I screwed my back up last week & was unable to get out to tend the garden for 4 days...
When I did finally hobble out, THIS is what EVERY SINGLE LEAF of my melon vines looked like!
9 feet of vine top to bottom—yellowed leaves, dead leaves, twisted leaves, weird spots & brown viscous “goo” oozing from the stems! Sigh! So I cut it down & checked all of the other plants—
a few aphids & whiteflies on other melons & the toms were fine...today I checked my B Casaba vine & once again an aphid invasion! I just spent 2 hours in sweltering heat, rinsing aphids off of leaves!
Is this an all-around bad aphid year?? I have only had a few aphids wander in over the years. Water blasted at ‘em did the trick & that’s that. I swear, it seems like a billion of the little cusses suddenly materialized outta nowhere! I thought they didn’t hang around in very hot weather (we’ve been 90’s w/high humidity for weeks!)?
Has anyone else found this year to be exceptionally pest/disease-laden?
Oh! To add insult to injury— after I pulled the melon vines my arms were covered in “honydew” & lord only knows what else. Within an hour I had huge red itchy lumps on my arms & wheezing... went to urgent care & apparently I am allergic to aphid crud!
