaves won't like it. I know it works on mites. Lots of difference recipes, but basically simmer about 1tblsp of cayenne powder or crushed garlic (or both) per cup of water. Add about a tsp of dawn per cup and you can also add a drizzle of veg oil. The only problem is you will need to respray anytime it rains or if you water from above.
Thank you, I'm going to try that recipe. Something is eating the leaves off of my dahlias in containers near the house, although the dahlias down in the garden are fine...I didn't see any bugs, caterpillars, aphids, anything, so I have no idea what is eating them. Slugs would be the usual suspect, but it's been really dry here for several weeks.
Does anyone else kind of see weed-eating then mowing like dusting then vacuuming?
LOL! I'm a mow first/weed-eat afterwards person, also a vacuum first/dust later (or almost never if I'm being honest) person. Bottom line though, they're all necessary chores that take away time from the projects/chores I'd rather be doing, but things I don't mind doing once I get myself motivated. And feel a sense of achievement when they're done, when I look around at how nice everything looks.
The only things I'm growing in my garden, besides perennials and cover crops, are basil, cabbage, and loofah, and I started all those pretty late due to my crazy pandemic work schedule. But so far, so good. The cabbages are growing pretty well under row covers to hopefully deter worms, and the basil and loofah are still small but looking healthy. It's been so dry here, we've been watering the garden several nights per week.
I was worried about my baby trees in all this dry weather. In early March we planted a bunch of Western Red Cedar, Red Currant, Blue Elderberry and Mock Orange seedlings that we got from our County conservation district's Native plant sale. They were all doing well, until this past couple weeks of no rain, many of them were looking parched.
So, we had the "brilliant" idea of watering them by putting a barrel in the back of Mr. Dog's truck, filling the barrel with water, and driving down the hill to water all our trees. I rode in the truck bed to supposedly keep the barrel steady while Mr. Dog drove - what a big fail ! Every bump splashed water out and made the barrel less steady, it was heavier than I could keep under control, and finally going down the steep part of the hill it tipped over and soaked me, soaked the truck bed, and even soaked Mr. Dog, who had the rear window of his truck open.
Oh well, at least getting soaked cooled us off!
We ended up attaching every hose we own together, to reach down to the lower field, then driving the truck with the barrel to where the hose reached, filling the barrel and then driving VERY SLOWLY around to water all of our trees. It worked out pretty well, and this morning many of those trees have new growths and new branches.
USPS likely fail...AGAIN. Oh, and NO tracking updates since Monday evening when the USPS received them
. I’m expecting to get dead chicks, and have to file a USPS claim for a refund on “Express” shipping I paid for. However, we will see what happens, maybe they will be alive and healthy, and arrive today.
If it helps the Postmaster general got a good roasting recently on the Hill. He has special delivery interests with other parcel delivery services and is adding stress to our postal system as it has resisted privatization efforts for all of these years.
