as the worm turns

I was inspecting my sad, weedy, sagging tomato patch yesterday and noticed that something was, in turn, eyeing me.

It was a massive tomato hornworm caterpillar.  See the protective row of "eyes" along its side?

He was taking a big bite out of one of my green tomatoes.  Tomato hornworms are destructive, but can easily be controlled by hand-plucking.  As I'm calling this year's patch a total loss (except for its future contribution to my compost pile), I left him to eat.

A tussock moth caterpillar gives a visual warning of his stinging abilities.  They are poisonous and can trigger a pretty nasty allergic reaction if you're susceptible to that sort of thing.  A lesser reaction is a poison ivy-like rash.  Both sound unpleasant, so give this guy a wide berth if you see him in the garden!

I've seen a lot of "former caterpillars" around.  A few weeks ago we had the rosy maple moth...

...and this week, the royal walnut.

 
They're our country's largest moth.  This one had a nearly 5" wingspan!  I'd love to see its caterpillar stage: the Hickory Horned Devil.  I'm intrigued!

Todd spotted a lovely luna moth out by the pasture.  They have their interesting quirks, clicking and regurgitating as a defense mechanism.  The long "tails" are a defense mechanism, too, thought to confuse the radar-detection methods of bats.

Of course, we have lots of butterflies around, like this male tiger swallowtail...

...and common skipper.

It's not only tomato hornworms that are putting holes in potential produce.  I noticed that the tree in our side yard is dropping a lot of apples.  A few minutes with the binoculars solved the problem:  a flock of blue jays has settled in, and they're feeding heavily. 

One solution is to cover the tree with netting, but honestly, we have A LOT of apples - enough, I think, to share.  I'll keep an eye on the situation, though.

Less damaging visitors include plenty of birds with better manners...

...and Claudia, of course!

We have another cat slinking around at night.  For weeks we've been calling him "the fox-eared kitten," but he's like a shadow on the edge of our porch light and we haven't been able to get a good look.  Last night, though, he was persuaded to come onto the porch for a good meal.  Hopefully he'll come back tonight!

Our cats have been too lethargic in the heat to care too much.

Bosewichte, at least, was roused when we brought in some IKEA Kallax cabinets to organize my craft room.

I guess that while I'm sharing my apples and tomatoes, I might as well share my cabinets too.

Have a great week! 

mite makes right

I noticed something a little unusual on one of my coneflowers this week.  It was sprouting a bushy green crown, and the surrounding petals seemed a little pale and puny.

It turns out that this is the work of the eriophyid mite, which only bothers coneflowers.  They make a meal of the soft tissue at the base of the flower, which causes the distortion seen above.  The mites are far too small to be picked off...the only thing that can be done is to cut off the diseased flower head and keep an eye on the rest of the plant. 

Some good news in the garden, though.  A local gardener gave me several fading columbines from her garden in the hope that although the bloom was over, the flower might live long enough to produce seeds.  Columbines are famous self-seeders, so I was thrilled to see a drift of green all around the dead plant.

Columbine seedlings look almost exactly like wood sorrel, a lemony-tasting edible weed that I'm forever pulling out of the garden.  I had so many columbines at our old place in Indianapolis, though, that I can see at a glance what I'm dealing with (columbine on the left, wood sorrel on the right).

Once the seedlings mature a bit, they're even easier to distinguish from wood sorrel.

In about two weeks I'll thin these seedlings out to give the strongest seedlings the best chance at survival.  It will be quite a show next year!  I'm building up my shade garden, with columbines, foam flowers, hostas, and coral bells.  Coral bells with light-colored leaves can tolerate full sun, but those with darker leaves prefer the shade.  They make a gorgeous pop of color when they flower!

The plants are a nice distraction from our chaotic construction.  The frame for the addition is built, although we're waiting on several windows and doors.  Shop lighting has been installed in the barn, and a concrete floor poured.  Insulation and HVAC is coming soon...I think.

The fields finally got a mow, although they remain stubbly and bordered by weeds, because of our rickety fences.  We're hoping that next year's livestock will take care of that little problem for us.

It's a nice view back there.

We ALL enjoy it!  :)

As I write, I can see a variety of birds, a woodchuck, and two rabbits in the barn yard.  I see the rabbits nearly every day, and I'm always adding new birds to my backyard bird list, too.  Just yesterday I saw a male American goldfinch. Score!

We're still enjoying fresh wild blackberries...for a while, almost a pound a day!  I've made crisp, pie, pancakes, quick bread, and muffins. 

It's probably not a cost-effective way of getting berries, of course.  I go out in the early mornings, about every two days.  I'm buzzed by horse flies and mosquitoes.  I prick my fingers again, and again, and again.  I've ripped my shirt.  It takes at least 30 minutes to visit all the bushes, and I know I could get a couple of pints at the grocery store for a few dollars.  I really enjoy the experience, though, thorns notwithstanding! 

One thing that I'm always trying to be careful about is ticks.  They carry more than Lyme Disease - all sorts of fever diseases, encephalitis, and many other nasty-sounding things.  They don't climb in trees and fall down from above, like I used to think.  They climb grass - short or tall - and wave their front set of legs.  They are masters at grabbing on if you brush past.  It usually takes them about 24 hours after attaching to you to transmit their bacteria, so if you catch them fast, you're probably going to be all right.  But they're awfully sneaky.  We've pulled ticks off of Claudia and Borga.  I've caught three ticks crawling on me, but thankfully they hadn't yet bitten.  Todd had a tick embedded in his side a few weeks ago, and I've found them crawling on his clothing, my outdoor hat, and even the ceiling of Todd's car after a hike.  TICKS ARE EVERYWHERE, and my homemade essential oil spray does absolutely nothing.  So we will just try to stay vigilant...enjoy the flowers, but watch out for the ticks that might be lurking nearby.  Eek!

Have a great week!

botanic fanatic

Todd and I drove to Atlanta this past week for our business, but I left him and a few of his friends to "talk shop" on the first day while I went to the Atlanta Botanical Garden.  Now, we were frequent visitors to the one in Clemson, and we also took a trip to the Athens, Georgia location.  Very nice.  But the Atlanta one was a real standout. 

COLOR.

(Doesn't the coloration on this canna look like it's been carefully painted on 

with a watercolor brush?)

TEXTURE.

SHAPE.

I was blown away by the orchid conservatory.  I'd read The Orchid Thief last year, but filed the devotion to these sparse, finicky flowers under the same category of non-understanding as the devotion people feel for motorcycle racing, or skydiving, or collecting stamps...hmmm.  Well, I don't see it, but to each his own, I guess.  

Then I spent an hour in the conservatory.  Tiny, delicate works of art, suspended on the thinnest of stems.  Flowers that resembled hummingbirds, spiders, even a proboscis monkey.  

(That last one is just like a proboscis monkey if you're looking upside down, right?)

I hesitate to take on yet ANOTHER hobby, but man, those orchids!  I can see myself picking up a few next year, when I have a little more time to read up on their special needs.

After the orchids, I had just enough time to drool over one of my favorites:  bog plants.  Aren't they amazing?  I can't wait to get a bog garden going next year.

I zipped through the living sculpture installations...huge, made of living, growing plants!

Genius!  An all around impressive place.  Give it a try the next time you're in Atlanta.

Have a great week!