A few days ago I noticed some aphids on my dahlias and a the tomatoes in the two back yard plots.

What the hell? I’ve never had an aphid problem before! I suspect the aphids came in with some plants the neighbours had planted because I only got the aphids after they planted a bunch of plants near MY plants (they’re not really gardeners, so checking for pests before bringing the plants home wouldn’t be on the “to-do” list). In fact, those very neighbour plants are dying now, it’s kind of sad because they’re big beautiful flowers. I always hate to see a good plant die, I have this instinctual urge to rush in and save it. But they aren’t my plants, so I’ll just have to watch them wither away and die.

B. thinks I’m crazy.

So I whipped out my general all purpose pest control (and the harshest thing I use) which is my horticultural oil. Sprayed at night to avoid the leaves burning, but somehow, a few of the tomato leaves still burned, even though I did it in near darkness. My guess is this happened because the oil just didn’t dry up fast enough, sort of created a magnifying glass effect, and since it gets so hot so fast here in the morning, it just wasn’t enough time and the leaves burnt.

Damnit. I’m having all manner of problems with leaves burning this year!

I don’t think it’ll effect any of the plants too badly, everything gets really well watered, so even though it’s really hot, I’m expecting them all to bounce right back in a few days.

The potatoes are also blooming, Caribe and Russian Blue. I’m kind of shocked to see them blooming at the same time since I picked the Caribe specifically because it’s mid-season and Russian Blue because it’s a later season. Maybe I should have picked an early season and a late season instead? That’s a good point for next year for me to try to remember.

I did chit them both this year (previous years I haven’t necessarily chitted my potatoes) so this could also be a contributing factor to why they’re both blooming at the same time.

Oh well, I guess I’ll get a bit earlier of a harvest this year!

I also took the liberty of thinning out the carrot seeds finally. Ya, I’m a little late on that, but it’s all good.

Also, my first bolt of the season: my cilantro volunteers in the first veggie garden. I’m aware of the growing habits of cilantro, but even I was stunned at how fast these bolted. They grew maybe 5 or 6 regular leaves, and then bolted immediately. Crap. I did plant a few other crops at about two week intervals, so there’s about 2 more plants growing at different sizes, and neither of them have bolted yet.

It’s time to get out and resow more cilantro obviously.

Photo #1: Potato ‘Caribe’
Photo #2: Potato ‘Russian Blue’
Photo #3: Swallowtail butterfly on Mock Orange. A crappy photo because I was on a long lens and it was windy, but there you are none the less!