My garden is doing very well with lots of water in this heat. The peppers, strawberries, carrots, onions and lettuce are steadily growing alongside my new tomato plants. I may have gotten a little over excited at the garden center and bought a few more plants than I intended but I had a hard time passing up strawberry plants with visions of fresh strawberries picked from my own garden being eaten alongside vanilla ice cream on hot summer nights.
We will see if my plans come true.
I recently have found some other creatures that had visions of a great feast by eating my garden. As I watered the lettuce last night, I noticed some leaves have holes in them. Needless to say, I wasn’t too impressed and totally unprepared for my visitors as we are on the second floor. The tree that provides our apartment with great shade on the warm summer afternoons also is getting eaten alive.
I found a few very tiny caterpillars, way smaller than the one in this picture with some of there dinner shown missing in the next picture.
After glancing through some websites after googling “green caterpillars eating lettuce”, I decided to mix some dish soap with water and spray it on the leaves. Sounded organic enough and was the only thing I had at my disposal. I was desperate after reading how fast they can chomp through a few plants and did not have the time or patience to try find and kill them all as I could very easily miss one.
I could just go to the garden center to see what they recommend but I am running out of room on my deck for more plants. Blueberries and ice cream sounds so delicious as well. So far, I seem to be winning the war and I will continue to fight but I am sure it is not over.