The Journal of Tim Roberts

Those pesky little thrips hit my tomatoes, lettuce, corriander and chilies. All I have been able to do so far is to try the tiniest bit of washing up liquid in water and spray them a couple of times. Coupled with the removal of bad leaves this seems to be doing the trick, but for how long - who knows.

Saturday was a nice day so I did some planting with the kids. We put our first flowers on the terrace - which is pretty ironic as after my comments whilst watching Monty Don doing his stuff on the BBC on Friday night: “I don’t think I could get into floral gardening”. It is nice to have something in amongst all the green. I’m not sure what the flowers were as we left the kids to their own devices in the garden center. Their brief was most certainly pink and blue - which was achieved.

The rest of the planting involved repotting some of the 30 cherry tomato seedlings as they are starting to overcrowd each other. Additionally I set down some “Tears of Fire” seeds and “Tabasco” that I got from a supplier in Tenerife. I chose these more over look than usefulness. The Tears of Fire produce small plants with a few small, shiny, brilliant red round peppers. The Tabasco should give me bushier plants with small yellow and red peppers that grow upwards. The trend in the terrace garden, then, seems to be towards more vibrant colours for the summer.

Yesterday I got to the bottom of what was causing the white spots on my basil: thrips. Nasty little things that cause the white spots and defecate on the the underside of the leaves. I found all the symptoms after advice from a growers forum and then I came face to face with the little beast - squished. This morning I found another one - squished. Now I just need to figure out how to get rid of them so my basil can continue on pest free.

Update: After much deliberation and forum trawling I opted for spraying the plants with a teaspoonful of washing up liquid mixed with a pint of water. All I have to do now is wait and see.