All about Zinnias... and Beetles.

         Wow! The changes in my garden from this week to two weeks ago, are noticeably dramatic! All of the flowers I have planted are in full bloom, my vegetable plants have gotten so big, and now there are some hungry little pests attempting to take over some of my plants, but they won't win, I fight back!

    My Zinnias are thriving, two weeks ago I only had two small blooms whereas this week, I have an estimated fifty blooms and was able to make 3 small bouquets. Zinnias are also a flower that you can deadhead, and they'll continue producing new blooms. I recently found out that in 2016, Zinnia seeds were brought up to space where astronauts planted them, watered them, kept them under grow lights for ten hours a day and observed them very closely. They mentioned how isolating and how lack of sensory stimulation was a big problem for them. Having something to take care of, smell and touch was a very stimulating activity for many astronauts and seemed to help them a lot with their mental health. So, in my opinion, if it's worth taking up to space, knowing how limited they are on space(ha-ha!) on board their space station, I think we should appreciate flowers and gardening more down here, on earth. 

Now let's talk about the enemies in my life right now... Japanese beetles! My poor Zinnias have turned into a beetle buffet! The Beetles are attracted to the bright colors of Zinnias and are very destructive and very fast. I found a home remedy online that suggest spraying them with a mixture of soap and water to kill them, so every day I have been going outside, picking the beetles off the leaves and spraying the solution onto them! 



If you look closely, you can see about 5 Japanese beetles and all of the damage they have done to the stem and leaves!


My beautiful Zinnias.

                 Proudly showing off my garden! :) There used    
to be a pool here a few years ago, but we had to give it away,
so, this is how I decided to utilize the space. 


A comparison to show you how big my Sunflowers are!

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