It's going to be Haaaht and HUUUMID!

 Overnight there was a small tropical storm , monsoon if  you will and it sprinkled everything with just enough water to not do much. I went down to the garden to see what things looked like and nothing bothered the 'mulched' bed but the plants did not look happy.

Despite the wilt the ground had plenty of moisture. This is a prime example of what I mentioned before. Always check the soil first.

Plenty of moisture

So nothing bothered the soil and the zucchini is looking good, still no sign of another one. Drat. Going to do the soil test today and see if it has the same composition as the other bed. Betcah it does.

Oh, I took a closer look at the pathetic mint patch and there was a lot of mud splash but also telltale signs of insect activity. Namely; spider mites and thrips. 

Tiny brown dots

 

The picture on the left shows some white markings and then the possible carcass of an aphid or thrip. The black dots are typically found where thrips have fed and the white markings near the back dots are feeding areas. The picture on the left I didn't get a chance to mark but ignore the two larger brown dots at the top. The tinier lighter brown dots are spider mites. These pictures were taken with a magnifier app on my phone. The lighter, more regular speckling on the leaf is the stomata (breathing holes) of the leaf itself, cool right? Oh and there's a large chunk taken out on the right from caterpillar most likely. I love doing this stuff!

When we got a USB microscope at the nursery that hooked up to the computers at the desk it was fantastic! We could show the customers stuff like this in real time so they had proof of what we were telling them. The coolest thing I discovered was fungus being eaten on a fig leaf. Remember I mentioned fungus gnats? Well similar bug, but usually in mid summer or fall edible figs get a rust fungus on the backside of the leaves. I was out there looking at the plants and noticed there were patches of the fungus that was a different color and actually looked like something had tracked a path through it. Took it inside and I'll be dipped if there weren't microscopic larvae just mowing down the fungus on the leaf like cows in a pasture. I showed it to a coworker and we were both absolutely giddy about the discovery.  Boss wasn' so happy we were 'wasting time playing with the microscope' but we were doing science! Plant and insect science that was useful to us to show customers. Fungus gnat larva feeding on fungus on a leaf. Wow.

And of course I went and tried to see if there was anything on google about it ....nope mostly how to treat fungus gnats on houseplants or fig rust treatment with sprays. Guys I found a natural predator! oh well.

Going to go try soil science if my guy isn't taking a nap right now. Results posted when I have them!