Saturday, September 25, 2010
Our Lychee Tree: Beauty More Than Skin Deep
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Lychee
Friday, September 24, 2010
The Early Bird Catches the Worm
I have been tenderly looking after my cool season tomato plantings making sure they have been properly pampered. To my horror, when I checked this morning, one of the plants was totally defoliated! Upon close inspection, what I mistook for a stem, was actually a baby tomato hornworm stretching out in a greedy attempt to reach more succulent tomato leaves. Left to his own devices, this tiny larva would have defoliated all my tomato plants, but fortunately this" early bird" spotted and caught him before he destroyed my entire crop! The pick and squish method is the best control, but when these master camouflage artists are too difficult to find, spray with an organic remedy such as Bt or Spinosad.
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Tomato Hornworm
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Fungus Among Us
Practically overnight, 2 colonies of enormous-sized white mushrooms appeared under the shaded canopy of squash leaves in my raised vegetable bed. "Shrooms" are the fruiting bodies of fungus and establish wherever there is organic matter. Wind, water or organic mulches can carry and spread the spores and is normally indicative of a healthy soil. But these were so gigantic, they were squashing my squash plants, so I removed and put them in a compost pile. Since I am not a mycologist, it was best to compost rather than cook them!
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Mushrooms in my vegetable bed
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Cruise Control
Bruce and I just returned from a week-long cruise along the coast of the Baja California peninsula, the 775-mile long land mass in northwestern Mexico that separates the Pacific Ocean on the west from the Sea of Cortez on the east with port visits to Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta. The trip was to celebrate our son and daughter-in-law's 10th wedding anniversary, but cruising was also a wonderful way to exhale all the sources of stress and inhale total relaxation.
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Fun in the Sun
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