You’ve made it to yet another gripping installment of What the Fuck is Happening Up in Panthy’s Garden! Here’s your trophy, send me your address, I’ll mail it to you. 

Whoa buddy, how come you so salty? Well I’ll tell you. Get a load of these guys. ALREADY. These little bastards usually don’t turn up until mid-summer, and yet here they are, tiny black aphids getting their start on the underside of my nasturtiums.

In time, their sugary excretions known as “honeydew” will coat these leaves and a train of ants will begin somewhere in Queens, marching all the way to Panthy’s Garden to harvest it. 

My crop of tomatoes and everything else will become a wilted embarrassment. Every two weeks I’ll pull off a horrible, disfigured tomato and fling it as far as I can onto the street below. Green Zebra my ass. 

Last year, I ordered up an insect cavalry of lady bugs to handle this problem. It was amazing watching lady bugs eat the faces of aphids. I literally sat for an hour, at night, with a headlamp, like a creep, watching ladybugs slowly massacre aphids. And I have noticed a few of these guys, who I suspect are aphid eaters…. 

But I’m feeling a bit more urgency, this cluster says to me “infestation.” This needed to be handled TODAY. 

Hose: on. I adjusted the nozzle adjusted to the fearsome FLAT setting typically used to hose vomit off sidewalks. Leaf by leaf, I blasted them into oblivion with a powerful jet of water.

The unlucky aphids that wound up on my hands got the finger smoosh. If I didn’t think I’d hose down my iPhone in the process I would’ve done a better job at capturing this but take my word for it, it was awesome. 

Apparently, this is a viable solution to the aphid problem, at least according some person on the internet. I’m not into pesticides, and my solution of soap and mineral oil was really only partially successful. And who doesn’t like blasting the enemy with brute force? The world is built on it.

Sure, I enjoy the carnage. Maybe too much. But it’s in service of a higher cause: FREEDOM. No, actually, it’s in service of eating of fine, homegrown, pretentious, heirloom, hipster-ass, Brooklyn, tomatoes. Like these little beauties…

Today was a good day. I walked into and out of a garden center without making a single purchase. Making. Progress. With my addiction. Then I went and bought a bottle of bourbon with a belt buckle on it. Everything is fine.

Know what else made it a great day? The insect cavalry arrived. After three weeks of waiting and two calls where I had to break out my best You Stepped On My Jordans attitude, a small box arrived. Inside were some stryofoam peanuts and a mesh bag with a twitchy black carpet of angry ladybugs inside.

According to the instructions (printed in Comic Sans), I had to wait till after dark to release the insect hounds. With a tiny flashlight in my mouth I cut the bag open and shook out the ladybugs into the black void under the branches of my vegetable patch. Under the cover of darkness, the assault was launched.

It was awesome, like releasing a tiny robot army hell-bent on aphid destruction. I sat there watching for a good half hour, thinking about every three minutes that somehow an something had crawled into my ear or up my nose.

With North Korean-like precision, the ladybugs combed every square inch of each leaf, stopping from time to time to EAT APHID FACES. It was nuts. Adding insult to injury, each tiny bite was accompanied by a small humping motion. Damnnnn…..

I saved the rest for two more waves to be launched later this week. Closing the bag was nearly impossible, they were streaming out, running over my hands and down my arms. Finally I got it shut with some duct tape, smashing this poor fella in the process. The insect war rages on but his sacrifice will not be forgotten.

Panthy’s Garden is a place of tiny miracles, like this precious bundle of miniature grapes.

Or like this adolescent Casper eggplant.

Or this tiny squirrel poop.

It’s a miracle that I’m still alive after drinking three-day-old “ice” coffee while doing my morning rounds everyday. Or that from my roof I can see a pro basketball stadium being built for the BROOKLYN NETS, a team owned by a Russian billionaire and Jay Z.

It’s a miracle that my Vans have listened to my feet and provided some extra ventilation for them.

And it’s a miracle that I can bear witness to a tiny part of the natural world dooking it out in miniature. Check it:

After reading the internet for 15 minutes I feel I can speak intelligently about what’s going on here. On the underside of this here leaf is the trifecta of garden insect combatants: aphids, a ladybugs (in limited edition larval colorway) and an ANT.

The aphids excrete a sugary substance on the leaves which the ants like to eat. The ants… (ready for this?) actually herd them around, using them for their sugary secretions. Uh… right, moving along….

The ladybugs eat the aphids and then fly off to cast magical spells on sleeping babies and Golden Retriever puppies. It really is magical but frankly I’d rather they all just fucked off. Notice that leaf is dead; a victim of tiny, annoying miracles.

Bins 1-3, step forward. WHAT’S YOUR MAJOR MALFUNCTION SCUMBAGS?!

Oh, you’re under attack from aphids still? I’m pulling you from general population until we get this sorted out.

The Boom Boom Juice has not produced the uh… movements I had hoped for so I just put in an order for re-enforcements: ladybugs, their natural predators. Yes, you can order them on the interweb and yes, they will come in the mail. At the end of their long journey to Panthy’s Garden, there will be plenty to eat.

Along with the growth of attractive tomato plants inevitably comes the tiny fuckers that love them just as much as you do: aphids, hornworms, and all manner of summer PEST. If you’ve got a garden, at some point you’ll have some pests too. It’s not the end of the world, it’s just time to saddle up and TCB.

I noticed a few tomato leaves with some little holes eaten through them. Of course, on closer inspection, I found some of these.

Aphids were having a cuddle party on the very newest, most tender buds of one of my pepper plants. I pinched each tiny leaf between my fingers, squashing dozens of them into an aphid patté. HOW’S YOUR CUDDLE PARTY NOW SON?!

But who has the time or patience to do this for every one of your plants? Maybe the North Koreans but I’m guessing they’d rather be doing something else. (Like eating vegetables?) That was not intended to be hurtful.

I noticed a few other Brooklyn garden heads (CityStories, My Brooklyn Rooftop Farm) were reporting similar problems. Thanks to the internuts, I didn’t have to go to my local sorcerer for this homemade, organic remedy.

The witch’s brew consists of:
• Three to four cloves of garlic
• Mineral oil
• Strainer or cheesecloth
• Liquid dish soap
• Water
• Spray bottle

I had no idea what mineral oil was but finally located some at the Tiffany’s of drug stores where it ran me a cool 7 dollars; almost the same cost of an apple and lettuce sandwich. New York I love you, but you’re bringin’ me down.

Not familiar with mineral oil? It’s also called Intestinal Lubricant. Still confused? Have a gander at the label.

(Don’t give me that face, you asked.)

I mixed up the chopped garlic, liquid soap and the boom boom juice, diluted it and bottled it up. After a quick test on one of the leaves with seemingly no ill-effects (or bowel movements) I deemed it safe to hit the whole plant. I carefully flipped over each affected leaf with North Korean-like precision and let out a generous hissing spray, hopefully the last sound these little bastards hear.