I see lots of veggies!

Today was nice and sunny!
I weeded, fertilized, put stakes in the ground for the tomatoes, sprayed with BT and Neem, and made sure the beds were built up. 
Almost everything had changed so much... I saw lots of little vegetables!
There were squash, zucchini, cucumber, beans, green pepper, eggplant, and more tomatoes.

 

I saw lots of caterpillars and leaves that did not look too good.  It is very evident that there are pests in my garden.  Insect pests such as whiteflies, aphids, caterpillars, grasshoppers, and leaf miners are in my garden. 

The caterpillars have chewed the leaves.  They are very clever; they chew a section that can then fold over like a little tent for them to keep them shaded and in a moist and safe place.  The white flies and aphids have sucked the nutrients out of the leaves.  Plant virus diseases are caused by the whiteflies and aphids.  They have tube shaped mouth parts that extend into the plant.The whiteflies have left my squash plants with silver leaves.  The leaf miners live in the tissue of the leaf and fruit flies cause damage by living inside crop leaves...the larvae feeds on the leaf.  

Thankfully we do have taken measures to reduce and eliminate the amount of pests in our gardens.  The gardens were plowed and we weed consistently.  We've also used insecticides, such as BT (Thuricide) and Neem.  The organic insecticides aren't as fast at killing the pests as the non-organic insecticides, such as Admire.  Admire Pro, a non-organic insecticide, was sprayed on our gardens yesterday.