Catch garden pests, diseases early by keeping a close eye on your plants

By JESSICA DAMIANO Associated Press

Every morning, I head outside, coffee in hand, and usually in my pajamas, to check on my plants.

“Who’s thirsty? Who needs a trim?” I ask, tending to their needs as I move from bed to bed.

Most days, the visit reveals pleasant changes, like the first Madame Julia Correvon clematis flower of the season or the emergence of a green, lumpy Voyager tomato that wasn’t there the day before. But sometimes, horror strikes.

As I assessed the Domin- go, Voyager and RW Cephei tomatoes growing in my Earth Boxes one day last week, I noticed small, dark dots on their stems.

Hoping they were soil specks, I zoomed in on them with my phone’s camera and discovered three different species of aphids feasting on them.

I couldn’t see their piercing, sucking mouthparts, but I knew they were embedded in the vulnerable tissue of the 3-foot-tall plants I’d lovingly started from seed in March.