More pests and diseases

You know I wrote a couple of days ago about Blight descending on my tomatoes? Well, I'm just about keeping pace with it - chopping leaves off whenever I see another patch appear - and for the time being it's not too severe (that could easily change). The trouble is, there are lots of other things out there attacking my veg!

This is another very common ailment that affects tomatoes - Blossom End Rot:

Many people think that BER is a disease, but it's actually not. It's probably best described as an "ailment" because it is a physiological problem which happens when fruit cannot properly absorb Calcium from the soil. It is allegedly caused / exacerbated by dry soil. I am very aware of this and I water my tomato plants very assiduously - sometimes twice a day - and the containers in which my plants are growing have water reservoirs in their bases. Still, whatever the reason, the tiny little fruits on my "Primabella" plant have developed it. All the affected fruit is on one truss, so hopefully this is the full extent of it, but there's not much I can do apart from keep on watering thoroughly. BER damage cannot be undone; all one can do is hope to prevent further damage.

Here's the next problem - Leaf-miners attacking the Parsnips:

These things do what their name suggests - they burrow into the leaves and eat the soft interiors, leaving unsightly brown patches. Their routes can be traced via the wiggly silver lines of their burrowing.

Unsightly is probably as bad as this gets. Those Leaf-miners are going to have to eat a lot if they are to do significant damage to my enormous Parsnips! (Well, to be accurate, Parsnip leaves).

Now, I'm sure that most people would not classify the Blackbird as a pest, but many gardeners do. Blackbirds do a lot of damage if they are allowed, and they have a particular liking for soft fruit. I have four large Blueberry bushes, and their fruit is just beginning to show signs of ripening. Funnily enough, it is also starting to disappear. I wonder who / what could be responsible?? The Blueberry bushes are pretty big, and unfortunately I don't have a fruit cage, but I'm determined to preserve at least some of my berries, so I have created a Heath Robinson style cage, knocked-up from bits and pieces - rods, plastic connectors, bamboo canes, a spare piece of netting...

Blueberry - notice the huge amount of new growth on the right side of this plant.

The good news for today is that the netting is successfully keeping the Cabbage Whites off my brassicas. The garden is now full of frustrated butterflies flapping round looking for somewhere to lay eggs. The only unprotected brassicas are my spare PSB plants, which are in effect serving as a decoy!