Micro Ecosystem

I love my little yard. Watching the thriving ecosystems at work brings me daily joy. I hope the next residents of this little house will get as much out of the bugs and lizards as i do, and will in turn give back to the little creatures to keep them around.

My early crop of dill was frozen this Spring, causing many swallowtail butterfly larva to starve or be easily picked off by birds. Pickings were slim. Thankfully, a new crop has come up tall and lush and the butterflies returned to lay another batch of eggs. On my way out to the car yesterday i took a few moments to pause and look at the tiny ecosystem flourishing in my front yard. It's amazing how much can be going on within the confines of one dill plant.

Top: Adult Ladybug (ladybeetle) Left: Ladybug eggs Right: Swallowtail butterfly caterpillar

The dill is coated with aphids. You might be tempted to squish or spray them, but i know there are ladybugs about that need feeding and that need a constant supply of aphids to keep them around. If i was to remove the aphids myself, the ladybugs would have to fly off to better feeding grounds. I want them around to protect my other plants, so i leave the aphids on the dill. I am rewarded:
Adult ladybugs, ladybug nymphs, mating ladybugs and ladybug eggs!

I also see some tiny swallowtail caterpillars in their 2nd or third instar. Still teeny tiny, but munching away. The dill won't last long once these guys get bigger. Thankfully there are more dill plants this season and they're flowering which gives even more protection from the mockingbirds.

Spiders can also be found in webs weaved amongst the flowers. Flies land on the flowers and get caught in the webs. Any help against flies is well appreciated by me!

It's amazing how transformed this once dead landscape is today. October 2007 saw a great change of hands of this little property. My hands may be leaving this homestead, but the ecosystem now thrives and should continue to do so as long as food, water, and natural gardening methods are provided. I'm looking forward to a little break from gardening while we transition to our new home, but i'm excited to get my hands dirty again in our forever homestead and make another ecosystem thrive around me.

Garden Watch: Caterpillars On The Loose

The broccoli is growing crowns, the kale is leafing up fantastically, the chard is out of this world: but what's this? Little holes in those big, beautiful leaves?

One little caterpillar can do a whole lot of damage

Caterpillar Attack!
It is important to spend some time in your garden to observe the health of your plants and check for potential marauders. My garden is most often plagued with snails: they can at times be seen in vast herds on the walls of houses in my neighborhood and take advantage of rains to sneak attack the veggies trying to enjoy the drink as well. Nasty snails.  Along with snails are their covert friends: caterpillars. Small, green and camouflaged; large, fuzzy and obvious: all caterpillars want is to defoliate your lovely veggies and herbs as quickly as they can digest. Granted, some will turn to beautiful butterflies and should be left alone or even provided with specific habitat (ie dill plants for the swallowtail butterflies). This time of year though, most of the caterpillars in the garden should be hunted and squished - or fed to the chickens.
What to look out for:

• Holes in leaves - may be small and round or jagged and 'chewed' looking
• Broken stems or leaf stalks
• Holes in tomatoes and other fruits
• Strange grenade looking dung

Leaf damage like this can be caused by snails and caterpillars

The hornworms of Summer

If you see any of these signs, go in for a closer look: turn over the leaves of your plants and you may find an unwelcome visitor. Caterpillars will most often hide on the underside of the leaves and down in the center of a plant or flower. Tomato hornworms are remarkably well camouflaged and can sometimes only be spotted by the tell tale signs of leafless stalks amongst an otherwise healthy tomato plant, and the conspicuous grenade shaped dung they leave behind.
What to do with the critters once you've caught them? I generally squish the smaller, green caterpillars  or cutworms found on my brassicas and in the soil. The larger worms get tossed to the chickens to their delight - or thrown into the street for the mockingbirds to dispatch. It's not the most gentile job in the garden, but your plants will thank you for being their hero. They can't run away from threatening critters, and they'd much rather have your hands on them than nasty chemicals. However, If you have a bad infestation of caterpillars or a very large garden area you can supplement handpicking with BT (Bacillus thuringiensis) a natural soil bacteria that can fight off hoards of nasty caterpillars too vast to be handpicked. The great thing about BT is that it only targets the caterpillars and spares the beneficial insects.

Fuzzy caterpillar found chewing on some beet greens

Flipping broccoli leaves over can unveil some unwanted tag alongs

Take some time to look over your plants today, it might just save their life - or at least maximize the bounty for you instead of for creepy crawlies. Also, please mind the lower temperatures during this lovely season. Temps below 40 may be too chilly for certain plants, especially tropicals and citrus. When our first freeze does show up in the forecast - pick what tomatoes and peppers are still on the vine and wrap any other sensitive plants with freeze cloth or old sheets.

This post and others I've written can be seen at Yard Farm Austin.

Chrysalis I Have Known

I love watching the lifecycles of animals, especially bugs. This year is a particularly fruitful year for my swallowtail butterfly friends. My yards became certified wildlife habitats last year, and i think i'm seeing the many catterpillars of last year returning to mate and lay eggs on this year's dill. The dill is huge this year (taller than me!), which is good because there are millions of caterpillars counting on it for food. They need to hurry up and eat the rest though, as it's shading my spring crops just a bit too much and going to seed everywhere. I'm saving some to replant next year, and hope some of the dill is still flowering for pickles this spring. The rest will have to be pulled if the caterpillars don't munch it down soon enough.

Check it out - you can see where the prior instar of the caterpillar is left

as a husk behind the new instar (life cycle of caterpillar)

Then one by one they scamper off (very fun to see a caterpillar 'hauling *ss' along the ground away from the dill) to find someplace suitable to caccoon themselves. Here are a few of the chrysalises (chrsyali?) i have been lucky enough to find. I've since found a few more hidden on the parsley plants and on other things - be careful what you pull when you're thinning out your gardens, there may be friends living there!

Soon these will turn into beautiful butterflies. I can never catch them on camera, but i found an almost perfectly preserved, dead butterfly clinging to a rosemary branch the other day. She now adorns my studio wall.

These guys are all black swallowtail butterflies. I saw a pipevine swallowtail cruising along the sidewalk the other day, not sure where he came from as there aren't many of his host plants around my yards.

Do you plant host plants for butterflies? What kinds?

Gardening Never Ceases to Amaze Me

Especially when it's passive gardening.

I am feeling so fulfilled. Many plants that i put in as tiny 4 inch pots in the fall of 2007 are now huge, healthy landscape elements surrounded by leaping and bounding wildflowers and bees, all rejoicing that it is spring.

The yard will soon be browning, and the veggie gardens have already begun the transition from cool weather crops to the boons of summer: corn, cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers.

I am filled with optimism, and every trip out to the garden brings me joy from its beauty.

Perhaps this will be a mild summer after all, or at least perhaps it will rain more than twice, and my veggies and perennials won't be forced to suffer another drought/heatwave combo like last year.

Spring is gardening at its best: i get my hands dirty, the bugs and critters start showing up from their hiding places and newly laid eggs. I look forward to things to come, and there's no disease to cope with yet (just some persnickity snails, squirrels, and starlings).

Planting season is almost as good as harvesting season: which do you prefer?