Garden Fail...for now

            It is that time of the year when people get their gardening on and yards are full of pretty flowers and yummy vegetables growing. Growing up in a country where agriculture is so important, I was NEVER interested in learning or doing any gardening myself. 
I never realized how accessible and cheap fruits and vegetables were until I moved to this country. Oh how I miss walking outside and completely ignoring the bunches of bananas growing on the tree, the bunches of oranges looking so pretty and the tons of mangoes just laying on the grass waiting to be gathered. I doubt I would ignore then anymore! I would probably be adding up in my head the money I was saving on buying produce. Thankfully, every now and then you can find good sales on fruits and veggies but I am jealous when my mother tells me over the phone about her 3 pineapples (peeled and cut in front of you) for 2 dollars, 10 mangoes for a dollar , 20 bananas for a dollar....I could go on but I won't!
When I moved to Alabama several years ago, I learned that the spring is THE TIME to get your garden in tip top shape and I was easily swayed by all the excitement and sales surrounding veggie plants, flowers and bulbs. My first year was a complete disaster, between the heat being awful and my failure to remember to water my plants, it was money down the drain. The following year I was sold by the Topsy Turvy infomercials and got a few of them. They sure looked pretty around the deck but they were not what I expected. I guess I shouldn't say it was a complete disaster since I did harvest 2 tomatoes, 1 green pepper and 2 yellow squashes * insert eye roll here*.
Back to this year's garden. I spent quite a few days  hours browsing Pinterest for gardening ideas that I considered were up to my kind of slow speed. I decided that after our dogs ate all our veggies last year, maybe container gardening would have a chance. The way I saw it, I could spy on them through the window and keep them from getting in trouble. I didn't want to spend bunches in case it was a disaster AGAIN. So I used up plastic bins I had bought on mega clearance a while ago and drilled holes in them for the excess water to come out. I also read about using packing peanuts, bunched newspaper, pieces of cardboard at the bottom in order to keep you from using tons of dirt.
I thought this would be my year for great gardening results. Everything has been looking great and I even have 7 tomatoes and 5 peppers thriving ( yes, I count them every day). I also have planted summer squash, zucchini and broccoli. The gardener spirit moved me with the broccoli, as I looked at the plants I thought it would be awesome to just go out and cut broccoli right from my deck. I really should blame this broccoli salad recipe that tasted soooo good that it had me wanting to have an unlimited supply of fresh broccoli.
The broccoli was the slowest of all my plants, I thought it was not going to make it when all of a sudden it turned yellow and didn't seems to be growing at all. Pinterest came to the rescue when I read that Epsom salts might give them a little boost and get them going. After a few days and some rain, they started growing at a fast pace and had me imagining big broccoli heads ready to be cut. Sadly, my happiness was short lived when one morning I discovered this :

Holes in Swiss Cheese are a good thing. Holes in your broccoli leaves not so much!

I was so sad to see my beautiful plants all eaten up. I kept thinking it was ants or some other critter. I even wanted to blame my dog children but I know Gracie would have eaten up the whole thing and knocked everything down in the process. I talked to my mom about it and since she considers herself an expert on everything plant related she diagnosed it as the green  worms ( or gusanos verdes as she would say ;) ). I somehow went back a few ( maybe 15 or so) years back to my teenage years ( of knowing better than the 'rents) and of course told her it couldn't be any kind of worms that she was completely wrong. I proceeded to do my own research online and there on the first result it was. The horrors of the larvae born from the eggs left by white butterflies. I was totally taken back a few weeks when I commented on the pretty white butterflies on our deck. I kept thinking how odd it was that I had never seen them before and decided it was a sign of the greatness that would become my garden. I should have known better and I should have listened to my mom ( oh, how many times have I said that since becoming an adult? anyway, I digress).

After diagnosing my poor plants, I looked up the treatment. It seems most people agree that squishing the worms is the best thing to do. How do you know you squished them right you ask? the goo inside will be darker green than the actual worm. Can we say YUCK? I vowed right there at 1:45 am that I would NOT do any squishing and proceeded to order some organic stuff that has gotten great reviews from amazon. Gotta love the prime shipping! 

This morning I decided to examine my plants and see if I actually had any worms. I needed to see it for myself ( and make sure I had any while I could still cancel my order). The yucky green worms hide beneath the leaves during the day when they are not eating. It didn't take me long to find this :

Not the best picture, but you can see the whole group right there. I bet they were tired after  eating so much!

I was in utter shock at how many worms there are. I think that every other plant has some. You cannot see them from the top so I would have never known. I don't think I will be in the running for gardener of the year anytime soon. I have two days until my organic  Safer-Brand BT shows up, it is people and dog friendly. I wanted to make sure that we would still be able to eat out broccoli after it got healthy.  Apparently, the way it works is that the bacteria actually paralyzes the worm rendering it unable to feed itself, so it goes bye bye.  I still have hopes that my garden will succeed this year. I will update once I have started curing it and let you know how it turns out.

For those of you wondering, I couldn't help but squish a few worms. Curiosity got the best of me! I used the leaf to squish them and yes their insides are darker shade of green so I know I got them good. Worm Squishing...NAILED IT!

Definitely not a great gardener or picture taker ha! but you can see the yucky green innards I squished out!