Hi everyone! I have decided to create a new Community due to the fact I didn't want to clash with One Less Junk On Earth because that emphasis more of turning recyclable items into something useful; although one of my most read articles Making Mini Terrariums out of 1.5L Water Bottles does have something to do with gardening.
If you have seen that post before, that was just a mini version that was derived from the original first ever invention in South East Asia, the Terrarium Vegetable Gardening by the founder and researcher of PWD Smart Farmability, Dr. Billy. The boss of a personal friend of mine.
Earlier this year I was very blessed to experience the first batch of Terrarium vegetation for the first time. When I received it for my elderly parents with pre-existing condition, we were just so excited to learn better how to maintain it.
Dr. Billy makes it look really easy but often times, in a gardening journey there are still ups and downs. Just like pest infestation for example.
And Mealybugs is one of the biggest foes in my mini garden on the balcony now.
And that truly has created quite a disastrous journey.
Because Terrarium Gardening's main key is "to maintain the atmosphere within the box" for the micro organisms and friendly bugs to keep the ecosystem alive, we are not encouraged to open the box often.
By the time a week's time and it is time for watering natural fertilizer - a.k.a rice water, it was already 50% of the crops infested with mealybugs!
60% of the infested crops were already sucked dry by the bugs like this one.
Even the healthy ones are already infested with almost adult mealybugs, with tentacles waving upwards detecting a "vicious attack" (from the owner of the plant).
(Probably they don't realise they are the predators themselves; and interestingly Brazilian Spinach seemed to be like a magnet to pests like mealybugs)
FORTUNATELY, THERE'S A REMEDY.
When I disclosed this incident to Dr. Billy and there was another farmer helping him to weld up a micro-green rack, they suggested an uncanny treatment to try in case I have any of them at home.
Not vinegar, not baking soda...
Yep. Apparently the Lactobacillus content of overnight exposed milk will do the trick.
I just so happened to have some expired UHT milk that I wanted to try to make into ricotta cheese (but didn't happen) that was perfect to give it a try.
Interestingly when I soaked infected plants in watered down UHT milk, within an hour you will see all white dots of dead mealy bugs floating at the surface of the watered expired UHT milk.
So after removing every single totally destroyed plants and still savable plants, this is what's left in the terrarium box.
So what happens to those "savable plants"?
Remember I first post about the 1.5L One Less Junk On Earth post? I started with transplanting the post-milk-treatment plants out to other places.
Just before I started with the 1.5L terrarium from water bottles, I re-used a mini container with a plastic fruit pack to house some of the survived but show signs of surviving.
(I will show you how I made it at another post later)
Some I tried using the normal planting but in recycled containers, without any protection from pests.
Not all of them survived the first round of replanting out, but after 2 months of caring, harvesting, replanting, finally the aftermath starts to look promising.
One of them was the first experimental mini terrarium where the previously infected Brazilian Spinach cuttings that were saved, survived very well with the same terrarium soil taken from the healthy plants area.
So far so good, I am pretty happy with the progress!
If you are curious / interested to see my continuous progress with my mini garden planting, feel free to subscribe and follow for more updates. 😊
