Don't Kill It 'Til You Know It!

This entire growing season, I've been having problems with thrips on my flowers. From my Meyer lemon blooms, to the "weeds" suffocating my lawn (hmm, I should pull those)... I don't know if they've done any significant damage, but I left them alone because I would have done damage by either removing the flowers or spraying the flowers with a chemical or water, thus reducing pollination and bee visits, or worse, killing the beneficial insects.

Then I noticed these very pretty, tiny bugs all over my plants and flowers...

Now, I'm not one to go squishing and squashing every bug I see. I know there are good guys and bad guys working hard out there, but I didn't have time to sit down and go through my awesome bug book, which is only quickly helpful if you have an idea of what the bug eats, or what kind of bug family it may be a part of. My initial thought was that they were an adult form of thrips, so I went with that and started smooshing them.

Then the other day I was looking through the February/March issue of Organic Gardening during a moment of... peace... (ie I was in the bathroom, because that's about the only time us mom's get "moments of peace," and so that's where I keep my magazines, lol), and it hit me! It was the briefest of mentions in the "Good Bug, Bad Bug" section of the mag... The minute pirate bug is a predatory bug. I ran to my awesome bug book (see that link above--seriously), and there it was!

Arrrg! I'd been killing a predatory bug. One that eats those annoying thrips! And wouldn't you know it? I checked my charentais blossoms this morning, and no thrips! Lots of pirates hanging about, but no thrips!

So please, gardeners, before you kill it, identify it! Learning to heed my own advice, here is a post from last year on bug identification.

One more site I've found that can be used through means of the plant that is affected, University of CA IPM Program.

Anyone know what this strange looking bug might be, LOL?

Picky Pollinators

It was some time last week when the little bees began stopping by...

Being a stay-at-home-mom has afforded me the luxury of standing in one spot for several minutes throughout the day, and watching all the different varieties of bees busily buzzing around (say that ten times fast). What I've noticed is that this particular variety of bee are very picky about the plants they collect from. Even though I now have these...

...these...

...these...

...and this...

This tiny variety of bee only goes into the flowers on my melon plants.

Having most of my plants by windows has turned out to be a great (and safe lol) way to watch the activity. It's also where I got the "action" shots. We're both too skittish to sit still long enough for me to get close enough to snap a pic...

It's fun watching them zip around until they finally find the perfect flower to land on. Once pollen is collected, they zip around some more a cozy spot is located where they can clean their pollen coated noses with their legs. They also seem to be selfish bees. If a fellow bee tries landing on a melon flower, they are instantly buzzing at each other.

Oh! Not to leave another garden critter out of the mix, I found this little guy hanging out in the water reservoir of a SWP. Isn't he cute?

Harvest Monday

There are two yummy harvests I'd like to share with you--one unexpected, but first I need to update you on last week's harvest...

After reading Granny's comment on someone's blog about being able to dig up potatoes and leave the plant to grow more, I thought I'd give it a try with mine. I was able to find potatoes in three buckets. The forth bucket that didn't have anything in it is also the one that had a plant die in a few weeks back.

Most of the potatoes were crammed in the bottom portion of the buckets, so maybe it's a good thing I pulled these out. I don't know why no potatoes have grown up along the stem of the plants as I covered them.

Just under two pounds. Not bad...

I ended up making microwaved potato chips with these, which were delicious!

My other harvest from last week was coriander... This is about 1/5 of what I have out there. They smell so good! Coriander is my second favorite spice (nutmeg is Numero Uno). I put it in almost every meat dish I use. I don't know if it makes a difference in flavor, but it sure helps my cooking mood when I smell it. I can't wait for these to finish drying so I can try them.

Today's harvests...
The rest of my CA White garlics were pulled this morning. Including the stems, they came in at 2 pounds, for a grand total of 3 pounds for 2 square feet. These were nice, full sized heads of garlic. Glad I kept them in the ground a few extra weeks. I'll probably replace them with basil (yea, more "random" basil, har).

I didn't think that all of the "bird food" cherries I mentioned yesterday bothered me at all, but at about three in the morning I shot straight up in bed and realized I had to get those cherries off the tree!

The first chance I had this morning, I was out there picking cherries. I didn't use a conventional method, like using a fruit picker, or climbing and picking by hand (although I did climb the tree a little). No, I hacked away at the already gnarly looking, hacked-at cherry tree with DH's twelve foot limb cutter. I can't think of what it's called, but it's the kind that has a pulley system with a rope connected to the blade.

A lot of the fruits fell victim to birds and squirrels...

Right as I was climbing into the tree using a step stool, I noticed these things, Right. Where. My. Hand. Was about to go. EEEWWWW! YUCK! BLEGH! OMGosh! Anyone know what these nasties are?!?! Over weight earwigs??? Bugs really don't bother me--except when I'm not expecting them. These totally freaked me out.

After an hour of work and a little child labor, I yielded 5.5 pounds of cherries!!!

Here are the lovely cherries in all their glory (hmm, maybe "all their glory" will be when they're prepared in pies, tarts, and maybe even cherry lemonade?)

Now if I could only think of a way to get the rest down... The 3 or so feet from being in the tree, plus my 5 foot 2 inches of height (those two inches are important), plus 12 feet of limb cutter were about 4 feet short of reaching the largest and best looking clusters... Maybe I'll wake up again tonight with a plan....

Each week Daphne over at Daphne's Dandelions hosts Harvest Monday. Check out her page to see what other's have been munchin' and crunchin' on this week.

Crime Ridden Garden

It's a little early (or a tad late) for Garden Blogger's Death Day, but it's been a rough thirty-six hours in this here garden, and an interruption for a special Death Day is needed.

Monday kicked off  the carnage with three consecutive hits. I checked on the lettuce seedlings I planted in my salad table on Saturday to find only three in existence. I'm sure this was a case of early rising birds. First, what else would eat seedlings without leaving a single sign of stopping by for breakfast? Second, the only three left standing had red tinged leaves! This sounds a lot like the case of Granny's red leaf lettuces that escaped mutilation two weeks ago. 

The birds may have gotten away with their crimes, but the masked green goblin below was caught with mouth full of green bean leaves. I wonder if he/she has other partners in crime... I'm sure I'll find out all too soon.

And then there was the incident which took mere minutes to occur that afternoon while I was walking guests to the door... These cuties lasted all of 48 hours before the LO got a hold of them.

I imagine him seeing these adorable amphibians hanging from their containers, and unable to control himself, he picks both of them up then accidently drops one. "Oh. It broke. Neat. Let's do it again,"  his brain tells his hands. Only, as his hands are banging them on the concrete (the evidence of this was clear), his mind is realizing that there is something wrong with what he is doing. This is when Momma hears the pitter patter of little shoes behind her and, "Ma, come back. See. See." Leading me to the scene of the crime to show me the dismembered frogs laying on the ground... It was an innocent act, and I couldn't be mad at the poor child, but it ruined the rest of my day. He understood  that braking the frogs was wrong. This was obvious with the only decipherable things coming out of his mouth the rest of the day being, "We fick fogs?" "Fogs bokenen?" "Go ou'side we fik fogs Momma?" Somehow that sweet little hopeful voice asking for forgiveness the only way he knew how only added salt to my wounds...

Yesterday was a day of garden recovery. I reseeded my salad table and protected against further lettuce burglary by adding a cover. And then it was a busy morning out of the house today, so when I checked on my plants waiting to go into SWP's, I found more carnage. The deaths were by own hands this time. My tomato and pepper plants went from being overly moist to uber dry in less than 24 hours...

So, I've decided to take the rest of the evening off (only thinking about these events again briefly to finish up this post). Crocheting Boy Wonder's blanket while watching the girlie girl movie that's been in my queue for way too long, Julie and Julia. A movie about blogging about cooking a TV chef's creations that I myself used to love watching... Whoa, and g'night!

Bees Everywhere!

I was walking from my shed back into the house a moment ago when I noticed the shadows of flying bugs on the patio. I closed the screen door, turned around, and saw bees. LOTS of bees...

They were only there for a few minutes before flying to the next yard... What were they doing? 

Oh, Gnats!

In previous posts I've mentioned my resident fungus gnats attempting to take over the cilantro buckets and salad table, and today I've discovered they're trying to claim territory in my indoor seedling pots.

First off, I don't know why they're called fungus gnats. Seems to me that they'll land anywhere there's dirt. Secondly, why they're finding my indoor plants so attractive besides that fact that they're plants living in dirt befuddles my mind. Can you feel the resentment here? The soil isn't overly moist or fungus-y by any means. Actually, I probably don't do a good enough job of keeping them moist. I don't ever open the window in here, although we open the rest of the windows daily... I guess it was only a matter of time before they found this new resort.

Anyway... I have got to get rid of these flying [enter expletive of choice here] before my plants head outside or I'll just be continuing the cycle--especially with my SWC setup. So, I've spent the past hour in my dining room (probably the most usage it's ever had) battling these guys. My strategy, whether or not it's logical to anyone else but me, is to apply a Neem oil on the soil surface of ALL my pots, and for the first week (today) flush everything but my newly transplanted tomatoes and nasturtiums with a BTi water solution I now keep at the ready. Then apply another layer of Neem oil to the top of the soil. Next week I will do the same to everything (unless anyone chimes in with a better, more knowledgeable strategy).

Not very exciting, but the white flecks are a few of the youngest larvea that have been flushed out of the pots.

Sorry it's hard to see, but on the end of this toothpick is an older larvea that came out.

If you so choose, you may look at more pictures of fungus gnats and larvea here. Blegh!

At least I've enjoyed my dining room a little bit today LOL...

Wordless Wednesday--almost

I always see blogs participating in "Wordless Wednesday" with wonderful pictures, and thought I to would take part today. Since I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut, I'm including a few words.

Finally starting to fill in...

Crocus Crazy

Cause of Croaking Crocus

 

Creepy Crawlies
 

 

Creepy Crawly Controller

Ciao!

Spring Is On It's Way

An unwelcome guest is trying to hide.

  

  

Between left and right raised beds. There are chionodoxa in addition to more crocus that should be coming in soon.

 

Baby Earwig. The nice thing about the cool weather is the bugs are slow. 

The LO holding a cabbage worm that fell from the peas.

 

First pod!

  

  

Have a good weekend!

Lucky Number Seven

I was looking at this picture I took a few days ago, and didn't even notice his legs until just now! This guy was hanging around my habitat for fungus gnats (ie cilantro).

Please click to see this odd beauty.

Fruitiliciuos!

With the exception of snipping off an okra pod every day or so, and a few more green beans, it's been pretty quiet in the back yard the past week & a half. I was able to get about 10 more beans from my plants, but I think that will be it for edibility. The rest of the beans are pretty curled (we're talkin' 360* here), are smaller, and lumpy (seeds). I am concerned they'll taste the way they look. Funky. Here are a few sweet & spicy developments: My Dwarf Meyer Lemon tree has finally settled into it's new home. I moved it to the west side of the yard where it enjoys spending it's afternoons in the shade of our neighbor's trees. Hopefully we'll be able to enjoy some lemons from this round of growth! I counted 8 buds that are close to opening... On the east side of the yard, our pear tree is bursting with fruit. Well, the part of the tree that is still alive... I don't know why, but this spring after the fruit started growing, the top of the tree just shriveled up and died! I noticed this occurred where the tree had previously been trimmed (by someone else, not us!), and the new growth is what perished. The orange tree is finally producing some sour oranges. Here's a cluster of fruit that is much smaller than what we harvested last fall/winter. Hopefully they'll taste as yummy! My Fresno Chili's are still growing strong! Look at the red one I discovered at the bottom of the plant. DH and I might be fighting over this one! My cherry tomato plant is about 4 feet tall, and producing more and more fruits, but none have turned red yet, so I won't take a picture until then... It just looks like any other green plant right now. lol I've had a visitor hanging around my SFG today... It's a Gray Hairstreak. I love butterflies, and since I haven't seen many around here, this was a welcome visit. Wait a minute... I did some reading on gray hairstreaks, and now I think I know what's been helping the grasshoppers put holes in my bean leaves! Looks like they like my okra too (it's in the hibiscus/mallow family). That's ok... They're a welcome bug in this garden.