Ladybugs LOVE Aphids!

Yesterday I went down to the local gardening center and picked up a bag of ladybugs.  My pepper plants were just covered in little white bugs.  Either aphids or white flies, I'm not 100% sure which, but either way they are destructive.  So at dusk yesterday evening, I released the ladybug brigade on my pests.  And it worked amazingly!  Upon review today, I didn't see a single aphid!  Well, there were 1,500 ladybugs after those aphids, after all!

So now my beautiful sweet pepper can continue to grow in relative peace.  My tomatoes were not yet effected by the pests that I could tell, but I have faith that my beautiful ladybugs will continue to do a proper job of guarding my garden.

Oh, and since I'm here, I might as well show you my squash in process!  Que bueno, si?

I love Ladybugs!

The First Tomato of the Season!

Yeah for the first tomato of the season!

This is my Patio Tomato and you've gotta love that the smallest of plants produced the first fruits of the season.  Here's one to the little guy!

 But Patio Tomato isn't the only one producing.. All of my plants have either blooms galore or tomatoes in progress or BOTH!  As is the case with my cherry tomatoes below.  You can only see a few tomatoes in this picture, but there are a good hand full of small cherries on this one!

And below is a pic of some of MANY blooms on my Sweet 100 Tomatoes.  I'm so excited!

 

Ok, I obviously love tomatoes.  But lets see what else is in the garden.  How about squash?  Yes!  I have some of that!  And there are hidden blooms on this too.  But seriously, look how big its grown!  It now sits on the opposite fence with my Ace 55 Tomato.  These two over grew the buckets somewhat and I separated them to let them grow more and get more sunshine.  I had to open up the whole garden, really.  Love my Bucket Garden!  So very versatile!

Let's not forget about the peppers, either!  I have one small pepper growing on my sweet pepper plant and LOTS of blooms on all 3 peppers.  You might can see the pepper in the pic below.  It's a bit small, but towards the top, right side.  Can you see it?

Let's talk food...

I have my plants in the buckets and they're growing quite well. Now, how do I sustain and support continued growth and productivity? Well, I asked my local garden center that exact question. I really am new to this gardening thing and need as much expert advice as I can get! I think I lucked out, the guy in the fertilizer area of the garden center (Holland Gardens on 50th St in Lubbock, for those interested) happens to also be a Container Gardener. He shared a few of his winning ideas, so I'm now here to share them with you!

Our first discussion was 'organics'. He introduced me to Tomato-tone by Espoma. Now, I don't only have tomatoes, but thought I'd buy some Tomato-tone anyway, since it is the majority and most important item in my garden. I bought one small bag... and will be buying more next week! This is good stuff! I actually had issues with my tomatoes early on and went back to the garden center for help. I was advised to "double up on dosage with the Tomato-tone. You can't over fertilize with organics!" So my application has been about 1/2 cup of Tomato-tone per 5 gallon bucket, less for smaller containers, every 2 weeks. My plants really love this.  I'll back off again after this next dose, reducing from 2 week intervals to a monthly dosage.

Next, he suggested a product that is not organic, but seems to be quite marvelous, still the same! He suggested Ferti-Lome's Blooming and Rooting Soluble Plant Food. I water with this probably 3 times a week. It's suggested to used daily, but I'm too lazy for that! I don't always use my fabulous watering can, most days it's just the hose. But I make sure to periodically use the can so I can add my bloom support.The combination of these two products has really provided a great boost to my garden! My tomato and pepper blooms haven't fallen off since I began using these, as they were falling off prior to use. Peppers are showing the beginnings of too many blooms to count and tomatoes... Likewise! It's impossible to know which is best for the plants, as I've been using both for almost a month now and they all seem to be so much healthier than they were prior to use! I'm thrilled with what I've got going right now. See.... My Garden GROWS! Remember how I pinched off the bottom leaves of Lemon Boy last month? Well, he's really grown a lot since then. He's green-ed up well! What you can't see very well in this picture, is he has a lot of blooms and several small tomatoes in process. As well as one tomato of about 1/2 dollar size! He's not the only one, though. All of my tomatoes now have lots of blooms and all but the Sweet 100s (which are younger than the rest) have several small tomatoes in process as well! So exciting... :)