seed greed

Being the fall fiend that I am, I am already looking for signs that the seasons are changing.  I've seen some encouraging ones.  Turkeys...and baby turkeys (or poults)!

Turkeys eat frogs and grasshoppers, and they can find those here in this back meadow, but especially love acorns.  They should be out foraging for those very soon!

I've seen signs of another fall visitor in my coneflower beds.  Large bald patches are appearing on the drying seed heads.  See anything?

Look closer!

Goldfinches are also hitting up the bird feeders.

Goldfinches eat mostly seed, so they nest late, in order to take advantage of late summer/early fall seeds.  I've seen quite a few this week.

I'm continuing to see record numbers of butterflies in the back garden, too...I've counted at least 15 of the larger varieties (monarchs, tiger swallowtails, etc.), and that number can be counted at any given time, really, but especially in late afternoon.

Unfortunately, my coneflower mites are back.  They're in the same area as last year, but I can't tell if they're on the very same flowers.  I've got several bunches of coneflowers growing there.  The afflicted flowers are easy to spot with their obvious deformities - immature petals and green tufts.

I've cut off the afflicted flowers and haven't seen any sign of spread.

Working in the back garden, I'm seeing lots of cucumbers, but not many zucchini.  The problem might be squash borers.  Look at the tip of this immature zucchini. That's a squash vine borer larvae.

Squash vine borers are jaunty-looking moths with bright orange abdomens.  They emerge from the ground in early July and lay their eggs near squash stems.  The larva bore into the stems and start to eat.  They'll munch for close to 6 weeks, then return to the ground to pupate.  If you see holes in squash stems or yellowing, wilty vines, you've probably got them.  Some gardeners plant a second squash crop at the beginning of July to avoid these pests, or they can apparently be tricked with buckets of bright yellow water.  They're highly attracted to the color yellow, so they'll fall into the water and drown.  

We're nearing the end of the wild rabbit nesting season (they're typically done nesting here by September), but I still see an occasional young rabbit around.

Speaking of rabbits...you've heard the phrase that speaks of their amazing ability to reproduce? Well, I've got a better one.  Cleomes reseed wildly and spread further than anything I've ever planted.  This big bed of cleomes in front of the house?  I didn't plant them there...not a single one.  They grew from one flower last year that dropped its seeds.  Phew!

They have long, bean-like seed pods that hang below the flower, and sometimes a second circle of them will appear halfway down the stem.

Each pod contains thousands of seeds.  Each flower has around 40 pods.  You get the picture.  I have a ton of seeds left over from last year, so I carefully snipped off the hanging pods on all plants this weekend.  In early fall, they start to split and drop their seeds, so unless I want to start a cleome farm, this is a necessary late summer task.

A really fun fall sighting this week:  bird nest fungi, which is a sign of healthy soil and appears mostly in the fall.  It's easy to see how it gets its name.

The "eggs" contain the fungal spores, which are easily spread when the "nest" captures rainwater and splashes out.  I've been seeing them all over and am happy to know that I'm being assisted in the never-ending job of transforming this hard clay soil into something healthier for my plants!

I've been doing a lot of work in the back garden, weeding and mowing, to prep it for mulching.  I love my garden views.

See that black shadow in the background?  Yes, that's Claudia.  She's with me nearly every time I'm working in the garden, keeping an eye on things.

The back garden is continuing to thrive.  Zinnias, marigolds, and celosia are all popping, and cosmos - those ferny bunches - are starting to bud.  It's going to be quite a bounty when they bloom.  And this is just my 'failure' group of seedlings.  Next year...

As long as I continue to have lots of help...ahem...

...it will all work out.

Have a great week!