Bumblebee full of pollen

By Crystal | August 14, 2015

Plucky plants

By Crystal | August 9, 2015

I’ve noticed the persistence of plants a lot this season – flowers growing in spite of their less-than-ideal location or after being damaged.

We’ve always had weeds growing in the the cracks in the driveway, but this year we’re getting flowers, too.

Purple coneflowers have done the best – several flowers that the bees have found, even though they’re three feet below the rest of the garden:

There are many areas with hollyhocks, though they aren’t flowering yet:

I’m not surprised that feverfew is growing in the driveway – it spreads very easily:

Wind has been a force in our garden this year, with many plants blown over after one storm or another.

Milkweed gets tossed around a lot, and it always rebounds after about a day.

We’ve staked the taller plants, and they’re still growing even if their stems are not straight. These first three have been bunched tighter than normal due to the ties.

Goldenrod:

Tall sunflower:

Yellow coneflowers:

The cup plant is the best example of this. During a particularly bad thunderstorm we lost three stems, but the rest have been corralled – except one that slipped past the twine and is growing sideways:

Buckets of berries

By Crystal | August 2, 2015

We went strawberry-picking twice this summer. The first batch was eaten so fast, we had to go back for a second trip!

We picked them at a u-pick farm in Rice Lake, Wisconsin.

They’re about $8-10 per bucket – just a fraction of what we pay in the grocery store.

Here’s what we did with all those strawberries:

A big bowl to share with my coworkers, and a bowl for my husband’s parents.

A strawberry-brie grilled cheese. It was okay, but now I know that I don’t care for warm strawberries.

Several smoothies with spinach, flaxseed, chia seeds, oatmeal, and banana. Sometimes with blueberries and/or raspberries.

A “dish to pass” at a potluck: fruit salad with a yummy honey-lime glaze, a recipe shared by my cousin.

Lots and lots of just plain berries.

Nutella-covered strawberries. I love strawberries, I love Nutella. Two great tastes that taste great together, right? Wrong. Then again, I’m not that fond of chocolate-covered strawberries, so this should not be a surprise.

Two big bags full of frozen whole berries. I do this every year and last year I was so conservative that we still have some in the freezer! This year we’ll eat more.

And last but not least: of course we made strawberry shortcake.

If you plant it, they will come

By Crystal | July 12, 2015

If you know I’m talking about milkweed plants, then you know who “they” are: monarch butterflies. And I’m here to confirm the statement that “if you plant it, they will come.”

Last year we had a few milkweed plants, and this year that turned into at least 35, with more still sprouting even into July. Bugs love it.

And though we’ve seen monarchs in the past, I had never found any caterpillars. Until now.

There was evidence on more than one common milkweed plant – chewed leaves as well as frass…

… but no caterpillars were spotted until I saw a photo from a new Instagram friend that prompted me to look again. That very night I found a medium-sized caterpillar…

and then I found a newborn:

The next day, I didn’t see those two again, but I did find a giant one 20 feet away. Of course, given the small size of this milkweed, everything looks giant in comparison.

And then I saw a medium-sized caterpillar walking through the garden nowhere near milkweed.

I picked a leaf for it and it stuck around for another day before I didn’t see it again.

But then I noticed one on the underside of a leaf. I decided to keep my eye on it.

And sure enough, the next day it was in the “J” formation, signaling that it was about to begin its transformation.

Later that day it was a chrysalis! It was so well camouflaged that I almost certainly wouldn’t have seen it had I not noticed the caterpillar earlier.

I checked it morning and night for days. The “monarch lifecycle” websites say that butterflies emerge after 7 to 10 days of the chrysalis stage. Seven days passed, then ten. I was losing hope until the 12th morning, when I noticed orange and black starting to show through the green.

And then we had to go out of town for 4th of July celebrations. When we returned, the chrysalis was empty.

I was sad to have missed it, but I’m just glad that it was successful! Later that evening I noticed a monarch flying around our neighbor’s backyard – and I’m choosing to believe this was “our” monarch, making sure I noticed before it flew away.

Bee mimics

By Crystal | July 7, 2015

I keep getting fooled by flies that look like bees, a characteristic that helps ward off predators who think that they’ll sting.

First I noticed dozens of hoverflies, or syrphid flies, on spiderwort. Their bodies look like bees but they have fly heads. They’re a good pollinator.

Video

Then I noticed two different “bumblebees”:

unknown on “tiny monster” geranium

and Eristalis tenax on yarrow.

And then there’s this guy. I was walking through the garden one sunny, warm afternoon and noticed a giant bumblebee, the biggest one I’ve ever seen. It looked like a scruffy tired old thing resting on a milkweed leaf.

I ran inside to try to identify the species of bumblebee, then realized that once again that I was seeing a fly, not a bee. The good bugs that are coming to our native plants are enticing some predators, namely robber flies (or assassin flies). These flies hope that other insects will think they’re harmless bumblebees – but then they ambush the other insects.

There were at least two in the garden, as shown in this blurry video:

At that point I was too spooked and quickly fled – making sure not to turn my back to them. Though to be fair, even though they look creepy and threatening, neither was interested in sticking around when I came near.

This one was watching an American Lady butterfly five feet away, though it flew away as soon as it saw me: