Caterpillars chowing down at the top of a 3 1/2 foot tall fennel plant.
I blogged about these guys yesterday and continue to be fascinated with them. Today, all eleven of the caterpillars remain on the fennel plant – and all have increased in size by at least a third. There is also very little left of the foliage on the fennel. I’m cool with that – we planted them for these crawling creatures to utilize.
Planted 3/16, picked 6/10
I love growing hot peppers. These Banana Supremes are great for pickling and such. Yum-dum-a-doodle!
What is this? Please identify...
Who doesn’t like butterflies? I can’t think of any rational person who doesn’t think they are pretty dang awesome.
In an attempt to attract more butterflies to our backyard, we planted a few butterfly attracting plants. There are both “host” plants, which are where eggs are laid and caterpillars feed and “nectar” plants – which adult butterflies feed from. This picture is of a caterpillar going wacky on our Fennel (“host”) in the herb garden. I counted no less than eleven of those suckers on the plant this morning, so…unless the birds feast on them we are going to have some butterfly magic soon.
We could use some help identifying exactly what kind of butterfly these guys are going to morph into…any help is appreciated.
This is the time of year for aphids. Perhaps you’ve seen some in your garden. They look like little pale specks that attach themselves to the underside of leaves. After sucking juices out of the plant, they secrete a ‘honeydew’ like substance which is sweet as sugar to ants. Ants will, in turn, herd and protect the aphids to prolong this food supply. Eventually the aphids will destroy the plant altogether.
I began treating this problem with a simple mix of Dr. Bronner’s Castille soap w/water (one drop per pint) and spraying the aphids. This chokes and kills the suckers. While that worked for awhile, I’ve now turned to Organocide – which works in a similar fashion but is made of Sesame Oil and fish emulsion.When using this product it is imperative to actually hit the aphids. It is also important to remember not to douse any nearby lady bugs, this stuff does not discriminate.
Aphids on Pepper plant 5/26/09
Got this shot of our potatoes flowering, which seems to indicate they are nearly ready for harvest. We had a small, experimental, container of potatoes which we ate tonight. Hannah blogged of them earlier, but didn’t mention that they tasted really good and are making us extremely excited about the more ‘serious’ potato project in Garden Box A. I expect to harvest these in the next few weeks.
Potatoes flowering, 5/26/09
I decided to add another three feet of trellis for our tomatoes in Garden Box A today. Bamboo stakes I had leftover from other projects were used along with plastic zip ties and fencing from the hardware store. I secured the stakes to the existing re bar using zip ties and weaved the fencing on top of the bamboo. Since the fencing was a bit uneven, I attached extra ties to the stakes halfway up and at the top for a more solid structure. These tomatoes (Celebrity, Roma, Matt’s Wild Cherry) are already taller than I am…this new extension takes the trellis to about 10 feet high.
Extended trellis on Garden Box A for tomatoes
Planted and Enchanted 