Garden Diary

It's obviously the time of year for aphids!

I managed to rid the broad beans of the black aphids, but the corn now has green corn aphids...



The corn, at the grand old age of 8 weeks (pretty much bang on when expected), is tassling.  In fact, some plants started silking yesterday.  The aphids obviously decided that corn tassles were far more tasty than bean shoots and have relocated enmass.

I had a good look around for ladybirds and larvae today, but have only ever seen one ladybird and one larvae in the garden.  Both were fungus eating ladybirds on the cucumber.

However, I did spot some mummy castings on the corn leaves, which means that there are some tiny parasitic wasps out there eating there way out of the aphids.  A great sign, but they've got a lot of catching up to do!

So, I sprayed the aphids on the corn today with a very weak, biodegradable detergent solution and then watered them.  I hope that this will destroy enough of the aphids for the tiny miniature wasps to get on top of things, without doing too much harm to the wasp population itself.

Really must remember to water as I let the plants get a bit stressed last time.  Rained a lot on the 10th, then I watered by hand on the 14th and again today.  Need to keep the water up for the next 2-3 weeks to ensure good kernel formation on the corn.

In other news...

• cucumber removed; 
• beans etc in top side bed removed and area forked and mulched; 
• tomatoes almost done, but still few flowers on the go; 
• capsicums now close to flowering, although only 20cmish high; 
• eggplant started flowering one week ago, at approx 30cm high; 
• melon - why did I bother?; 
• compost turned for last time and no more organic matter being added wef 10th April; 
• new compost pile started on same day in top corner, with 2 bags horse manure, pea straw & lucerne that was being used as mulch, a wheelbarrow of tree lopper mulch and is now the recipient of the kitchen scraps bin; 
• vermicompost harvested and spread around carrots, silverbeet, beetroot, parsley, eggplants and capsicums - worms now rehomed in new tarp, a bit of the almost mature compost and composted tree lopper mulch.