Alchemy Garden Entry 13: Termites Now???

5/23/2020

It has been a miserable week! It has been cold and damp up until yesterday, and the wetness has been wrecking my basil. I blame the slugs for the holes, but fortunately their numbers have dwindled to the point that the new damage is very minimal. They haven’t touched the tomatoes, which are the plants I care the most about.

When I came home from work today to see how my plants were faring now that the sun came out, I got swarmed by what looked like winged ants! They kept landing on me, touching me, crawling on me, and worst of all, I saw them all over my garden bed! They were crawling on all the leaves, and I couldn’t really tell if the holes I saw today were new or holes from yesterday because I didn’t really check my leaves too much the day before.

So, I did another Google search. These pests might be termites. I am pissed. I can’t seem to find anything that tells me how hazardous they are to gardens, but it’s been a week since I did any pest vaporizing, so I caved in and sprayed my insecticide all over the plants. I’m sorry!

They didn’t stick around long.

I’m still not sure what they were, but I checked on my plants again to see just how badly they were doing. I’m trying not to freak out over holes and little bugs here and there, but it’s hard not to when you’re still new to gardening and it has been a stressful week at work dealing with the public (especially those who refuse to wear masks while invading your personal space) and a stressful week of dealing with zombie apocalypse numbers of slugs!

So far, the only plants that might be struggling are my basil. My Genovese basil seems to especially be holding on for dear life. I think the humid week with tons of rain did a number on the leaves, so I’m treating it by watering it often with neem oil and water. I also sprayed some fungicide on the leaves.

The Dolce Fresca basil looks healthier, but it has developed some yellow patches. I watered them with a little neem oil and water as well.

I worry sometimes about overwatering because I lost my garden before to root rot. But, I’ve had success with neem oil before, so I’m going to keep positive and keep watching out for deterioration.

Seriously, I hope those flying ant things I saw were NOT termites.