Day 53... Warm Temps = Growth. Aphids.

 It has been a week and the weather has been warm.  Warm weather and sunshine in a aquaponics garden equals GROWTH.  I'm harvesting ruffled lettuce at six inches high.  I've had 3 big salads out of that.  The bibb (boston) lettuce is almost ready to start picking.  The leaves are thicker and greener than the ruffled lettuce.

The red beans have 3" by 3" leaves and the plants are about a foot and a half tall.  The beans are making a canopy over the strawberry and the lettuce plants that I moved around.  I'm planning a trellis to attach them to.

The growth spurt by the tomatoes was almost as impressive as the red beans.  Three of the four plants have started flowering.


The banana peppers are 6 to 8" tall and have LOTS of flowers, but no fruit yet.

The chili peppers are taking their time... 6 plants from seed and the largest is 1" tall.


Aphids.
Okay. The bell pepper has a problem.  What I thought was dirt left over from the original transplanting was actually aphid waste.  I noticed lady bugs the other day.  The article I read about aphids said that lady bugs can eat a 1000 aphids a day.

I have a ziplock bag full of cayenne peppers in the freezer from last year.  I chopped up about 12 of them, put them in a old small sock and tied off the end of the sock. I filled a jar full of water, put the sock in it and put it in the microwave for 2 minutes on high, 3 minutes of medium.  After the back steeped for a bit, I put the water and some dishwashing liquid in a small sprayer.

The recommendation is to hose off the plants with as hard a spray as you can.  Let the plants drip dry for a bit and spray again.  After the next drip dry, spray the tops and bottoms of the leaves and the stems with the cayenne water.  I had to be careful not to mace myself.

I sprayed everything except the lettuce.  I'll spray again tomorrow and the next day.