The Bare Garden Continued

I have three bell pepper plants this year and they have grown very slowly. I have not even seen a single fruit on the bell pepper plants. I am going to put them in a different location next year along with more manure.

This year, I have not had an issue with aphids. Since last year, I have been spraying Volck horticulture spray on all the fruit trees in my yard. Last year, I had a lot of aphids on my trees which then spread to the garden. This year, there are no aphids (that I can see) on my trees. Another thing that "bugged" me last year was the June Bugs. I have an apricot tree in my yard and last year I had a ton of june bugs eating the apricots. I didn't get a single apricot because of these bugs. I had put up a japanese beetle catcher and I had put some of the rotten fruit in the bag. I placed the bag on the opposite side of the yard and I did catch a lot of them but like some people say, it just attracts all the bugs in the neighborhood. This year I was more aggressive with killing the june bug larvae when I came across them in the garden soil. So far, I have seen only one june bug, which I promptly killed. However, the apricot tree has only a few fruits and they are still small and green.

Last week, I noticed the pickle cucumber plant also started getting powdery mildew so I saturated those leaves with Neem oil. I noticed that several pickle cucumbers are round and yellow. From what I read, this means that I need left them on the plant too long and they have turned yellow. I am not sure how that explains why they are round. Maybe they are not getting enough water.

The Jalapenos are doing ok. This plant over-wintered from last year and has been slow growing this year.