Aphids making an exit

The wasps that have been buzzing around the peppers for the past couple weeks still come by occasionally but not that often. Instead of the six or seven I see constantly hovering around and licking honeydew from the pepper plant leaves I now only see one or two at a time and they don't linger long. A couple weeks ago I noticed that the aphid colonies on my California Wonder pepper plants were thriving so I blasted them with a rather potent solution of neem oil and dish soap. Not much different from what I've used in the past. I sprayed the plants a few times before leaving town for a week. That was two weeks ago. Now the aphids appear to be gone or at least beaten back significantly. And I figure the wasps aren't hanging around because there aren't enough aphids to produce honeydew for them.

But aphids are only one problem plaguing the California Wonders. I planted them up high along the edge of the balcony half wall to provide maximum sunlight. Unfortunately being up there also means maximum wind exposure. And these poor plants really take a beating. Every leaf has a tear or rip or hole in it. Despite this, they continue to put out flowers. But it's a bit too hot for fruit set. On one plant I have a single pepper, perhaps a little bigger than my fist. And on the other I see a couple of new peppers starting to form. Perhaps now with the aphids in retreat things will get better.

First Golden Midget Watermelon

Before leaving on a week long vacation, I pollinated a pair of female flowers on my golden midget watermelon plant. When I came back I found this on the vine: my first watermelon of the season. It's got a way to go but clearly this one has a chance. I need to find something to hold it up on the trellis. The vines of the plant are growing fast now and I've had to pinch off several side shoots, limiting the plant to just three vines. The yellowing in the leaves and vine at the base of the plant is slowly progressing up the plant but it doesn't yet look like it will take over. And no sign of spider mites.

A week without me directly watering everything didn't hurt much. Tomatoes and hot wax peppers are ripening, I've got a plump California wonder pepper to pluck, and the basil is lush and bushy. The celery is progressing but I'm guessing it hasn't been getting enough water and the temperatures this past week have been up into the 90's. I should sample a stock and decide what to do with it.

Golden Midget Watermelon

My golden midget watermelon is growing and putting out flowers. I managed to pollinate a female flower earlier this week and it was starting to point down and form a melon. But it yellowed and died. Just wasn't meant to be. I would like to see the plant grow a little faster. It needs more vine to get up into more sunlight. 

But I'm not convinced this plant will last the entire season. Some of the lower leaves are yellowing and this is very slowly starting to spread. And the plant has been like this since before I transplanted it. If it were just the leaves and perhaps a lack of new growth, I'd assume some kind of nutrient problem. But I've also noticed the vine is turning yellow too and there should have been a good balance of nutrients in the potting soil when I planted it.

Something eating my basil

I've been finding basil leaves that look like they've been nibbled on. A worm perhaps or an earwig. I'll have to go out some night with a flashlight and take a closer look. Only a few leaves though and they've been like this for a while now. A couple of weeks ago it was celery. One of my plants had all of its new growth eaten to a nub. I suspect a worm of some sort in that case. It was just the one plant and after I discovered it new growth returned to the plant and I haven't seen any damage to the celery since.

Vacation Watering

My garden is off to a slower, less enthusiastic start this year. I decided not to plant so much as I plan to be away from home a bit more this summer. I just don't have the time to properly take care of my plants. And this past week was the first of my summer challenges: keeping my plants watered for a week with no one at home. In the past I've had someone take care of things for me but this time I decided to find a way to do it without asking for help. I figured that if my plants are still relatively young and planted in self watering containers they might be able to survive that long without needing a watering.

But for the plants not in self watering containers I needed to find an automatic solution. I purchased a Claber Oasis self watering system. It's nothing more than a tub with a timer controlling the opening and closing of a small value. When open, water can flow from the tub through flexible tubing to drippers over the soil in your containers. Only problem is, relying on gravity, it needs to be higher then your plants. And some of my plants are in a planter box at table height.

I added a shelf to the side of my highest planter and placed the Claber there. I pushed all of the containers towards the back of the balcony where they get less sun, clustered around the Claber. And I fed the water lines in a loop over the containers, with a few drippers per container. I even placed drippers over my self watering containers. Then I covered the tops of all the containers with white plastic to prevent the soil from drying out too quickly.  The timer on the drip system was set to go off twice a day and deliver 4oz per dripper per watering session.

When I came home after a week, I was happy to see everything still alive and growing. Only problem I had was with the drippers higher up, closer to the tub. To work properly, the drippers have to be a couple of feet below the water reservoir. The drippers didn't drip as much. Some of them I had modified to drip faster and these did all right. But some providing water to a couple of pepper plants could have been working better.