Pests in My Rooftop Garden

I have been busy all this while at my rooftop garden, grappling with pests from the scarry-looking-winged critters buzzing around my plants to tiny cute whiteflies underside the leaves, which I could hardly tap and another hosts of leafhoppers, aphids and leafminers. I learn that lights attract many of these insects at night, so I only turn the lights on when I head up to the rooftop to do pest inspection before going to bed. Well, yeah, I'm a pest-police. :-)

Teachers Day Commemoration

Last Monday (Dec 2nd), I was surprised by a gift and sweet letter from my tuition student, expressing her appreciation to me who's been teaching her for the last 3 years. In Indonesia we commemorate Teachers Day on every November 25th. Looking back, I realized I have never personally thanking my teachers - people who have contributed a lot into my life. I of course have several teachers who had left deep impression on me by their genuinity as many of you do. We did celebrated Teachers Day every year, we usually celebrated it with decorating the classroom, gave them flowers or a gift, but had never personally and deliberately thanked them for all they had done for us.

After teaching for several years, though it's only a private tuition, I understand how great it feels for a teacher when all you do - all the love, patience and sacrifice you have devoted to your students are being appreciated in return. I am not saying that we, teachers, are expecting strings attached, but it helps me to understand how great and at the same time humbling this would make teachers feel.

Well, I was quite surprised and flattered by her effort; staying up late to compose the letter with the touches of new vocabularies here and there (very proud of her!). I even more touched when she said I am SPECIAL to her, though she doesn't know how to express it. She bought me a water spray, saying that she thought of me when she saw the item at the shelf and how relevant it is to my new hobby of gardening. 

And as you could see, she didn't forget to put a touch on the spray to make it even more special. She MADE my day! :-) Wishing she is this sweet EVERYday! ;-D

Updates

Sorry for my absence lately... Life's been hectic and I am getting busier in my growing rooftop garden. Plus early in the morning of November 24th, my city received a downpour of volcanic ashes from Mt. Sinabung which is only 80 km away. I had to do some emergency action by moving all my tomato seedlings inside, and the next couple of days were filled with cleaning the ashes off my rooftop. Mt. Sinabung has been considered as an active stratovolcano type B which means active but not dangerous, because it has been dormant since its last eruption in 1600 but has now been considered as 'alert' since August 2010, when it started to erupt and spit out lava up to now where it has been erupting on and off. 

Many people, mostly farmers, living within 5 km around the mountain were evacuated to safer places/shelters. It was also reported about last week that the heavy downpour had send out cold lava which destroyed houses and farms. Praying for the indisplaced people, may this be away soon and they'll be able to go home and continue their lives a.s.a.p.

  

Apple Fritter

Today's recipe to try is Apple Fritter from BunsInMyOven

Mixed-Vegetables Stirfry

I still had some fresh bell peppers in my fridge plus other vegetables I bought this week. So, I decided to make a quick and easy stirfry of mixed-veggies.

Ingredients:
1 cup mixed-color paprika/bell pepper, chopped
1 cup sweet baby corn, chopped
2 cups white oyster mushroom, chopped
1 cup shredded purple cabbage
1 cup chopped Chinese cabbage
3 shafts leek, oblique cut
2 cloves minced garlic
1/2 cup prawn
1 cup chicken breast, cubed
2 Tbs oyster sauce
3 Tbs salted soya sauce
3 Tbs vegetable oil
2 cups water
1 Tbs sugar
1 tsp salt
ground pepper(optional)

Sweet Baby Corn, Mixed-Color Paprika, and Leeks

Mushrooms

Puple Cabbage & Chinese Cabbage

Prawns & Chicken Breast

How to:

1. Sauté garlic until it turn brown and fragrant. Stir in prawns and chicken breast. Add soya sauce and oyster sauce. Stir until the prawns and chicken breasts change color.

2. Stir in baby corn, paprika and leek. Stir for a while.

3. Add purple and Chinese cabagge.

4. And finally, add the oyster mushroom. Stir all ingredients well.

5. Add water, sugar, salt and pepper(optional). You may need to adjust the salt according to your taste (remember that the salted soya sauce and the oyster sauce will have rendered some saltiness already, so just add a little amount of salt first and try if it's already enough. Feel free to add more). Continue to cook. Let it boils for a couple of minutes until the veggies are tender. Serve with steamed rice.

Handling Leafminers

I've been noticing some squiggly white lines on my tomato leaves since last week. It started with one or two leaves, but then today, I realized it had expanded to more leaves, even to my younger seedlings! At first, I thought it was the watermark caused by careless watering, but I couldn't assuage my curiosity and decided to do some scrupulous research and was quite surprised with my findings. It's not trivial at all! 

Leafminers are actually the larval (maggot) stage of many insects such as flies, moths, sawflies and beetles. The female adult flies lay their eggs on the surface or undersides of the leaves. 

Life Cycle: Mature larvae overwinter in the soil under host plants. As temperatures warm in the spring larvae pass to the pupal stage and appear as young adults in late April. Mated females use their needle-like ovipositor to lay up to 250 eggs just under the surface of the leaf epidermis. Deposited eggs may appear as small raised spots on the leaf. Within 10 days hatching larvae tunnel through the mid-leaf tissue, feeding as they go and leaving tell-tale wavy lines that are visible on the surface. Larvae mature in 2-3 weeks, and when ready to pupate, leave the leaf and drop to the soil. Once on the ground, they dig 1-2 inches into the soil and pupate. Adults emerge within 15 days as adult flies. (snippet copied from PlanetNatural)

(The snippets below are taken from Better Homes & Gardens)
Identifying the Pest

Leafminer larvae are tiny, and somewhat flattened to fit inside a leaf. As the larvae feed, they eat the green tissue inside the leaf, leaving a thin, winding trail covered by a papery sheath. The trail may contain small brownish black pellets of insect excrement, and if you look closely you may be able to see larvae. When numerous larvae are feeding in a single leaf, their tunnels may merge, creating large blotches.

Leafminer Control

Because they're protected inside the leaf for most of their lives, it's difficult to control leafminers with insecticidal sprays. However, damage caused by the pest is seldom severe enough to justify spraying except to make the plant look better. For ornamental plants, you can spray a systemic insecticide such as acephate to kill tunneling larvae. Carbaryl, neem, or pyrethrin is effective if sprayed just as the larvae are hatching. If you see large, merged tunnels, the larvae may have already completed their life cycles, making insecticidal sprays pointless.

Control is more important for leafy vegetable crops because feeding by the leafminers damages the edible portion of the plant. Protect vegetables from egg-laying adults by covering the plants with a floating row cover. Secure the edges of the row cover to the ground so that no adults can enter. Remove and destroy affected leaves.

Host Plants

Leafminers may attack many ornamental plants. Some of the preferred hosts are:

Arborvitae
Aspen
Azalea
Birch
Bougainvillea
Boxwood
Butterfly weed
Chrysanthemum
Columbine
Cottonwood
Delphinium 
Elm
Holly
Impatiens
Juniper
Lantana
Lilac
Locust
Magnolia
Oak
Pine
Verbena
Water lily

Commonly affected food crops are Apple

Beets
Citrus
Garlic
Onion
Spinach
Swiss chard
Tomato

Liquid Enzyme from Fruit Rinds

When deciding to start organic gardening, I've been looking for ways to organically fertilize my future plants. My mom kept telling me that those plants wouldn't thrive without (inorganic) fertilizers. 

From the beginning I had persisted to only count on good amount of compost and mulch as the fertilizer agents for the soil. Compost tea is also a good fertilizer, especially from those of animals manure like cow, goat or chicken dung. I had planned on making my own compost from kitchen's organic scraps, which will be a good source of compost tea too, but I wan't ready. Then, I ran across a blog article by ThePinkieRabbit with information on how to make DIY liquid enzyme, using fruit rinds. I was ecstatic with how easy it was. Coincidently, I had some dragon fruit rinds, so I gave it a go. Then, at the other occassion I made some more out of the pineapple rinds and today I just made a bottle from some papaya rinds. I can't wait to apply these yummy liquid enzyme to the soil of my plants. 

I promise, it's super duper easy! For the recipe and how to make it please refer to the website above with just one click.

Dissolved palm sugar in 1 L tap water

New updates from my rooftop garden

My rooftop garden has gotten bigger in size as the 50 something tomato seedlings survived after being repotted and I've added a mango tree, several flowers and a citrus tree, as well as 3 pineapple crowns which I replanted from the scraps and some ginger, turmeric, galanggal, garlic, onion, and bell pepper. 

Btw, I am so happy to see my tomato seedlings are not only surviving but also growing and branching, though they are not growing into the same size. Some are growing quite fast, but some are slow. I also have given 3 seedlings to my brother's employee for adoption and have also promised to give several others to my tuition student. I am happy if they can thrive and bear fruit in the hands of their new owners. 

These 3 seedlings are bell-peppers from the seed I dried myself. Btw, I'm a little perpelexed to see these orange bell-peppers turned out to be different in forms. Maybe it has accidentally mixed with other seeds. 

Garlic started to sprout

The Citrus Tree which I bought from the market

This is the watermelon radish I replanted from the scraps.

The Cilantro I replanted from the scraps started to grow but then were deterorating and several plants eventually died of rotting roots. Probably the cause was soggy soil because it's been raining a lot lately. I should have planted them indoor though...

I planted some ginger heads from the scraps and the young shoot of this one has grown.

Can anyone of you recognize this seedling? Is it really an orange bell pepper?