Nature and Gardening

[Image description: a white spider hides in a raspberry flower, clutching its honeybee prey]

It's very hard to spot these guys, I'm glad I managed to catch it and share it with you all.

Two weeks ago I collected seed from a musk mallow (Malva alcea) I noticed growing in a crack in the pavement, soaked them overnight, and scattered them in a pot. There are dozens sending out true leaves already and it's very exciting - there are these tiny emerald sweat bees (Agapostemon) that really seem to adore the flowers of this plant and I would love to grow greater numbers to better support them.

The recent rains after several months with little precipitation has driven a new flush of growth and some wonderful blooms in the gardens as well, and I really appreciate the look of the Queen Anne's Lace, Monarda, Echinacea, and Clethea together

What's growing on with you all?

Very invasive, like bedbugs of the garden. They prey on grapevines and other plants in your garden, and are spreading quickly. Kill them if you see them or their mud-like eggs!

Howdy, gardeners! It's been a minute since I posted, but my PNW garden is just getting up to steam!

My first cukes came in, I'm growing 'Spacemaster 80' slicing cucumbers and 'Homemade Pickle' cucumbers, for obvious reasons. I've just made my first batch of pickles using a Claussen knock off recipe from the forbidden site, so we'll see how that goes. It just went in the fridge for cooling, so I get to try it in just a couple days!

I've started researching canning, as I want to can peppers, tomatoes, beans, and maybe corn - should the Corn Experiment prove bountiful. Learning how to Not Get Botulism seems pretty important!

My tomatoes are doing well - I'm growing Roma, Gardener's Delight, and Oxheart. I'm endlessly fascinated by how the Roma tomatoes look like they do on the label of the can :) Those are in containers. The other two varieties are trellised and are going nuts!

Gardener's Delight:

Oxheart:

Gardener's Delight Closeup:

Oxheart Closeup:

All the peppers are finally flowering. I'm growing Serrano, Jalapeno, Poblano, Shishito, and Ground Cherries. They are all growing rather well except a couple of the Shishito's in the raised bed seem quite small.

In my Three Sisters Garden, corn is growing fairly well, it seems half of them are 'normal' size and the other half are still half height, so I may have packed it too tight. I'm growing Blue FM1 pole beans, which have just flowered and are doing well, as well as pumpkins, of which two have grown so far, still green.

In the Squash Garden, I've got crazy vines from my Kubota squash, with 4 or so gourds growing. I planted beans here but they never really took off.

I also built a 'Wildlife Garden' this year. It's open to the public (animal visitors) and I don't do any pest control here. It's also gone NUTS! I have Blue Hubbard squash growing a mile a minute with 8 gourds on the vine, scarlet runner beans reaching for the sky, some ridiculous sunflowers pushing their way up, chamomile, clover, feverfew, boy it's wild! It's fun to look at.

For salad greens we've had the 'Tower of Power' going for a few months - it was a strawberry planter that I stuck a bunch of transplanted lettuce/chard/kale/mustard plants into. It produced salad for us every couple days, pretty excellent! My wife asked me to start migrating it back to strawberries, so I've started that process. Due to that, I've replanted a bunch more greens to keep us going!

And speaking of those strawberries, I'm propagating a bunch of strawberry plants (june-bearing) to have more ground cover for next year in addition to the strawberry tower, and I'm hoping my ever-bearing strawberry will put out runners, but it's still fruiting consistently!

I got a small onion harvest (time to figure out how many onions I'd actually need in a year), and plenty of garlic. This was my first year growing onions, and half the garlic was from last years harvest!

I also have numerous other things going - my lemongrass is growing really well:

As is my celery in a pot:

I've been growing marigolds and nasturtiums all over the place. The nasturtiums are great in salad! My cabbage started doing pretty well once I defeated an Aphid Menace that was stunting them.

So, that's my big ole report! What’s growing on with you all?

(Apologies to LallyLuckFarm@beehaw.org if I stepped on your toes, I felt compelled to make a weekly thread!)

WE'RE DOING OUR PART!!! :)

duskywing butterfly and a buddleia flower

cross-posted from: https://pixelfed.crimedad.work/p/crimedad/723334816014531775

I suppose I like Walz, too, but how is it going to feel listening to him trying to justify sending more weapons to Israel?

Anyway, here are a pair of sand fleas my kid and her cousins found at the beach.

#macro #beach #FireIsland #crustacean #WeWantWalz #FreePalestine

@crosspost@lemmy.crimedad.work

Laundry drying on the line got a visitor! For some reason, I can't get a thumbnail so here's pic #2:

[alt text: Text that says, "People [say] 'I never see butterflies or lightning bugs in my yard. Their yard: (colon)". Below the text is a photo of a birds-eye view of a large house with an equally large yard. The lawn is covered in standard turfgrass (probably Kentucky bluegrass) that has been recently mowed.]

cross-posted from: https://pixelfed.crimedad.work/p/crimedad/722443662248347948

My almost six-year-old just asked if Kamala Harris is Calvin Harris's sister. Nope, sorry kid.

Anyway, here's a photo of a tiny clam I found on the beach.

#beach #clam #macro #FireIsland #Harris

@crosspost@lemmy.crimedad.work

Linked article is about Pennsylvania, but note that Cornell recently announced these lanternflies have invaded the New York grape-growing region of the Finger Lakes: https://cals.cornell.edu/news/2024/07/spotted-lanternfly-found-finger-lakes-region

Also, they are up in Connecticut now: https://www.ctpublic.org/news/2024-07-25/spotted-lanternfly-connecticut-grapes-crops

Researchers from Pennsylvania State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences used an economic assessment software program to estimate potential damage and said in the worst-case scenario the damage could climb to half a billion dollars annually.

“I mean, look, it made it to Pennsylvania from China in one shot,” Walsh said. Lanternflies invaded the U.S. attached to a stone shipment sent to a local landscaping company.

“The reality is that some of those assumptions have not played out as predicted. Far and away, lanternflies are not the fire and brimstone, doom and gloom situation that they were originally feared to be,” Walsh said. “Except for grapes — it’s been worse than expected for grapes.”

While extremely disruptive to the wine and grape industry, the spotted lanternfly is not as damaging to hardwood trees used for timber as previously thought, according to 2023 research from Penn State’s Entomology Department.

According to Penn State researchers, the heaviest hit vineyards lost up to 90% of their grapevines.

Grape growers can’t just immediately replace a grapevine either. Creato said it takes up to three years for grapevines to bear fruit and five to seven years to be ready for wine.

Walsh said there is a trend of lanternflies arriving in an area, growing in numbers rapidly for a few years, and then declining for another few years. “But in that sigh of relief, the question is then, ‘Why?’” he said.

“It’s a complex bug that still has lots of secrets that we’re slowly working out,” Walsh said. “Everyday citizens reporting back information and doing the ‘lanternfly stomp’ as they went about their daily travels absolutely had a positive effect in slowing the spread.”

We finally received actual rain (read: more than a twenty minute spritz) for the first time in a month, and the world smells like pollen. Our "tropical" fruits, hardy kiwi and maypop (passion fruit), have put on feet of new growth as a result and are filling out their support trellis, which is very exciting.

I'm heading out in just a little bit to attend a walk'n'talk at a nearby orchard - our county extension office is hosting the event to discuss some of the climate risk mitigation strategies the orchard has been leveraging for a few years now. This afternoon some folks we know from the library are coming over to harvest flowers to supply an art project for the kids in town.

What's growing on with you all?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.crimedad.work/post/109585

cross-posted from: https://pixelfed.crimedad.work/p/crimedad/721533130187273598

I think the transmission in my 2007 Mazda3 is toast. It had been shifting badly and the AT indicator light turned on the last couple of times I drove it, so decided to try and scan it for error codes. Nothing came up so I thought I would take it around the block. Didn't even make it up the hill before the magic smoke escaped. Fortunately, I was able to roll back home.

Anyway, here's a shot of a pill bug on some stringy stonecrop.

#mazda #CarTrouble #PillBug

@crosspost@lemmy.crimedad.work

How is it the middle of July already?!?

The director of our town's library gave me gift cards for doing some educational talks - gift cards to another nursery... The gesture was very kind, and I'm glad to expand our plantings, but wow did I have some mixed feelings that I didn't expect.

And my wife ordered some teeny tiny succulents as favors for our baby shower next week, so now I'm wondering what the rules are for proplifting from plants one is giving as gifts. Please discuss, as well as telling us what's growing on with you all <3

[Image description: an image from the movie Dazed and Confused with text that reads "'This summer is too hot'. Me: 'Have you ever planted trees?' 'No.' Me: 'Be a lot cooler if you did'"

[Image description: four zucchinis, each larger than garden shears, are on my dining table and are fated to become relish]

"It" being that part of the season when you've got to check cucurbits twice a day (for us, at least)

cross-posted from: https://pixelfed.crimedad.work/p/crimedad/717794020275353272

HORSESHOE CRAB UPDATE!

I have been recognized by the United States Department of the Interior Fish and Wildlife Service for participating in the Horseshoe Crab Tagging Program by reporting the tag I found last weekend (https://pixelfed.crimedad.work/i/web/post/715310569850044948)! They sent me a certificate and a pewter pin. Somehow we got so excited about it that we had to take a family photo.

#HorseshoeCrab #crustacean #conservation #family #Cornell

@crosspost@lemmy.crimedad.work

[Image description: a fritillary butterfly rests briefly on my hand]

Just hanging out at the sun goes down and this little friend stopped by. There are a ton of them thanks to our Monarda fistulosa in several gardens around the property

It's been a flurry of activity this week - we've been hosting a friend who's here to build out his photography portfolio. As part of that, there were a number of chores and tasks I had to delay in order for him to get some of the shots he was looking for, followed by mad dashes of activity and pausing for shots while in the doing. He ended up with some ~1200 photos and maybe an hour or two of drone footage:

(I am the blue/gray dot)

I definitely tend to see the work left to do in the gardens instead of what's been accomplished unless I'm showing things to people, so let me just say this:

I'm really impressed by the work you're putting in for your gardens, and how they're coming along!

What's growing on with you all?

cross-posted from: https://pixelfed.crimedad.work/p/crimedad/715690550543209615

Pollen Pants

Here we have some type of bumblebee on some type of St. John's Wort flower, pollen pants loaded.

#bloomscrolling #pollination #pollinator #bee #bumblebee #flower

@crosspost@lemmy.crimedad.work

Hello everyone,

As the title said, I am looking at starting some okra from seeds, but wanted to know if I am too late in the season to start, or if I am good for where I am?

I will be growing the okra in large containers specifically, but I could do raised beds if that would be better.

UPDATE: https://pixelfed.crimedad.work/p/crimedad/717794020275353272

cross-posted from: https://pixelfed.crimedad.work/p/crimedad/715310569850044948

Time comes for us all.

We found this dead horseshoe crab on the beach today. It had a numbered tag on its shell apparently put there by The Maryland Fish & Wildlife Conservation Office. I've seen many horseshoe crabs here over the years, but never one with a tag. I made sure to go to the website and log it.

#beach #shore #NewHavenHarbor #HorseshoeCrab #conservation

@crosspost@lemmy.crimedad.work