Hypercompe scribonia

While I was digging up the sweet potatoes I found this little wooly caterpillar in the leaves and carefully set it aside for further study. It will hopefully grow up into a Giant Leopard Moth!

God had fun making insects, undeniably. The larva has long, fur-like shiny bristles and red rings on its skin. The adult is white with black leopard spots, iridescent blue, white, and black legs, and an orange, blue, and black body. What a magnificent creature! It is worth the loss of a few marigolds to find one of these.

Heat, Rain, and Tiny Slugs

the past few weeks, I've been Slimer Hunting at night for slugs and predatory planarians. Mostly catching really huge ones, including a couple suspended from a string of slime, mating on the front steps a few nights ago (gross, man!).  My first thought was, "get the camera!" to capture their swirling bodies. I decided not to risk their getting away and killed them instead. Last night I saw the first itty, bitty slugs on a plant in some time. The eggs must be hatching. Oy. Hope my fall crops can make it.

Creepy! Creepy!

We have a planarian invasion in the backyard. No pictures with my camera (they're nocturnal), but you can look at examples here. They're called Bipalium kewense Moseley or the land planarian or arrowhead flatworm. They're becoming common enough for schools in Louisiana to use for those head-splitting experiments (split the head with a razor blade, and the halves regenerate to form two heads). I saw one eating  a living earthworm on a slug hunt last week, and even I got grossed out. EEEEW! It is a long, ribbon-bodied thing with a flat, semicircular "head". No eyes, no mouth in the head. Cut the head off, it gleefully grows another. Cut it in pieces, and each piece becomes a new flatworm. You must kill them in alcohol or soapy water, or by spraying, if you encounter them and you like earthworms. They came here from Southeast Asia in potted plants, and they thrive in the Southern US or in green-houses. Cold winters with frozen soil can kill them, but our soil never really freezes. They like high humidity, so dry climates are safe. But they can devastate the beautiful iridescent earthworms in my garden. I'm collecting the dastardly creatures with a skewer (making sure to get all the body, and not let the tail snap off to get away), and drowning in soapy water as I do the slugs. Hope it works- these are somewhat more primitive than slugs. Creepy.

Broccoli and Cauliflower

This is my broccoli and cauliflower bed. Two of the plants have been shorn off an inch above ground, with no slime trail. One had the leaves nearby, and looked like it had been cut. I discovered the second today, leaves gone. Both broccoli plants. I am sad, but I hope the rest survive. When I find suspicious looking grubs as I dig the bed, I try to kill them so they will not eat my plants. Did one of them (that I missed) do this?  I don't know. This is my first attempt at fall gardening beyond nursing the summer plants through cooler weather to frost, so it is all experimental. 

Fortunately the slug count is a LOT lower than in the spring, with a few big ones instead of multitudes of small-to-medium ones. I'm still going out every night to observe and to minimize damage, as a big one could theoretically eat lots of baby plants in a night. Hunting with disposable gloves on actually works, and really cuts down on the "I'm-actually-picking-up-a-huge-slug-ICK!" factor. Highly recommended for the small-scale "organic" gardener.

Moths To Scare You

If you want to identify that large thing flitting about in the gathering dusk, and it ain't a bat, here's a good place to look:

http://www.silkmoths.bizland.com/TNsphinx.htm. It shows the moths native to TN, what their offspring look like, where they live, what they eat, etc. I could spend days on this site- but then I'd be too scared to plant anything. Neat place to look around.

Another Praying Mantis

My husband saw this one as he was trimming the wisteria that comes over the fence from a neighbor's house. He almost bagged it, but saw it in time to let it climb onto the plant again. I like the leaf-shaped hind end.

Another View

This day is too absolutely stunningly gorgeous (low of 61 last night, North winds, low humidity, currently 78 degrees at 3:30 PM in AUGUST in MEMPHIS!) to waste in front of a computer. I'm going outside. Here's another view of that nymph from yesterday that makes the nymph-adult relationship more obvious.

Grasshopper Grows Up

Sometimes the juvenile form of an insect, though it resembles the adult, can temporarily confuse me as to what it is. Look at these two pictures: Does the insect on the left look like the one on the right? They are the same species, different ages. Strange.

Radishes Growing Like Weeds

I can't bait the slugs if it rains all the time. It did not rain last night, but it did this morning. Yesterday evening, just in case, I placed the seedlings in the garage. Searching their holders, I found seven slugs!  Aargh. Must bait them this week-end.

I left several radish plants out there during the growing season for the slugs to nibble instead of eating the lettuces, and the radishes went to seed. Their offspring are coming up now. The plants look pretty nibbled, but some are surviving. It is neat to see a food crop emerge by no effort of your own past the initial planting. I guess that is one of the things permaculture is about. Fun.

We Have Germination! (and slugs)

Yesterday as I went to water the pots of broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage started Saturday, I noticed something: new growth already in all 3 sets! It took weeks back in the winter in the basement for them to germinate! Guess warm soil is important, even for cool-weather crops to germinate. I put the pots in the garage yesterday evening as a storm was approaching, and I did not want them flooded. I went in this morning to find one pot denuded of cabbage seedlings- and a slug therein! I thought moving them to the garage would help avoid that. The slug, sensing the rain coming, was probably on or in the pot already, and I did not see it in the dim evening light. I replanted the pot. I'll know to look next time. If it does not rain more tonight, I may set out the beer traps.

Wild Kingdom: Predatory Wasp

This caterpillar turns into the beautiful Black Swallowtail butterfly, and we don't need much dill anyway, so I leave it alone. Not everyone else does, though. This wasp was very busy trying to skin/ behead one of the caterpillars. It was struggling to hold onto the plant and get its food. It finally flew off with about a fourth of the larva, resting on the fence before proceeding to parts unknown. I hope it likes cabbage worms, too. It's a paper wasp! Never knew they were predatory. You learn something new every day.

Saving Basil Seeds

Forget the pitiful harvest. My tomato plants are coming out (except for the Sungolds, which are still producing, tiny as they are) this week-end. Those brown things on top are the mature seed pods of the basil plants. Each pod has 4 parts, each with about 4 little black seeds in it, so you can get a huge number of seeds from even one stem of flowers. I rub them out between finger and thumb over my palm or a white piece of paper, then throw the plant waste in the bushes. I let these get away from me a bit and flower early, having harvested WAY too much basil last year. I did not learn how to make pesto until this year, because I needed a low-sodium version, and we don't have pine nuts around here. I grew basil this year from saved seed, and it worked, though I did wind up buying a few plants extra to try to deter the tomato hornworms. When the tomato plants got taller than the basil, the basil had no apparent repellent effect. However, the urge to pose at the top of the plant in the evening when I was watering DID lead to the demise of several of those nasty critters. Lord willing, the garden will be cleared and ready for fall crops by the end of the week-end.

Aphids on Corn!

Look at this! We're saving a few ears of corn for  seed (as an experiment), and these aphids and their attendant ants were on the dying leaves of a corn plant. I insecticidal-soaped them after this picture to keep them from multiplying and infesting anything else.

Take the Picture, Already

This was one patient praying mantis. I had problems getting the camera to focus on it and not the wall behind. It was on a diseased plant on a section of fencing I was taking down for prep for fall planting. It sat through several shots until I got this one. 

Things are a little too wild out there for my taste right now. I saw the coon family last night. Two adolescents were eating cat food in the garage. I yelled at them. They did not move until I went outside and whacked the ground with a plastic broom. Then the mom came up the alley after I went indoors. SHE WAS HUGE. No fear of humans at all. They came up on the back stoop with the inner door open, only the security door closed, looking for food. I do not want a wild animal that size with no fear of man in my backyard. Must get a weapon, before I find Jorge or Diego torn up out back.

Another Hornworm

This tomato was supposed to be pear-shaped, and purple. It gets brownish red when ripe. Actually I'm not upset with the plant's performance at all, because this is actually 2 or more of the pear-shaped fruit fused together. The plants of this variety are the only ones (so far) that the hornworms are finding attractive. They pose for me at the top of the plant in the evening. I remove and drown them. Oy.

Stink Bugs Stink

Some are our friends, and some are not. The green ones and some of the brown ones suck the juices out of plants with a piercing probiscis, wounding the plant and lowering yields. I think these are brown stink bugs, Euschistus servus. One appeared to be sucking on the sunflower plant shown here. I disposed of them after the photo. You can read about and view these friends and foes at

http://www.uky.edu/Ag/CritterFiles/casefile/insects/bugs/stinkbugs/stinkbugs.htm#mormidea.

Gardening Means Never-Ending Learning

I told my husband at lunch that there are several grand-daddy long-legs (leiobonum vittatum) living in my green bean plants. They seem to occupy the same place every day under the leaves, so I try not to disturb them. The entomologists say they are arachnids, but not true spiders, and little is actually known about their ecology. They don't really have poisonous venom. You can read about them at 

http://www.uky.edu/Ag/CritterFiles/casefile/relatives/daddy/daddy.htm#leio. He told me that I'm really getting to know my garden and its inhabitants. That is important, as I need to know who will get to eat what, who is harmful, and who is helpful. They think the leibonum eat soft-bodied insects (aphids and grubs maybe- in which case- have at 'em, boys). I sure hope they do.

A Dreaded Enemy Has Found Me- Manduca Sexta

I knew they would show up eventually. I was watering my tomato plants when I saw that one looked a bit chewed. Examining more closely, I saw this- entire branches of fresh, new growth partially denuded. I knew of only one local foe of tomatoes that destructive- the larva of the Carolina Sphinx moth, otherwise known as the tobacco hornworm. The tomato hornworm is a relative that is equally destructive, and they look a lot alike.

You can read about them at http://www.uky.edu/Ag/CritterFiles/casefile/insects/butterflies/sphinx/sphinx.htm#carolina. 

It is a large and pretty moth (you can mistake it for a hummingbird or a small bat), that has large and ugly offspring. This is in a pint jar. The caterpillar is as big around as my thumb, and as long as my index finger. Its head is not shown, but that red tail spike (black in the tomato hornworm) is an identifying mark. The best thing to do is to inspect your plants regularly, and pick them off. If you have birds or chickens big enough to handle eating them, feed them to your animals. Otherwise find a way to kill them before they skeletonize your rich tomato dreams.

Leucauge venusta

This is Leucauge venusta or the orchard orbweaver. Isn't it a beautiful spider? God had fun with this one. Decorating something so gloriously that spends its life catching and eating insects, when a dull brown might have been more "adaptive", just goes to show that He is an artist as well as a superb engineer. Praise God for the small things that make our lives easier, and leave a few webs up around your place today.

Praying Mantis

When I went out to pick fresh basil for the soup last night, I saw a most unusual praying mantis on one of the plants. I've seen a baby green one before, but this one was brown, with black-and-white-striped legs. I did not have the camera, and the lighting was a bit dim, anyway. I just looked it up on the UK entomology site, and it is a Carolina Mantid, Stagmomantis carolina. Go there for a picture of the adult. The nymph was cute. An American native! I hope it stays, thrives, and eats the bad guys.