Insect/pest control

Here are a few handy tips to save your plants from insects and pests.
Our spinach plants were suddenly getting yellow and drying off. Many of the green ones had holes in them, as if being eaten by some bug.
We found out that most probably its a Leaf Miner attack! Leaf miner is a fly like insect which drops its eggs on plant leaves. From these eggs come larvae which feed on our plants. Plants like spinach are very prone to such insects.
We did not want to buy harmful pesticides from market which even though many claim to be organic, harmless, result guaranteeing, etc.
So these are the steps we took to save our spinach plants:
1. Pinch off all the infected leaves. Even if there seems to be little white specs on the leaves, they need to be removed.
In the initial stage, if you see just the white specs, you can brush them off with hands and let the leaf stay
However if you realize this late, its best to abandon all infected leaves.
2. Do not drop pinched off leaves close to the ground as it may still contain larvae and they might breed in your soil. Trash them.
3. Use a natural insecticide. I found garlic spray very effective.
Steps to make Garlic spray:
- Add about 3 tablespoons of chopped garlic (or about 2 bulbs) to 1 cup hot water and let it stay over night.
- Next day, strain the liquid.
- You can add additional components like crushed pepper, liquid dishwasher soap, vegetable oil to the liquid and spray to your garden.
You can use this as a natural insecticide for many plants in your garden.
Make sure you store the remaining spray in your refrigerator as it tends to go bad like any other food item.

This seems to be working for me. My plants are coming back to life after losing many of their leaves. Though the progress is slow, there are no more dried or infected leaves in my plant.

Do share if you have more natural insect/pest control remedy.
Happy Gardenig! 

Initial results of organic farming : 16th June 2013

We planted 4 Roma tomato plants, 1 disease resistant hybrid tomato plant, one cherry tomato plant and we grew one  tomato plant grown from seed. All the plants except cherry tomato were planted by about April end. Now in one and a half months all the tomato plants grew to almost 1 and half feet tall. So as they grew we had to replant them in bigger containers to give them more space to grow as well as provide support in the form of a small fence around the planter to protect the plants from wind. So we still enjoy watching them grow taller and taller and a few weeks ago they already started giving flowers, beautiful yellow flowers in all the tomato plants. And once the flower forms in a few weeks each of them transforms to a little tomato.  

We already have about 10-15 tomatos at different stages of growth in our 5 tomato plants. The plant that grew from seed is in the fast growth stage. 

So as these grows up and get ripe enough to pluck i am assuming that they will turn color to red. From the look of it, in a few weeks from now we will have about 10 tomato's ready to be plucked. And there is a great satisfaction in knowing that we havnt put any fertilizer for getting crazy productivity from these and is perfectly organic. I can only wonder how much chemicals end up in our body, when i see rows of chemical fertilizers in stores promising 10 times more productivity if you put those chemicals in your vegetable farm. For a farmer who is trying to make profit i would assume those chemical fertilizers will be very attractive and they will use it without thinking how that will impact the soil or those who eat the vegetables grown from their farm. 

The cherry tomato plant was planted about 3 weeks before along with a greek basil plant and already it started flowering and some flowers have already started transforming into cherry tomatos.  

So if you read this blog untill now and is finding this interesting and need some directions for starting up a little veggie garden in your back patio, drop us an email and we will be delighted to give some pointers from our experience.