Peppers II

 Ok, so most of the previous post was written last night and posted early this morning. Today I made some bug spray with castile soap and water. I plucked all the nascent flower buds off the jalapeños and will spray them and my herbs tonight after the pollinators have retired for the day (speaking of which, I wonder why I have yet to see a honeybee on the abundant clover in the side yard when I have a neighbor who keeps bees). I already sprayed the new pepper pots indoors, because they had been sitting in the shed and had a few bugs hovering around them. I gave the rather sparse grass in the "bare corner" a little water to tide them over until tomorrow's expected rain - which is supposed to last off and on for four days. If the rain is going to be light, I may overseed in there again and try to get the grass growing a little thinker. I fear it's a losing battle, though. I wonder what kind of ground cover I can get that's shade, flood, drought, and dog tolerant....

I put out the hummingbird feeder today, having seen a hummer come looking for flowers two days in a row. The birds never seemed to figure out the feeder last year, but I saw one siping today. Then it went out of my sight near the salvia. Success! The hummers should like the daylilies too, when they bloom. I need to plant some early bloomers for next year, and something that will bloom into the fall and provide some fuel for their migration.

Peppers

It's been a while. Let's see... none of the sunflowers came up (due to cavalier planting), some grass and some clover came up in some of the bare corner, lots of clover came up in the garden and the dallies, due to bloom in July, are sending up their racemes with a few buds on them already; the salvia looks healthy enough but hasn't bloomed much; half a dozen dead trees have been taken down, and I've casually sown deer and rabbit resistant wildflower seeds in various spots around the driveway and in the paths through the woods out back. Unfortunately we had torrential rain a couple of days later, so there's no telling where the seeds wound up or if I'll ever see the flowers. But none of that stuff is on miming right now. I'm thinking about peppers.

The jalapeños are alive if not quite thriving in the pots I put them in after Olly destroyed the original pot. They were looking happy and healthy although not showing a whole lot of new growth in the unseasonably cool May weather; but then the biggest of the three developed holes in its younger leaves. No sign of bugs, no discoloration, just neat little round holes. Then bigger holes, still with no discoloration, and still only on leaves high up on the plant. Now the newest leaves on all three plants are crinkly and curled upward. I think I saw a mealybug on one of them today, and there was something white (whiteflies? mealybugs? bird poop?) on the dill. I hit all of them with the hose, hoping to wash the pests off, and then I went out and bought some castile soap. Stupidly, I did not get a spray bottle. I have to dilute this stuff - a tablespoon to a quart of water - and spray it on the plants at a time when the pollinators aren't active. It's supposed to smother nymphs, larvae and adults alike.

Meanwhile, I bought some ornamental pepper seeds and I've planted a few of them. I should have done this indoors in February and put the plants in the ground after the last frost, so I'm way behind; but if they germinate faster than expected, I might see a little bit of fruit before the frost kills them in the fall.  In any event, I have plenty of seeds left over to plant in the spring. I'm given to expect about every second or third one to germinate if planted next year.