Saturday, August 29, 2009

More Monarch caterpillars found

There are three caterpillars that I've found, and since they're kind of hard to find, more could be found. And they don't stay put - one night they'll be on one milkweed, so I mark that one with a stake so I can easily find the caterpillar later. Then I come back a day or two later and look for the critter, and it's moved to a completely different plant. Don't know why they do that.

The little guy to the right is the smallest; originally it was up on the leaves of a full-grown plant, then the next day when I returned, it was on a very small, juvenile milkweed plant. I don't know if it fell from the higher plant, or if the leaves of the larger, older milkweed were too tough for a new, young caterpillar, so it voluntarily moved.

The caterpillar to the left is one of the two bigger ones. Last night when I went out to look for all three of them, I was only able to find two. They can be difficult to spot since they generally stay on the underside of the leaves. I suspect, too, that a bird would be excited about finding one of these tasty morsels.

Monday, August 24, 2009

Monarch caterpillar is back!

Last year I didn't have any Monarch caterpillars come to my purposely-planted milkweed patch. T'was very disappointing. But tonight I went out to the milkweed to do the usual inspection of the undersides of the leaves, and what do I see?! A very juvenile caterpillar munching away! It seems pretty late in the summer, and if history runs true in the case o f past butterfly/caterpillar metamorphases(?) I've experienced and been fortunate enough to view here in my garden, this little creature will not make it to the chrysalis & then butterfly stage before cold temperatures set in. I'm going to try to faithfully track its progress & growth as August & September continue.
I wonder why the Monarch butterflies seem to wait until so late in the season to deposit their eggs. Actually, I haven't even seen any Monarch butterflies here in my yard anywhere this season, so I suppose I should be somewhat surprised to see the caterpillar. They are more than welcome, and I wish I could help them extend their seemingly-limited lifespan.
I feel like I offer an oasis in the pesticide-desert when I see these little critters here.

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Pollinators are happy!

I spent a while out in the vegetable garden yesterday - watering, picking cabbage worms, watching all the little insects flitting around, and becoming enamored with the swallowtail butterfly that kept visiting my Mexican sunflower (torch tithonia). I was commenting to someone at work that I had seen so few butterflies this year, I was beginning to think something was wrong (I guess I meant something besides the copious quantities of pesticide that are used in this agricultural region).
But all it takes is some time out in the garden and a pair of open eyes. The pollinators LOVE my torch tithonia - this is an annual plant I grow from seed. Usually I have difficulty growing it from seed, at least here in Colorado. But this year I tried a different technique: I sowed many more seeds in indoors starter pots than I usually do, so had many more surviving seedlings. I even had enough plants to give away a couple. Along with being a great pollinator attractant, the seeds will also attract birds later. It's also a beautiful plant.

I harvested my first brusselsprouts yesterday, along with green beans, one red cabbage, and some cherry tomatoes. I also removed the last of the row covers from my cabbage-family plants; I figured any damage that occurs from cabbage worms I can mostly nip in the bud from there on out. Turns out the moths had gotten under the row covers, since I did have some damage already. Had to go on a killing spree in search of cabbage worms . . .

Monday, August 10, 2009

Frost damage on August 9th ??!!!!

Holy cow! Got home Sunday evening from a weekend absence; went out into the garden to check up on stuff, and found frost damage on many squash leaves and a row of beans! What a shock & surprise that was! This is a first for my summers in this area - to have to be concerned about frost damage (thus, no output) this soon. Usually I wouldn't think about it a lot until early September.

I think a harbinger of this has been the cool nights we've had much of the summer; very few nights in the 50's, most in the 40's. And not high 40's either - many low 40's.

The photo to the right is of one of my summer squash with the frost-damaged leaves.

Everything else, except the one row of bush beans shown left, looks OK. At this point I don't know how much impact this will have on production. There are still lots of good, intact squash leaves; not sure the same can be said of the row of beans. They had just started producing small beans; this cold bout may slow that process down enough that production of fully grown beans won't happen.
Plus it takes a while for the plants to recover in the morning from such cool nights; that too will slow production.
The low temperature at our house August 9 (yesterday morning) was 36.5, this morning the low was 37.5. I suspect the actual low temperature 150' away (from the outdoor thermometer) in the vegetable garden was a little lower.