Whitefly traps

It seems that whitefly really loves tomato plants. Ever since I planted my first tomato seeds they seem to come at regular intervals. Initially I treated them with a garlic and pyrethrin based pesticide; that generally kept them away for some weeks.

More recently I had a very heavy infestation on mature tomato plants, and the garlic based pesticide appeared to be ineffectual. I’m not sure whether the whitefly got used to the taste of garlic, the pesticide had expired or if I just wasn’t covering the rather unruly plants well enough, but it didn’t seem to help.

An attempt at regaining control

So, I looked for some alternatives. I got sick of smelling garlic all the time, and tried to use a soap spray. One teaspoon of Sunlight liquid dish-washing soap per litre of water was recommended to me. I applied it once, and it seemed to kill some whitefly, but it didn’t really seem to get rid of them.

Apparently the soap has no residual action after the spray dries, so that might have been part of the problem. The other part of the problem was the pathetic hand-sprayer I was using. Apart from only holding a paltry 500 ml of liquid, it doesn’t really work when upside down; makes covering the bottom of leaves quite hard.

The final solution

I did some more research, and decided to A) buy a decent pressurised pesticide sprayer B) make sticky whitefly traps. Apparently they are attracted by the colour yellow. Some site I read claimed that they look for the “healthiest” leaves, and somehow yellow indicates that to them; makes no sense to me. In any case, the traps definitely work.

After bringing the whitefly infestation down to manageable proportions by consecutive daily soap sprayings (the pressurised sprayer made that a joy), I mounted my whitefly traps. Within minutes of mounting a couple around my tomato plants (and giving them a good shake to bother the whitefly) they were covered by a large number of soon-to-be whitefly corpses.

A week later there are virtually no whitefly left on my tomatoes! As an aside, the soap solution seems to work even better on red spider mite than on the whitefly. It seems to finally have rid my black eyed Susans of spider mite.

Building the whitefly traps

Combining ideas from the two links above, I decided to cover yellow poster board with plastic, and coating that with a thin layer of oil. Most people seem to use motor oil for some reason, but cooking oil seems to work just as well and is non-toxic to boot! I somehow got confused when shopping, and bought cling-wrap rather than plastic bags. I might have been reading about Roy Orbison that day.

To make the traps, I cut the yellow poster board into roughly 20x15cm pieces and then wrapped them in cling-wrap. I also punched some holes for strings to hang them from using a paper punch. I tied some rope through the holes, and sealed them using prestik. Just to keep it water tight. Finally I applied a light coating of cooking oil using a very advanced brush system. Ok, so I used toilet paper. Below you can seem some pictures of the traps in action.

Whitefly trap 1
Whitefly trap 2

Neilen Marais / black eyed susans, gardening, insecticide, pests, spidermite & tomatoes

29 November 2010

Going somewhat strong

Planting out to SWCs

I planted one of the tomato seedlings out into my 10 Litre Self-watering Bucket, and it has really taken off! Seems pleased as punch with its new surroundings. The bell pepper plant has also been doing well in its 7l SWC, but is not growing quite as fast as the tomato. I managed to get more buckets from the restaurant. I used one to transplant a sorrel plant that was sharing a container with (and getting abused by) origanum plants and it has been growing well. Also (Saturday) planted another each of tomato and pepper seedlings into 7l SWCs, as well as a parsley plant that was getting crowded out by the mint plant sharing its pot.

About a week ago (or two, my mind…) I sowed some more rocket seeds, as well as some of the basil seeds that I saved from a now departed plant. They have now germinated, and seem to be progressing well. I’m going to plant some of the rocket seedlings in the 50l SWC, and one of them in a 7l SWC. The other rocket plants in the 50l SWC never did well, but it is possible that I gave them too much sun in the sumer. Perhaps they’ll like the winter.

Spreading the Origanum

I had (for a long time) two origanum plants (along with the sorrel mentioned above) in a rectangular (oh, let’s say 50x15x15 cm) container. The origanums grew very well, while the sorrel suffered. I wanted to clear the pot so I could put some of the marigold seedlings in it. I planted one of the origanum plants directly into my “garden” (i.e. in the sandy soil under the gravel cover of my patio), and one in a 7l food container. I had another type of origanum (has somewhat softer leaves, but grows slower) growing in a small container. It was a small stem with roots that I accidentally pulled out a while ago while harvesting from the softer-leaved origanum plant. It had grown nicely, so I planted it out into my 50l dry-herb container.

Dry herb container progress

At long last the rosemary and thyme in my 50l dry herb containers seem to have started growing in earnest. The rosemary hasn’t really increased its footprint, but has ramified quite a bit and has a number of new shoots growing upwards. Now I just hope the new origanum plant also grows well. Actually, my other rosemary plants also seem to be waking up. so hopefully I’ll have a well-establised rosemary bush or 2 to harvest from soon.

Pests

It did not take long, but white-fly seems to have found the recently transplanted tomato plant, and something seemed to be at the peper plant too. Gave them all (along with all the other pepper and tomato plants) a good treatment with Ludwig’s spray on Saturday. Seemed to result in the tomato plant virtually doubling its size overnight, though that may just be my impression of the situation ;) Some of my marigolds also seem to be suffering from something (spider mite?) so used the leftover solution to give them a good dusting. In spite of whatever may be wrong with them the are still flowering and growing.

Neilen Marais / basil, bell pepper, insecticide, marigolds, origanum, pests, plantings, propagation, rocket, rosemary, self-watering, thyme & tomatoes

26 April 2010

Sharing, Caring and Spider-mites

It feels nice to give, and I got the feeling by donating one each of the tomato, bell pepper and origanum seedlings/cuttings metioned before to a colleague. The garlic chives are also doing better; intially it seemed like only about 4 of the seeds I planted had germinated, but a couple of warm days seems to have brought the total to 10. Perhaps I’ll be giving some of them away too :)

Spider Mite Woes

On a less positive note, my black eyed Susans have been attacked by spider-mite. These little buggers are quite vicious and hard to get rid of. Part of the problem is their very short life-cycle, which frequently leads to resistance against pesticides. Luckily Ludwig’s organic pesticide that I have mentioned before seems effective. I applied it on Saturday (2010-02-20) night, and the following morning the little red specks previously visible on the leaves had changed to black. Interestingly, the concentration of Ludwig’s spray recommended (by the included instructions) for spider mite is much stronger than for just about any other pest, and you also also need to be sure to completely coat the top and bottom sides of the leaves.

A follow-up application will be needed to take care of new hatchlings as the pesticide does not damage the mite eggs. Will probably do that tomorrow night or perhaps even morning, since high temperatures (like Stellenbosch is currently experiencing) leads to a gestation period of as little as 3 days. I saw another organic spider mite specific insecticide in Stellenbosch’s Builders Warehouse Express which claims to be effective against the eggs too. Supposedly it also results in in less colateral damage, but it was quite expensive. I decided to give it a skip.

Yesterday, while collecting herbs for Sunday lunch cooking, I saw that my flat-leaved parsley also seemed to have spider-mites. Since it was next to herbs I wanted to use immediately (Ludwig’s requires you to wait 48 hours after application before harvesting edible food) I squashed them between thumb and forefinger, and tore off the most badly affected leaves. The very flat leaves of the parsely don’t seem to mind the pressure, and there were few enough leaves for it to be manageable.

Seed Collecting

It takes quite a bit longer for the seeds on plants that have bolted to become harvestable that I had imagined. Today I collected some pods from a basil plant that has gone to seed. It seems like it took forever for the pods to turn brown after the petals have droped. Even now only a fraction of them have gone brown.

I’ve been waiting similarly long for a the cos-lettuce that bolted after an aphid attack to produce seeds. Yesterday I got a bit of a surprise when a guest looking at my garden pointed out the Dandelion like parachute balls that had formed on this plant. And attached to the little parachutes were litte seeds! Yay!

I placed the collected seeds in labeled envelopes for storage. They shouldn’t stay there for too long, since I hope to plant them out soon.

The End

I’m getting better at not blogging during times of day that I should be sleeping! In any case, I also wanted to talk about some of my more recent self watering container experiences, but this post is getting too long. But don’t fret, that news will come in the near future :)

Neilen Marais / basil, bell pepper, black eyed susans, cos lettuce, garlic chives, insecticide, origanum, pests, propagation, seed saving, spidermite & tomatoes

22 February 2010

Attempting Propagation (Thyme, Origanum and Bell Peppers)

Tonight I tried my hand at propagation. I read that thyme can be propagated from cuttings. Since my single thyme plant is not quite keeping up with my demands, I decided to try the cuttings-thing. I also mentioned this to a colleague who is interested in adding thyme to her garden, so let’s hope it works!

Propagating Cuttings

The basic method seems to be to cut off about 7-8cm long shoot-tips of the plant, removing their bottom leaves and placing somewhere damp. The general consensus seems to be that you should use tender young tips, not ones with woody stems. I used some seedling trays saved from store bought seedlings, and stuck the stems about 3cm into the potting mix.

I used Master Organics Master Supermix, which the nursery man suggested might work well for starting seedlings. I placed two shoots in each tray pocket (gee, what should you call them?) to increase the odds. For now I’m watering them from below by placing the seedling trays in a plastic container shallowly filled with water. It’s summer here, so mostly quite warm; I will however keep them indoors at night for now.

I also took some origanum cuttings and planted them the same way. Apparently this should work equally well. My origanum plants actually produce more than I need, but perhaps my colleague would like some. Besides, the more the merrier I say.

Stolen Bell Peppers

While I was at it, I decided to also sow some of the bell-pepper seed I saved from a store-bought red-pepper. This is probably a bad idea for two reasons:

  1. You won’t know what you’re gonna get, because commercial peppers are frequently hybrids.
  2. Commercial peppers may not be ripe enough to contain viable seed.

At least I did the “right” thing by using a red pepper, since red peppers should be riper. In any case, its just for fun and the seeds didn’t cost me anything, so let’s see what happens!

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs and More Damn Bugs

Aphids (I’m pretty sure that’s what they are now) seem to have a voracious appetite for my tatsoi plants. While the organic pestecide spray I’m using is definitely killing them, they come back with distressing regularity. I did at least witness the effectiveness of the spray first hand tonight; it seems to kill the aphids within minutes.

Anyhoo, good night and go well!

Neilen Marais / bell pepper, insecticide, origanum, pests, propagation & thyme

26 January 2010 | 3 comments

Quick update: Marigolds and organic bugspray

Just a quick update. Yesterday after a fun day kloofing at Rivier sonder end (more info), I got home and noticed that my recently sown Marigolds have germinated. Still waiting for the chives to get going though.

Also a follow up on old Ludewig’s organic garlicy insecticide spray. It seems to be working. The following morning I still noticed some evil looking white thingies walking around, but yesterday and today there does not seem to be anything. Will still re-apply tomorrow or the day after though.

Neilen Marais / germinated, insecticide, marigolds, pests & plantings

23 January 2010

Bugs and garlic. Two counts of garlic

Something is eating my Tsatsoi and Cos lettuce that I had planted before. I’m fighting them with garlic (and other stuff), and also planing some. The Tsatsoi are quite new, bought seedlings at the same time I made my self-watering buckets, while I planted the Cos lettuce from seedlings a while ago. Actually they never thrived, and I got hardly anything to show for them, but it’s been fun so far.

Keep reading→

Neilen Marais / garlic, insecticide, pests & plantings

20 January 2010