I came home this evening to find that my cauliflower has been eaten alive. Like within a 24-48hour period nearly entire leaves are gone on some of the plants. The leaves have more holes than swiss cheese!
I can't find any actual pests, however. I checked the undersides of the leaves and they're vacant. The only thing that looks remotely like it might be a problem are clusters of black things at the base of all the leaves. It's definitely not dirt, but it shows no sign of being a bug-like critter either. I'm not sure what to make of it, to be honest. I'm going to spray down the entire garden with Eight.
So that's my first problem. Then I went inside.
I'd brought my basil plant a week before due to trouble with keeping the soil moist. The container was small enough that I had to water it twice a day. So instead I brought it indoors to let it soak in a deep underdish.
I came upon it this evening and it had the strangest growth on the stalks of two of the basil stems. They're like brown, rock hard eggs almost. They're almost layered upon each other and it looks like they've grown out of the stalk itself, or is deeply attached. The only way I can remove them is with a sharp kitchen knife, basically filleting the surface.
Several of the leaves appear to be growing or have been implanted with the same egg-like sacks, but they're green on the leaves rather than brown. They also lay more flat and are settled into the veins of the leaves rather than creating a shell-like cover. Some of the uninfected leaves are drying out and turning brown.
There is no sign of pests. No little aphids along the stems. Only one lone green spider that I manage to kill. But I can't imagine that he's the perpetrator of this strangeness.
If anyone has any clue about what either of these problems are, please leave a comment and let me know what you think.
