The summer is near a close here in Arizona and its time to step up a notch in your garden. The majority of the summer consisted of keeping the plants alive in this treacherous heat, which consisted of just watering mostly and making sure that the plants do not get stressed out from lack there of.
One element that I ran into this summer (be it a nasty little creature) is the dreaded green garden worm, or should I say WORMS, meaning many many worms.
Not ever having a garden before this year, I was totally surprised at how difficult, once infested, that they are to get rid of. The hard part was not to use any insecticides that would cause issues later, and I had to find a solution that was... well... natural. I had heard to use red pepper on the leaves to just when you find one... kill it.
Well, I cant claim that my strategic method that I had created over the summer really works or not, and nor can I tell if there is any long term damage (meaning through the growing season to harvest here in December) that has been inflicted on my mini crop. I guess time will tell.
Oh back to the Shelly Method of Green Worm Capture and Disposal... I had found that by keeping an eye on the garden (yes once in the morning and once before dusk) I would go out and investigate any leaves that looked like they had been munched upon and I would pluck the leaf if not the entire leave cluster. And 8 out of 10 times sure enough the rascal would be right under the leaf. Well, you know what happens after that! el Squisherooo!
I have found that in the mornings when it is cool... I would shake the plants and every-now-and-then one or two would fall to the ground. But the best way was to seek... capture... and destroy.
If anyone has any better solutions to this dreaded little problem… please feel free to comment.
Till Next Log...
Shelly
