There are significantly fewer ants in the garden area, and where there were bright yellow aphids before there are now brown, dead aphids. One ant-run aphid farm destroyed. Success!

Also, there were three Ladybugs on the cucumbers today, so hopefully they will pick up any of the aphids I missed and stick around a while. These are the first Ladybugs I have seen in the wild in a really long time. Looks like I am running a pretty healthy and natural garden. More success!

Sure, my garden hasn’t been producing much in the way of edibles yet, but it has been a learning experience. Learning more about gardening and proving I could do it on my own without the help and advice of my parents and grandparents (and 4-H and FFA advisers) was at least 50% of my reason for wanting to do it. Besides, everything is abloom now, so maybe if the weather continues to stay cooler than 100 degrees every day, I might still end up with a good crop of tasty vegetables. I haven’t given up yet.

Additionally, the mailman came while I was out puttering in the front yard, and he declared my yard the best one on the street. That’s not really saying much, because our yard is not all that wonderful, what with the rogue pecan trees the squirrels keep plantin in the front flowerbed and the nasty Bermuda grass and weeds trying to take over the lawn, but, if I do say so myself, our yard is nicer than the rest on our street. After we mow this weekend, I’ll go down the street a ways and get a photo of the whole yard (nasty front flowerbed included).

Nothing else much going on today. I got to the store super early this morning, and my list of things to do has just about nothing on it. Odd feeling. Once I get the dishes done and do a little more work on those paying projects, I am declaring it the weekend. This week has felt both long and short at the same time. It seemed like the weekend would never get here, but it also seems like I didn’t really do much of anything all week. I hate weeks like that. But the weekend is here now, so the laziness can begin! Well, after I do the dishes and a little more work on those paying projects, that is.

Just a reminder, to anyone who cares, Stargate Atlantis starts back up tonight. Can’t wait! I also can’t wait to see the new episode of Dr. Who. It’s been really good lately. I still can’t stand the new traveling companion, but the stories have been very good.

The local bee population was having a party among my cucumbers today. There were many more than the three I usually see every morning, and there were a wide variety of different kinds of bees. I even had a bumblebee, and I haven’t seen one of those in years. Thanks to the recent influx of bees, it looks like I will also be having an influx of cucumbers. There are now too many cucumbers on the vines to bother counting. Go bees!

There are also ants on my cucumber vines. They aren’t farming aphids, which I know they do. They just seem to be walking around on the leaves and stems like it’s some sort of ant highway. They don’t seem to be doing anything at all other than walking around. I take that back. When I went outside to move the sprinkler on the lawn, I looked again at my poor ant-highway cucumbers. They are, in fact, farming aphids. I found a bunch of aphids on the back sides of the lower leaves. At first, I thought they were tiny yellow eggs of some other nasty bug out to kill my plants, and came in to look that up online. The next time I went out to move the sprinkler, I took both my camera and my magnifying glass. Not eggs at all, but rather those little yellow specks are Oleander Aphids. Ugh.

I cut off the leaves with the worst of them, since they were old leaves on the bottom and in the shade and not doing a whole lot for the plants anyway. I also poured a gallon on boiling hot salt water down the ants’ nest. I guess tomorrow I will find yet another empty spray bottle and mix up a soap solution to spray the damn aphids with. I swear most of the time I spend with my garden these days is with a spray bottle of some sort in my hand spritzing some concoction or another on the leaves. Growing stuff without chemicals or poisons is a huge amount of work, and there isn’t a natural or organic solution to every problem. I wouldn’t exactly call spraying plants with soapy water to be terribly organic or natural, but at least it isn’t something that’s going to kill 150 kinds of bugs, including the ones I like, as all the bug poisons at Home Depot tout themselves doing.

Though I will be buying some kind of poison to kill ants. Normally, I don’t have a problem with there being ants around, other than fire ants, but there are two nests under the pavement of the driveway, and they are far too close to the porch and house. If I can find the boric acid I know I have somewhere, I’ll use that, but otherwise, there will be some kind of ant poison being applied soon. Maybe the boiling water I plan to pour on them several more times today will give them the idea that moving would be a good idea, but I’m sure they don’t want to move away from their aphid farm. Grrr.

The rest of the garden is looking fine. Better than ever really. There seem to be a number of tomatoes coming out on Mr. Stripy, and all three of the Sugar Snack tomatoes are now supported with yarn off that one hook on the porch roof and look like they will all be getting loads of tomatoes soon. Still lots of blooms on the peppers but no visible peppers yet. All the same, the plants are looking much better in their new flowerbed home, so there’s still hope.

Now that I have spent several hours looking at, reading about, and trying to kill various tiny bugs, I have the sensation of really tiny bugs crawling all over me, even though there isn’t anything there. I’m going to go take a shower to get rid of that awful feeling. It’s driving me crazy!

Apparently the only thing that was hot at all about that jalapeño last night was the seeds and membranes I had handled.

I gave it to Lin. He took a big bite of the cleaned and processed pepper. I winced and waited for him to start getting red in the face or reaching frantically for the glass of milk, and none of that happened. He then told me to take a bite. I determined I could trust him when he said it wasn’t hot, because surely he wouldn’t allow me to take a bite of a pepper that was really, really hot. So I took a tiny little bite, cringing while I did so.

Nothing. No heat at all. It was so “mild” it tasted just like a bell pepper. In fact, that bell pepper we had a few weeks ago was far, far hotter than the jalapeño.

It had a great flavor though! I do hope we get some more of them. With the next one, I will try removing only the seeds and leaving some of the membrane, so it will have some heat. I mostly planted those for Lin, and he was a little disappointed with its complete lack of anything resembling heat.

Lin and I have performed our mutual poisoning ritual with that ugly tomato of mine, each taking a bite at the same time so we both get grossed out or die. I am pleased to announce the ugliness of the outside of that Mr. Stripy did not extend to the inside.

Meaty, juicy, sweet with a nice tart after-bite. Oh how I hope we get at least a few more of those! It is one tasty tomato!

Today’s harvest includes a collection of mutant tomatoes and that one lonely jalapeño, all of which will be consumed with tonight’s dinner. I grew it, and we will damn well eat it!

If it’s going to be that humid outside, it could just rain. At least rain makes things nice and cool, unlike the humidity. It’s really, really awful out there. I’m going to stay indoors until sunset … unless it does decide to rain. Then I’ll sit on the porch and enjoy it with a nice cup of coffee.

In other news, my tomato plants are all blooming like crazy. Hopefully some of these blooms will turn into actual tomatoes. The pepper plants I transplanted into the flowerbed are also covered in blooms, and there are now three cucumbers filling out. Also the lone tomato on Mr. Stripy is almost completely ripe, and I’ll be snipping it off tonight to let it finish up in the kitchen. It is, by far and away, the ugliest tomato ever, but I’m going to eat it anyway, provided it is edible.

Time to crank the air conditioning (bills be damned), do the dishes and take out the trash, and then … art.

The Trumpet Vine has been transplanted into a larger pot. It was well past time to do so. Not only was it in a rather small clay pot, and half the pot was filled with stones … for drainage. I don’t know where my mom learned how to plant things in pots, but she didn’t learn it from her gardening addicted father. Poor plant! It barely had any dirt at all!

It was all root-bound, and at first I didn’t even noticed there were any stones or the usual square of window screen she always puts in the bottom over the hole, because the plants roots had incorporated all of it. By the time I worked out all the stones and the screening, the root ball was half the size I thought it was. It’ll be happy in it’s new pot for quite a while, I think.

But then I did a stupid, stupid thing! I carried it over to the watering hose to give it a good soak, and when I picked it up to put it back on the porch, my big dumb foot was standing on the long vine that had been growing the last two months. It ripped right off! How stupid and clumsy! In the end, it was probably for the best anyway, since I did do a little damage to the roots and probably needed to get rid of a small branch. Still makes me angry though, because the vine was so nifty. Oh well, I’m sure it’ll grow another one eventually.

When I got back in I did some reading up on Trumpet Vines to see what sort of conditions they like. As it turns out, I have been treating it just right by keeping it on the porch in semi-shade and not watering it every day. Then I read all the negative commentary about this plant, and now knowing how invasive it can be, I am worried about it taking over the yard. I’d just let it die or give it away to someone who wants to deal with a plant that grows like crazy and destroys everything it grows on, but unfortunately, this plant has sentimental value.

My Trumpet Vine is a clipping from my mom’s Trumpet Vine, which is a clipping from the huge and ancient Trumpet Vine in my grandfather’s garden. He loved that vine dearly. We all did. Many a summer night was spent sitting on the back porch and watching the butterflies and humming birds enjoying the flowers. Every time I see a Trumpet Vine, I am immediately transported back to my childhood and my grandfather’s garden. Those were some strange and wonderful times.

The people that bought the house when he passed away wasted no time at all tearing out the vine (and my grandfather’s whole garden — and the 200 year old oak tree), and so my mom’s and mine are the only surviving remnants of a bygone time. They are sort of a memorial to Pap’O, and whenever I see mine, I feel like Pap’O is right there with me in the garden. So I can’t very well let it die or give it away. It wouldn’t feel right.

All the same, it seems like a very bad plant to plant anywhere it could grow freely and destroy things like trees, fences, and houses. I don’t know how Pap’O kept his in line, but I imagine pruning it daily was one of the things he did when he spent all those hours outside tending his plants. His was beautifully shaped, and I don’t remember it destroying or killing anything … or anyone ever complaining about it being a nuisance.

With my new knowledge about this plant, there isn’t really anywhere in the yard I dare plant it in the ground. We have too many trees and things for it to climb on and rip apart, and we already have invasive bamboo too. I don’t need another plant trying to take over the world with my yard as a starting point. Not even a beautiful plant with sentimental value. So now I think I’ll just keep moving it up into larger pots, and someday I’ll get it its very own large planter with a fancy trellis.

Now that I think about it, that’s probably a good idea anyway, seeing as I don’t ever want to lose the plant. If it’s in a pot of some sort, I can move it out of harm’s way during storms, and if we ever move, I can take it with me rather than just making a clipping from it.

Still peeved with myself for ripping off its one long vine though. I try to do something good and right, and of course, it gets screwed up somehow. Ugh.