Release the hounds ladybugs!

So using soapy water on the aphids was working fairly well but I decided to get some ladybugs to help keep them under control. The man at the store said to release them after dark and after I wet the area down so that's what I did. There were masses of ladybugs all over the place last night and early this morning but by afternoon a lot of them were either hiding, or flew away. They did eat some of the aphids but not all of them, which I thought was strange but maybe they just need more time to adjust. I will check on them tomorrow and see if at least a few of them are still around, I hope so!

One thing I am noticing now that it is getting warmer is the increase of insect life in the garden. I found this pretty little spider sucking the life out of a fly on one of my planters. I will need to look him up and submit my photos to Project Noah, I haven't updated my sighting list in ages and I have loads to put on there like all of the animals and fungi from Humboldt Park, and even the photos I took at Wellspring last year (the wildlife was only good thing about Wellspring aside from the Guncles!) There was also a fairly large furry spider that I think was trying to hunt the ladybugs but he got all shy when I tried to take a photo of him.

He was cute though he sort of hid behind the planter and would poke his head up over the edge so just his front legs and eyes were showing. Unfortunately he was too shy to allow me to get any closer and I only had my phone with me so he is a little blurry and hard to see. I want to say he was a wolf spider but honestly I'm not sure. Hopefully he will stick around and I will see him again and have my good camera ready!

 I finished five plant hangers and hung them over the railing on the deck. I want to have at least eight hanging down and another 5 or so hanging from above, but I need a taller person to help me hang the ones up top as I am too short and we have no ladder. I think it looks nice plus it will give me room to but the rest of the plants out in the sun, a lot of the seedlings are growing fast and will soon need full sized pots and while the table gets full sun in the morning, it doesn't get it for as long and I want the fruit, herbs, and veg in as much sun as possible. Everything does seem to be growing very well so far, I got an organic tomato feed that I used on the tomatoes but will probably also use on all the fruiting plants. Speaking of which,  the oranges seeds I planted are actually growing! I thought they weren't going to do anything and I used their dirt to plant the thyme but I noticed two of them had sprouted and had roots and one has almost got leaves!

So I pulled them out of the thyme pot and carefully replanted them into peat pots. I have some Valencia orange seeds that I want to try next but I think I am going to soak them first in damp paper towels until they sprout so I don't accidentally nearly throw them away!


 

More garden aquisitions!

Friends don't let friends go to the garden center after watching the RHS Chelsea Flower Show! Ha ha actually they do, they are total enablers! [Kellie!] One thing I was determined to get was a rose because they are my absolute favorite flower, I was thinking of getting one of those small ones but as I mentioned I haven't had good luck with them and they never seem to have much scent so as soon as we got to Adam and Sons, I went straight to the "normal" roses, and was immediately drawn to a pinky mauve floribunda rose called Angel Face. The petals have this lovely ruffle to them and it smells divine, the label said it would bloom all season and I have always had a thing for purple roses

(big surprise I know!) I asked the man at the garden center if I could grow it in a pot and he said I could grow any perennial in a pot as long as it was the right size. So I found the right size pot (between 12" and 16" it ended up being 15" and of course it cost more than the rose!) and got some more smaller pots for the other things we picked up. We decided we need more herbs so we got oregano, cinnamon basil, and rosemary. We also decided we couldn't live without habenero peppers and chocolate sweet peppers and Kellie got a white eggplant. They had some nice sized patio tomatoes on sale so we grabbed one of those as well, it already has fruit on it as well as flowers, our other tomato is still doing really well but it's not like you can have too many tomatoes!

When we got it home we realized it needed staking so I sacrificed my backscratcher to the cause and we ended up re-poting it in the pot the rose came in (I know you aren't supposed to do that but I risked it anyway, the poor tomato had roots coming out of the bottom!) I also got some little peat pots to re-pot the cilantro and jalapeños as they were outgrowing the seed starter.  And of course as soon as we got everything potted up and situated, we realized that we were going to be getting storms for the next few days so we had to move everything to the corner of the patio so they wouldn't get wind damage.

Last week we had some really cold windy weather with a bitter north wind and I forgot to move the plants so they spent a very windy unhappy night until Matt woke me up next morning to move them into a sheltered spot. The wind was so bad I had to construct a windbreak out of the patio furniture. Almost everything came out of it unscathed except the cucumbers, we lost a few plants and all of them lost leaves. I think they will come back but now I am paranoid every time I think the wind might blow so even though these storms are bringing warm humid winds from the south/southwest I moved everything anyway.

I want to be able to move them back to the deck railing as soon as I can because I have made some macramé plant holders out of jute I bought at work. I found a tutorial on YouTube to make some very simple hangers that are very quick and easy to make and hardly cost a thing. They aren't the most attractive plant hangers I've ever seen, but they do the job. My plan is to hang plants down on the outside of the deck railing as well as above the railing effectively tripling the space in the sun we have now, which we will need considering the seedlings are growing up and we keep getting more plants!