Whitefly update: The bean plants are tanking.  I've completely lost 3 plants entirely.  Shown here are 2 more that I don't expect to recover.  I've been treating the plants since Friday with spray and each day I inspect, I continue to see whiteflies on the undersides of the leaves.  I ordered some whitefly strips from amazon.com.  In the beginning I was really upset, but as I thought about this I decided that the beans took only a week to really start growing.  I can grow some more bean pretty quickly so I need to stop whining and just wait for silly, yellow strips and then get rid of the insects and grow some more beans.  Hopefully the strips will get here soon because I see they are attacking the really healthy bean plants too now.  Notice the curling of the leaves.  When I saw the wilting leaves, I knew.  It was confirmed when I turned the leaf over and saw all the little white buggers just hanging around having a little tea party without me.

Lessons Learned: 

1. Do not put newly bought houseplants near your garden plants.  
2. Always keep whitefly/aphid strips on hand so you don't have to wait for them to be shipped

I didn't want to just complain tonight so I thought I'd share a cool little ornament terrarium I found at Save-On crafts.  Naturally, this is not what they advertised
it as.  You can find it here.  I used it for air plants and orchids.  Another cool glass piece I love for showing off single cut flowers is a flower shaped vase.  It typically is used for a hibiscus flower but I use for any flower I see blooming that I find.  It's always nice to see what others use to display their garden showpieces.  Getting ideas is part of what blogging is all about after all.  Finally, that little orchid that I got as a free bonus for purchasing 3 plants from Orchid Master that I told you about last week?  It has 2 blooms!  I was soooo tickled!  It almost made up for those wicked whitflies.  ALMOST, but not quite.

New Orchid - Notice 2 Buds Baby!!

Whiteflies eat bean plants! YIKES!

Whitefly Infestation

Whitefly Invasion!  Yep. Yesterday afternoon I did my walk about and I saw something was eating the leaves of my bean plants.  But, there was another sign.  The leaves looked wilted.  Do you see in the photo above how the leave is sagging and bent over itself a bit?  Those two things together show me the plant is in distress.  I needed to inspect the plant more closely and the first place I look is hiding places.  I looked at the undersides of the leaves and I saw little white bugs.  Now don't go thinking I'm some expert on garden bugs.   I work a real job during the week just like everyone else and from 6 pm to dark Monday through Friday and on  Saturday and Sunday, I try to squeeze in gardening, canning, painting, scrap-booking and every other kind of crazy hobby I come up with for that week.  Gardening and cooking are my constants and I have been sewing since I was in junior high.  But back to the bugs. 

Close up of  Whiteflies

 I saw the bugs and I immediately did what I always do when I see bugs of any kind on my plants - filled a spray bottle with warm water and dish soap and sprayed the entire plant top to bottom tops and undersides of leaves, stems and even the soil for every bean plant that shown any sign of the white bugs.  I took photos before the treatment and expanded the photos so I see a close up of the insects since my eyesight is not good enough to get a microscopic view or close up enough to identify them.  I was able to identify the infestation as whitefly with the help of the internet and photos.  While no one said to treat with the soapy water spray, it really worked wonders!  While my leaves didn't care for it much, neither did the insects and nearly all of the whiteflies flew the coop.  We had only a couple of the insects return the following day and I sprayed again.  I was not able to get a regular insecticide until Saturday night because I had my grandsons spend the night on Friday night as I was the babysitter on Saturday.  I'm not unhappy with my response nor my results, but tomorrow I'll use the commercial spray and hopefully eradicate them for good.  I want to point out why these daily walk arounds are so important.  While I was reading up on these insects, one man said that his entire sunflower planting was decimated by whiteflies in 18 hours.  This means that just skipping one day of walking around your garden/yard, you miss the opportunity of catching this kind of problem and maybe losing all of what you planted of a single species of crop.  It was only a matter of a few hours for this to spread to all of my bean plants and they are spread all across the various corners of my lanai.  This is just a little something to consider the next time you decide you're too tired or too lazy to stroll around the yard to check up on your garden.