homealone

We have a small rose garden filled with different varieties of roses. My husband loves looking at the roses and I really think he’s more obsessed with them than I am! I do a lot of deadheading and fertilizing, etc but lately, I noticed some of the leaves have been eaten, some with just holes, some were completely eaten! I thought they were just snails but I did not find any slimy trails. I left it a few days and the roses were starting to really deteriorate. I looked more closely and noticed these light green little bugs under the leaves! I think they’re aphids! We found a ladybug and placed it on a bud infested with aphids and whoa! watch that lady [bug] kill/eat ‘em all! I think we’re gonna get more ladybugs…

The only thing that I do around the house lately aside from the occasional real work that I do, is tend to my garden. I transplanted a few bell pepper and tomato plants and they’re all doing fine. I also have  a basil plant that had been blooming flowers but the whole plant doesn’t look good. I wanted to keep the blooms because I often see bees around them and you know me and the bees, i want to preserve them as much as possible. Anyway, I did a little research on how to grow basil. Turned out that you should preven the basil from blooming for as long as possible, by harvesting or pinching off the top sets of leaves as soon as the plant reaches about 6″ in height. If the plant sets flowers, it is on its way to going to seed and will not be bushing out with leaves. Once a basil plant goes to seed, the existing leaves lessen in flavor.  Yikes! I cut off all the flowers. We’ll see if my basil recovers.