admiring the greenery

we welcome spring to the republic, with open arms. we rejoice with the traditional barefooted peasant dance, we drink cider on the terrace until our cheeks glow a rosey red and we picnic on the grass.
from the window, on the chillier days (cos it's still only spring) we watch the buds fatten and burst. the green becomes greener until it's as green as can be.
which is pretty green.
the shade of grass.
or, new leaves.
or aphids.
not bothered with immigration formalities these clandestine insects snuck into the garden and hid amongst my lettuce, disguised themselves on the sage leaves.
obviously these freeloaders haven't read the book on companion planting as they've made a home not 30 cm from my garlic.
so now, i wonder to myself, do i wait for their natural predators to arrive? as nature would have it that's the logical next step. or do i make up some sort of witches potion to kill them all (and disregard nature)? or do i just ask them, politely, to move on (using my best britishpoliceman voice)?

so far, i'm using the zen approach to gardening- that it's their darma to be eaten & that someone else will be along shortly...

in the meantime, we have been blessed with rain. august was unseasonally hot and dry; but what it offered in unseasonal parchiness september countered with its damp and cold: do not pass go, go directly back to winter...
alas, without the spring rain the spectacle would be short lived! but while each droplet was filled with the promise of new life (not in the biblical sense, of course), it also imported certain fungal blooms, known to the gardener as powdery mildew (and silently cursed under the breath).

aiie aiie aiie! already!

quickly i mixed up a teaspoon of baking soda in a litre of water, and sprayed it over the leaves.

nature countered with rain.

i picked some comfrey, nettles and chamomile and set to soak in a bucket with seaweed tea for 2 days. comfrey, stinging nettles and seaweed contain silica, which adhers to the leaves and makes it's difficult for the fungi to spread, the chamomile contains a mild anti-bacterial action... they'll also help fortify the plant's general health...

and it rained some more.

and they forecast more.

so even before my plans for being selfsufficient in the vegetable department have germinated it appears that it is going to be more difficult than i first imagined...
it's not quite a case of counting your chickens before they hatch...

xx
mama b