Here are the promised, and eagerly awaited (?) aphid photos. They aren't very good photos, because I was in a rush to get to tomato planting, but you can get the general idea. The green aphids have infested our soramame (large beans, English, anyone?)
Whereas the black ones prefer to destroy one of our Rose of Sharon trees, oddly leaving the other three identical (well, except they have leaves that haven't been eaten by aphids) neighboring trees untouched...
Here are the girls feeding the fish which they caught from the river with my husband. The little fish (medaka in English?) are going strong, and the water plant that has pretty purple flowers in the summer is starting to get leaves.
This is my next project, the herb garden is in a dreadful state, the rosemary and lavender need pruning, the chives are flowering away, the basil patch-to-be is overrun with baby weeds and I haven't planted any basil yet, and the whole thing is dandelions and moss...
The girls spent most of the time while we were planted tomatoes in the west plot chatting with the lady who has the garden to the east. She lives downtown, but she and her husband have rented the plot next to us for many years.
And, the girls must have been charming because they scored a huge bag of sugar snap peas! I have been coveting their peas for the past week as ours are not quite ready yet. Hooray! Here are a few...
2 comments:
Your garden is looking fantastic. I'm sure it will just keep on getting better and better!
In New Zealand we call those beans "broad beans" but I think they may be also called "fava beans". Don't worry too much about the bugs - you can just give it a good shake or spray it with water and they disappear - for a while anyway! If the stalks are pretty tall then you can also just pinch out the top buds - as they are what the bugs like. We are just starting to eat our broadbeans here now too... delicious!
Yes! Broad beans! I knew "big beans" couldn't be right, thank you!
The aphids are beyond spraying with water, I think, and won't let go no matter how hard I shake. I think I might try spraying with a diluted natural dish soap as I have read that may work. The broad beans seem to be hanging in, but the tree is almost leafless now, and the aphids are spreading to neighboring trees. On the other hand, there are lots of ladybugs on the tree now. I wonder if the dish soap can hurt the ladybugs? I suppose I could just move them before I spray.
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