Officially Declared War On The Pests

Ok. Chemicals have been chosen and used today. I hate chemicals. But you try scrubbing 52 tubs of cyms with rubbing alcohol/dishwashing soap over and over without getting into the crevices and roots and get back to me next year when you've finished.

(BTW, OMFG, the Home Depots here in Chicagoland have never heard of shade cloth. Little bitty me had a phalanx of 6 guys all scratching their heads and consulting with each other. I snarkily told them HDs in California stock it. (Yup, my petty little I-miss-California-oh-so-much attitude came out. Deal with it.)

Anyway, where was I - yeah.....Mealies, Scale - I had decided on acephate as the weapon of choice, but none (!?) was available at the Home Depot, so I settled on Ortho Max Flower, Fruit & Vegetable Insect Killer, which is acetamiprid, and apparently pretty successful on scale. Would have preferred a dunk, but they only had a ready to use mix. Some treatment right now is better than none, so I sprayed away, but didn't get all the leaves underneath. Right now aiming for population control. Sprayed two catts with mealies, let's see what happens to them.

Slugs - went with Ortho Ecosense Slug and Snail killer. Oh please. Everything pretends to be "green" these days. Anyway. I'll go with the iron phosphate over the metaldehyde, has less collateral damage, supposedly.

Tomorrow starts the toothbrushing over the leaves, then a nice Neem spray. Should keep things under control until I find a store that sells the acephate.

Gee, I sound really cranky today. Did I mention I hate chemicals? Did I mention I miss home? LOL.