Brian Spencer, Applied Bionomics, says that ladybugs try to take care of their own young so they leave food (i.e. aphids) behind for the ladybug young to eat. The hatching larvae need something right away so the adults leave the leaf before they eat all the aphids.
With inbreeding, it doesn’t matter if you are a royal or a dog or a tomato. Disease builds up and weak traits multiply. With tomatoes the roots are susceptible to disease and are smaller; fewer fruits are formed and plants are feeble. Its no surprise. We have been breeding from the same few original plants for 200 years.
Perhaps I am a slow learner or maybe I just haven’t taken the time to look around before now. Yesterday I realized anything blooming and thriving in a public space in Qualicum Beach is – by definition- deer proof.
It is early days yet but the tomato competition is heating up as fruits ripen early in the greenhouse. The same varieties planted outdoors are no where near ready but that’s why I built the greenhouse. Okay if you get technical my husband built it – but why be so picky? The early birds come from the greenhouse, not from the sunny, south facing back yard right up against the house.
This season I am bragging about my bigger than yours pumpkin patch. The patch is in the front yard where a view-blocking hedge was ripped out this spring. The “patch” is now spilling over the bank and threatening to cross the road. And just to set the record straight it is not all pumpkins. There are butternut squash, spaghetti squash, watermelons and zucchini as well as pumpkins in one giant – by town standards – patch.
On June 21, 2013 the Elbow river breached it’s banks and began flooding into the lovely inner city neighbourhoods of Calgary, included my previous residence. Water and mud were up to the middle of the garage doors in the back alley and residents were evacuated.
