The Problems Begin!

First of all, on a positive note, I noticed that my broad beans are putting out some lovely flowers now and it looks like I am getting the beginnings of flowers on my original strawberry plants too.

Broad Bean Flowers

Beginnings of strawberry flowers

My potatoes have also begun to push some leaves up through the compost so at least things are all moving in the right direction.

However, onto the problems ....

Problem One

The lovely new position of my vegetable pots at the front of the house where they can get lots of  sun is great, except for one thing – ANTS! They are everywhere. I had forgotten that last summer we had these too. Now after some research I was relieved to see that the ants themselves likely won’t do my vegetables any damage. However, if or rather WHEN those pesky aphids come along to nibble on the lovely young leaves of my pea and bean plants the ants are likely to protect them as they want to milk them for honeydew (ewww).

Obviously I don’t want to have things around that will protect bugs that will actually do my vegetables some harm so my obvious question is now .... how on earth shall I encourage the ants to find a new home elsewhere please? Being a Vegetarian lover of all things living I naturally do not want to leap to the obvious – KILL THEM! I just want to encourage them to move house by becoming the neighbour from hell somehow. I have done a little research and flooding the area with water may encourage them to find a more hospitable environment, along with adding clove oil to water and sprinkling this about the place (apparently they HATE the smell). Hmmm, which to try first? More research before the weekend is needed I think before I put my plan into action.

Problem Two

After returning home on Sunday I was oh so proud of my seven tomato plants, with three in particular looking so big and strong I couldn’t believe my beginners luck at growing these from seed. On Sunday and Monday with the temperatures 18 – 20 degrees and with lovely strong sunshine, I put all of my tomato, red pepper and chilli plants into the blow away with the door slightly opened for the day. Giving them some much needed fresh air and a gentle breeze to toughen them up a little. I brought them in at night to stay warm and cosy with the night time temperatures still dropping quite low.

On Tuesday temperatures were lower during the day (about 14 degrees) so I decided to put the tomatoes in the blow away but leave the chillies and peppers indoors. I have also begun watering all of my plants ‘from the bottom’ into the trays they are sat in rather than into the top of the pot in an attempt to make sure I don’t over water them. Apparently this way the plant will only take what water in wants. This seems to be working well and I am so glad I have been saving all those little plastic trays you get with food packaging. Usually they go straight into the recycling but this way they have another good use first!

So what is the problem I hear you cry? Well, getting home from work on Tuesday evening and moving my toms indoors I noticed that some of their leaves have lost their intense lovely green colour and have started to turn a rather pale green / yellow. It is all very even, not at all blotchy or spotty or with different colours so I don't think it is any sort of disease. I thought they looked rather bleached and hoped that putting them outside hadn’t caused all of this.

Looking online I think I may have discovered the problem to be a magnesium deficiency. Hmmmm. The tomatoes were sown on 21.02.2011 and I thought the compost would have enough ‘food’ for about 8 weeks which will be in about a weeks time. So how do I fix this magnesium problem?

a)  Begin feeding my tomatoes with Tomatorite which has added magnesium? I though however that you were not supposed to start adding extra feed to tomato plants until they begin to fruit?

b)  I have read about Epsom Salts (dissolved into water in a spray bottle, spraying the plants leaves to give them the magnesium they need). My question is though, do you spray the whole plant? Just the leaves affected? How often? How long for?

Also, lets say I go for option B, should I still start to feed my tomato plants something at the moment as the compost will have run out of ‘food’ and if so, what? Tomatorite? Or something else entirely?