Looper, The Bug, Upclose and Personal

Recently I saw the movie looper and the time travel in it was awesomely mind bending. 
Lately I've been stuck in my own version of a loop.  Every morning, I find myself picking Loopers off my tomato plant.  They are always quite fat and full of my tomato plants leaves.


As you can see, this guy has legs front and back but no legs in the middle.
 

Thus his movements look like an inchworm and give rose to the name inchworm.
 

So, this is a Looper.  They are spreading fast in my garden, but I'm also closing their loops (really bad "Looper" joke!) as fast as I can.  Who will win?

PS:  Perhaps I will put one in a jar and try to see what comes out of it's cocoon.

Recycling Containers for a Garden!

Containers can be made from anything!  Here I'm using my roommates empty Greek yogurt container.

You must poke holes in the bottom to ensure good drainage. If you twist your knife it will give the slices a bit more of a hole shape.

Once you've done that one step you may transfer or plant from seed your plant.  Here I transplanted a soy bean plant.  Soon I will have some Edamame to munch on.

Green Loopers and Leaf Miners on my Tomato Plant

Leaf Miner

Whatever is causing this commonly called a Leaf Miner which refers to many different species of insect which burrow through the insides of leaves.  In the early morning I spy small flies, the size of fruit flies, flying around my plants.  On the underside of leaves there are small greenish and angular egg pods.  I brush them off and crush them with my fingers.  I am unsure if they are related to the Leaf Miners, but appear to be in the same areas.  

The other problem I have recently encountered are the holes you can see in the leaves.  These are for sure caused by a Looper.  This is similar to an inchworm, and they are small and green.  They also always hang around the undersides of the leaves.  Given their larger size I have been pulling them off and squishing them as well.  They generally turn into Moths, but I have not seen any moths on my plants. I sometimes see very small small white moths, the size of a grain of sand, but never any larger.

So, while these problems seem like they could get out of hand, they are for now under control.  While a few leaves, like those pictured are heavily effected, but there are plenty of younger and happier looking leaves.

I will keep you updated on the bugs.  =)

Beginnings of Container Gardening on A Balcony

So, my container garden has been growing for about a month.  I live in the neighborhood of West LA which is actually a small neighborhood in the larger region of 'West LA'.  Anyways, my balcony faces West towards the setting sun, and is basically on the first floor of the building.  It gets sun in the mid afternoon to evening. 


As you can see, I have collected a lot of my containers from random places.  Most are water and juice containers that I cut the top off of and put holes in.  I also have a couple cardboard boxes that I am using as well and those seem to be working just fine.  I think that my only problem with the cardboard is that I haven't found deeper ones yet.



Here you can see, from back to front, soy beans, two small pepper sprouts, Chinese Parsley (cilantro), a pole bean on the left and a small broccoli on the right.  All of these have been grown from seed!  I was very surprised how easy the seeds were.  The only ones who didn't sprout were the Cilantro (as opposed to the "Chinese Parsley (cilantro)" which are doing great as you can see).

So, below is my tomato plant.  It is giving me the most problems as it has become infested with two different bugs.  Inchworms and Miner Flies.

My carrots are doing amazingly well, but they are very dense, I will need to thin them out soon.

My Chives, Chard and Arugula are probably the healthiest of all my plants.

These are a few of my pole beans which are beginning to climb up the twine I put out for them.  They have had some problems as you can see from pests, but I think now that they are on their way up they will be doing much better.

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