I talked a local greenhouse into ordering a few bay laurels (Laurus nobilis) for me, we use bay leaf as a main spice in our house and I got tired of the ridiculous price of dried bay at the grocery store. To my delight, these plants are thriving, as long as we bring them in before the first hard freeze. Around here that can be early to mid September. Bay laurel is an evergreen that goes dormant in the winter, and fresh-dried bay leaves can be as potent as half a bottle of store bought junk.
I've never in all my growing years had any pest issues beyond cabbage worms in the broccoli and one season of Colorado potato beetles. This one blindsided me. We brought the bay laurel in only a couple weeks ago (third super nice and mild Fall in a row! Yay Global Warming!!!), and yesterday morning I discover "fuzz" on the stems....Then I took a closeup pic and realized the gag-reflex-triggering reality:
Mealy bugs. The more I inspected, the more I found. They got this bad in just a couple weeks after being brought indoors. So I did a little reading and found that they may have had everything to do with the early demise of my tomato plants this year.
I found a home-brew biodegradable insecticide recipe and made about a gallon of it (may have use again next season on the tomatoes). This Dawn dish soap brew is supposed to be effective against a myriad of beetles, aphids and scales, so now I'm armed. These particular critters latch on to the plant and literally suck the life out of them. Fortunately I discovered them at an early stage. My tomatoes didn't fare so well...
Thought I'd share, so some who are as ignernt as I are more informed....
I've never in all my growing years had any pest issues beyond cabbage worms in the broccoli and one season of Colorado potato beetles. This one blindsided me. We brought the bay laurel in only a couple weeks ago (third super nice and mild Fall in a row! Yay Global Warming!!!), and yesterday morning I discover "fuzz" on the stems....Then I took a closeup pic and realized the gag-reflex-triggering reality:
Mealy bugs. The more I inspected, the more I found. They got this bad in just a couple weeks after being brought indoors. So I did a little reading and found that they may have had everything to do with the early demise of my tomato plants this year.
I found a home-brew biodegradable insecticide recipe and made about a gallon of it (may have use again next season on the tomatoes). This Dawn dish soap brew is supposed to be effective against a myriad of beetles, aphids and scales, so now I'm armed. These particular critters latch on to the plant and literally suck the life out of them. Fortunately I discovered them at an early stage. My tomatoes didn't fare so well...
Thought I'd share, so some who are as ignernt as I are more informed....