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Just a few days ago, some aphids had infested the entire Cilantro plant with eggs (overnight!). I frantically doused the plant with soap+water and that successfully annihilated all of them by the next day. I squished their brown bodies and smeared their pulp all over the plant as a warning to future attackers. The following day, all the dead larvae had turned black. I decided to leave the dried, black corpses on there for whatever reason.
Yesterday, I spun Cilantro around and look what I found:

A ladybug! Predator of the aphid. It might have been attracted by the dead aphids. I hope it fed on some of them and laid many eggs to spawn an anti-aphid army.

Garden update

The herb lineup next to the Begonia and the wine rack Meli found from Craigslist:

Begonia closeup:

New Cilantro:

Cactus goes on a reproductive frenzy:

Not a plant, but introducing, The Wok:

Outside:

New addition; Gardenia:

Chocolate Mint, recovering strong after its battle with the aphids:

Ants feasting on the body of a vanquished aphid:

Cookies and gardening

This past weekend we made a yellow cake with orange/mango frosting, oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips and walnuts (my foolproof Oatmeal Choc Chip from the Quaker oats box recipe). We also spent some time buying some plants for our garden. This is what we have so far:

- tomatoes
- sweet pepper
- thai pepper
- strawberries
- spicy oregano
- sweet basil
- chocolate mint (it smells so good!)
- chives
- cilantro
- yellow begonias
- purple/pink hydrangeas
- spider plant

They all looked much better after being re-potted. Lucky for us WalMart had some clay pots for a very low price and we were able to get new homes for all of them. Here's a few pictures from before and during re-potting and some pictures of our baking results! The cake didn't come out quite perfect as it sank in the center after coming out of the oven. We think it was because I forgot to sift the flour before measuring it - won't be making the same mistake twice!