Hotter Than a Blister Bug in a Pepper Patch

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I ran across this saying when I was looking on the internet for a descriptive phrase for the heat that didn't contain any cuss words. The operative words are "blister" and  "pepper." That's pretty hot. However, as it turns out, we did have an infestation of blister bugs on our eggplants last week. This heat has stressed all the plants and made them susceptible to infestations by insects. Overnight the blister beetles consumed all the leaves on four plants. An application of diatomaceous earth seemed to take care of those little critters. And the eggplants are making a bit of a comeback. 

We have seen an influx of critters looking for a fresh bite of anything the last few weeks. The garden has fed us all summer and now it's feeding the critters. 

The deer have been disregarding our magic fishing line fence and having nourishing nibbles of the jalapenos and the peanuts. 

 So we are trying one more fix. We've put up another short fence of colorful twine thirty inches from the fishing line fence. It's supposed to confuse the deer. They supposedly have bad depth perception. We'll see.

They tried to eat the sweet potatoes, but I covered the row with bird netting, and now the sweet potatoes are doing just fine.

The netting is, however, a grasshopper trap. They always seem to find a way out, but they look funny hopping around under the net. Speaking of grasshoppers, I ran across something I had never seen before in the garden this afternoon. A leaf on the eggplant was covered with little baby grasshoppers. 

 

I took the leaf in to Robert and he took some amazing photos of the little creatures. Check out his post on Facebook.

The basil continues to thrive.

 Mainly we are spending our time in the garden, in the early morning and late evening (not in the blisterbug pepper patch afternoon), getting ready for the fall garden. We've got our work cut out for us. The Bermudagrass has taken over the rows where the tomatoes were.

 I have some tomato plants, pumpkin plants, jalapenos, sunflowers, and squash ready to go in.

 
 

A few things couldn't wait on our preparations. The watermelons and zinnias just planted themselves.




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