Snoopin’ with the Snoop

Saw these today when filling up the bird bath next to the half whiskey barrel that they are in. I looked up what they are before I killed them. Does anyone recognize the little critters?

Think perhaps the bright yellow mushrooms in my backyard are Suillus americanus.

bright yellow – big – mushroom in backyard under poplar

After two straight days of rain and a little over two inches total, we had our first frost on Friday night (Oct 9-10), and I decided to not cover anything, though I did have some mulch down around the squash fruit and hardy plants (kale, cabbage, turnips, beets, carrots).

Some plants reacted according to my expectations, but I’m puzzled with my okra. Every source says okra will die with frost, but the plants look rather spunky and two plants have shot out beautiful blooms. Also, my Reisentraube tomatoes look quite perky. The thai large pumpkin, though resistant to powdery mildew, wilted immediately after the frost. I pulled out the rest of my Pennsylvania Dutch, and also the serranos (since they were already frozen solid, I stuck them directly in the freezer).

And this was during homecoming weekend, with Gretchen staying here from down South, and KC coming out to visit too!

1. Japanese Beetles like to eat my:
   • wild rose brambles
   • rose of sharon
   • lemonbalm
   • rhubarb
   • Hey! Japanese beetles love the taste of Bindweed leaves!
   • velvet leaf
   • okra
   • sunflower
   • purple thistle

   Beware of using traps, as they tend to more often attract the beetles:

   A question I am often asked is whether Japanese beetle traps provide control,” says Jones. “Unfortunately, research has revealed that frequently many more beetles are attracted to a trap than are actually caught. So, using traps can have the effect of increasing your beetle problem, rather than eliminating it. (University of Illinois, “Japanese Beetles: A Real Pain for Everybody”)

   And though the same article says that the damage is more localized than widespread, that statement totally depends on your field of reference. Sure, if you’re a corn or soybean farmer with hundreds of acres of fields, then yes, their damage swath is localized. It’s much harder for the small gardener to consider lost plants as localized damage when the plot total equals a handful of plants.

2. Margined blister beetles love(d) my Tiger-Eye Amaranth. They devoured the plants until, back in the beginning of August, I uprooted a stand of three-foot grass on the edge of the garden, which happened to be about five feet from the T-E Amaranth. They disappeared immediately, and I didn’t see them until weeding out more grass on the other side of the garden yesterday. My T-E has since recovered, though each plant is still only about 6 inches tall. I haven’t seen the blister beetles munching on anything else since they deserted the amaranth, but apparently they’re still in the garden.
3. Monsanto.
4. Not a garden pest, but we have moles in our yard. Sigh. Their foraging tunnels look like mini-chaotic-crop circles all over our backyard. I have flooded their tunnels (which according to the article merely forces them to the surface but does not get rid of them); however, given that they eat bugs and grubs, I’d like to keep them around, but know that is probably not acceptable to anyone but me. If only they didn’t cause grass root damage.

So, Evelyn said she would slot me in a spot for the Boys and Girls Club fundraising Dunk Tank at Bloomington’s Cultural Fest this weekend. Bet you can’t dunk me. Coach J. (ISU men’s basketball) is taking an early slot, along with other celebrities from the B-N area. ‘Course, something may happen between now and then, and I won’t be in the dunk tank, but it looks promising from today.

It’s so much fun taunting the crowd, and it’s a plus that I like getting dunked! Looks like a beautiful Saturday too – 89 (and probably humid). Hot August Nights is also Saturday in downtown, and Dan Hubbard and the Humadors.

BTW, I’m not involved in Boys & Girls Club, but my boss is currently the president of the Club, so that’s how I got involved in the dunk tank.

I weeded a lot of grass. And have blisters on my right ring and pinky fingers. Photos:

This may be called a sunflower, but this one doesn't follow the sun.

One of the varieties of sunflowers that I planted this spring (early summer – I put in my garden really late), was Autumn Beauty from Baker Creek. And I thought this was one of them until I went to attach the link and read that the Autumn Beauties are supposed to be 7 feet tall. This one is about three, if that. It may be one of the transplants out of the peat bag: a poor mouse who ate its way into the peat bag with a tummy full of sunflower seeds and then couldn’t get out, died, and then after partial decomposition, the sunflowers sprouted and grew. Imagine my surprise when I opened a brand new peat bag (which had been sitting in the garage for years) and found two plants growing in it. Or maybe, this sunflower is from some of my old seed packets that I planted to see if they would germinate 3 years after I bought them. Ahhh, wait. I think it’s the Torch variety. That would make sense, now that I’ve Googled it. The Torch Mexican Sunflower is Tithonia rotundifolia, which would explain why it doesn’t follow the sun. But no, wrong again. See photo on Baker Creek website. Enough waffling. It’s a flower in my garden. Another sunflower I have, which is currently at least six feet tall has not yet bloomed. The flower dimensions are there, but are green and haven’t opened. These not-bloomed heads have been following the sun for about the last two weeks. I stumped about Shorty.

As for the other side of gardening, the bugs:

Don't know what this is, but it sure is brilliant.

That red and orange striped beetle-like bug stuck around long enough for me to run inside and grab my camera. I don’t know what s/he is, so I don’t know if it’s a beneficial or a pest. Speaking of pests:

A margined blister beetle – bane of my amaranth – Epicauta pestifera

Munch. Munch. Munch munch munch munch. Chomp. Swallow. Munch. Not to mention they poop all over the leaves they eat. Yeah, I’m not touching my Tiger-Eye Amaranth. The Hopi Red Dye Amaranth that was a volunteer plant this year (I originally planted them in 2007 but did not harvest them, because I was in NC) is untouched — for now. I like to eat the Hopi Red Dye. Before the Blister Beetles came around I wasn’t too much of a fan of the Tiger-Eye, so I won’t be planting it again. I’m wavering between exterminating them, picking them off and throwing them in the beanfield where the chemicals that are already there will kill them, or trying that lime-flour attack I read about this morning (a mixture of lime and flour doused on them and the plants at the hottest part of the day). They weren’t dining when I was in my garden this morning; I first saw them around 1 or 2 p.m. today.

It appears I also have a Golden Digger Wasp building a nest between my tomatoes and carrots/beets/fennel. (Video forthcoming when I can get it to export out of Kino, which depends on my downloading mjpegtools, apparently. We’ll see.)

A full grown Japanese beetle flew into my face today, but was young enough to fall off and be smashed. At least, I hope I smashed it. Otherwise when it wakes up it will be nicely positioned next to my growing squashes.

This has the shape and size of a Japanese Beetle, but has not yet emerged from the ground.

I had hoped with the summer coming much later than usual (just this week, and it came with 95 degree >50% humidity days, with four Rate 11’s [a special program offered by our electricity provider that cuts off the electricity for no more than 2 hours between 4-6pm on excessive heat days] in a row), that perhaps they had all died off. I still hope that there won’t be so damn many of them, eating our trees to shreds, eating my rosebrambles to shreds…

The picture to the left is not the one that flew into my face, but one I uncovered while moving my firepit. I had double-lined the firepit with bricks when I first dug it two years ago, and this was beneath the second brick. What I assume is the younger larval stage of a Japanese Beetle was under another brick, but after looking at larvae on the internet, think the younger one may be a stag beetle larvae. [

Is this a Japanese Beetle larva?

]

Japanese beetles don’t like tansy, but tansy’s a weed that is impossible to get rid of without chemicals. (I assume this only because they do not attack the rose bush that is near the tansy.) Regardless, I’m probably going to be shredding tansy and garlic and cayenne peppers and dousing them with it again this year. So far I have seen no damage to the plants from giving them the stinky bath. Sometimes, I go along the plants and drown the beetles, let them sit in the Sun for weeks, and then add them to the garlic/tansy/cayenne mixture. Stinky multiplied!

Beware, this is a huge video file:
Read the rest of this entry »

Hey, I’m trying to compile a photo book and don’t remember our schedule exactly. I have 4 missing tours. Anyone remember where they go? Or any corrections if needed?

sometime was moapa/corncreek (weeding/decommissioning)
a (fourth or fifth) ash meadows
a second athel
??

1 orientation
2 12 days of planting (4 days and then 8 days)
3 trash with marco (11/19-11/21: thanksgiving)
4 rainbow gardens (11/26-11/29: nvum training)
5 rainbow gardens (12/3-12/6)
6 athel (12/10-12/17)

*christmas break*

7 mormon mountains (1/2-1/9)
8 sahara mustard arizona (1/14-1/17)
9 MLK, Hiko Wash, Rainbow (MLK(21), 1/22-1/25)
10 Corn Creek fencing (1/28-1/31)
11 Ash Meadows fencing (2/4-2/7)

12 (2/11-2/14)
13 AM f?(2/18-2/21)
14 (2/25-2/28)
15 (3/3-3/6)

16 pahranaget (3/10-3/17) (six days off)
17 trash with nccc (3/24-3/27)
18 ash meadows cattails (3/31-4/3)
19 sahara mustard weeding (4/7-4/11)
20 eglington preserve (4/14-4/18)
21 ash meadows cattails (4/21-4/25)
22 Lovell Canyon (4/28-5/1)

Observation date: 5/3/09
Number of species: 3

[Last edit: 6 May 2009 @ 20:36 to remove location info and format data.]