Indoor Garden Update
Hello Everyone,
This morning I took some photos of the Indoor garden.
From a distance everything looks nice, but my plants are under attack by thrips.
Thrips are a little winged insect that feed on the foliage, not so much taking bite out of, but rather sucking out the essential plant nutrients. It's not good, kind of like a slow cancer on the plants.
In this photo you can see the spots on the leaves. Generally in photos it just looks like spots, but in person it looks like slug juice and has a shiny appearance. I do find it strange that cameras do not pick this up, and this is consistent with photos across the internet in my brief search.
I've topped the soil with some cinnamon, because cinnamon is known to deter certain types of pests, and I really don't have anything else that I can think of to use for pest control at the moment.
It doesn't seem to be helping much.
Neem oil is known to work for thrips, so I intend to get some very soon.
The graptosedum bronze didn't look like this before the thrips, so I can only deduce that the thrips have this effect on succulents. It is saddening to see my plant in this state.
Otherwise it is a very healthy plant, and I am confident it can recover from this attack if I eradicate them soon.
I have a bunch of mixed variety flowers sprouting, and some bean plants in the row that hasn't sprouted yet. I'm a little worried about these sprouts in the presence of the thrips. Hopefully they just stay eating the bigger plants, but I have my doubts about that.
I have my pepper plant, green onions, and another graptosedum bronze outdoors this morning soaking up some sun.
I bet this is how the thrips got in here!
The thrip damage was so bad on a couple of the plants, that I decided to remove them. I never like killing plants, but indoor gardening is a different animal, and space efficiency is pretty important, especially when you are working in a small tent. If a couple of plants start falling behind or developing serious health problems, it generally makes little sense to try to save them, as this seems to be a losing battle more often than not. (at least for me)
This one labelled purple cheese (not a verified strain, was just labelled on the bag I got, before cannabis was legal in NY) was growing deformed leaves since a seedling, and the thrips were feasting on it, so I decided to take it out.
This was some swag bag stuff, and I deemed it done for. Chances of being able to rejuvenate it might have been 50/50, but it just wasn't looking great.
I always inspect the root systems on plants that I dispose of. This offers some insight into the how the other plants root systems are developing.
I was a little surprised at how healthy the root systems seemed. This gives me a bit more confidence about the remaining plants in the tent, as they are much healthier than these two were.
That's it for today,
The garden is not thriving at the moment, but I'm confident that I will tackle this small pestilence.
Thanks for stopping by, have a great day! -@futuremind
It's annoying seeing pest eat up a plant I really took time to help grow.
Please do your best to tackle those thrips so those beautiful plants I can see up there grow perfectly.
But a quick question for you!
When those plants grow fully and are no longer nurseries especially the beans would you still leave them indoors?
Hello, thank you for your feedback!
Yes it's certainly annoying and discouraging, but I am going to order some neem oil today.
With plants like beans and peppers, I try to keep them indoors while trimming down the foliage to keep them small, and I will cycle them for multiple harvests.
I have one Jalapeno pepper plant that is over a year old now, and has had 3 harvests. It's outside right now but next post I will take better photos of it and talk about how I deal with plants like this.
Generally the cannabis takes priority over the other plants however, and if there is not enough room in the tent for them, I will keep them alive by a window and also will keep the tent open to allow plants to soak up some residual LED rays.
Thanks for stopping by!
Thanks for your feedback dear! I appreciate.
Hello there, my sincere apologies for missing your comment a month ago!
Things have been a little crazy and sometimes it happens..
To answer your question!
For plants like beans and peppers, I try to get multiple harvests. I will trim them down when necessary to keep the space manageable and bring them outside sometimes for maximum yields.
After a current bug problem, this is changing however and I will not be bringing plants to and from the outdoors, because the damage on my cannabis was not worth it, and cannabis is my primary garden :)
None of the bean plants sprouted, I ate up all my lettuce and currently I just have a pepper plant outdoors, some green onions outdoors, and the cannabis plants, which are now starting to flower :)
Thanks a bunch for your comment and support! :)
Oh wait I didn't miss it, well you got two replies then 🙃
If you are taking indoor plants outdoors for sunlight during the day, and you have an insect problem indoors, the former is the cause of the latter unless proven otherwise. As for thrips, the best indoor remedy that is safe and organic is diatomaceous earth. It can be very expensive in small containers with a fancy label on it, but if you can find the raw stuff (it is used in various forms by various industries) then it's literally dirt cheap. I have a monstrous bag, and I'd gladly share if you were closer! I recommend you keeping an eye out for some. Sprinkle it around your soil, and anywhere you see evidence of bugs. It's inert and has no effect on your plants. Just keep it out of your eyes and lungs, otherwise it's very safe. Just messes with the bugs. I also put a scoop into my soil mixture each time I do up a batch before transplants. Bugs have the outdoors! They have no rightful place in my bed, pantry, or medicine patch :)
I have some, I forgot all about it :D
Thanks for the recommendation. I bought this last summer to get rid of fleas that my cat Covid brought in, but had forgotten it can also be used for this purpose as well. I think I read it in one of your posts at one point. This jogged my memory, really appreciate it man.
You named your cat COVID? #savage
Haha yeah, he was a stray in my backyard around the start of the plandemic, so I adopted him and Covid seemed like a perfect cat name to me :D
Covid
Yup... looks like a hoax to me
Nice, that's convenient! You'll have those things controlled/gone in no time.
Thrips are a bitch! To get rid of them you have to spray 3-4 days in a row. That way you disrupt the life cycle. Stay away from Neem in flower. Get this stuff here https://www.doctorzymes.com/mo/sample.php. You can use this up to 14 days in flower.
Thank you for the recommendation, I'm going to try the diatomaceous earth first. I forgot I have some of that and @drutter made a recommendation for it. If it doesn't work I'll try this, but I am willing to bet the diatomaceous earth is gonna work.
Mix some neem seed meal into your topsoil. Also get some Lacewings
Thanks for the recommendation man! Doing some reading about the lacewings, very cool.
Not so much of a planting guy, but those hexagon pots looks amazingly neat 😂
:)
It's frustrating to have plants dying on you. I hope some of the suggestions to get rid of Thrips work. Good luck. 😊
Hi Vincent, sorry for missing this comment!
I seem to miss comments sometimes but do my best to reply to everyone.
The Thrips are mostly gone and I have 4 healthy flowering plants :)
Updates coming soon..
Thank you for the support my friend.
Don't worry about it Jake. These things happen. 😊
I am glad you managed to get rid of the Thrips.
Congratulations @futuremind!
You raised your level and are now a Minnow!
Check out the last post from @hivebuzz: