Unknown worm

After reading another blog concerning horn worms, I went out to my little garden and immediately spied a worm of my own. I don't think this one is a horn worm, but it sure is pretty. I found this guy eating one of my carrot tops. Since it's so late in the season I decided to let him go. They are rather pretty and anyway, I figure they have just as much right being here as I do.

Scrambled eggs right off the farm!

I really enjoy living in a rural southwest corner of Missouri. One of the perks to living life in the country is the opportunity to score fresh food ‘right off the farm’. So it was a happy surprise when a friend’s mom (appropriately named Sunny) was kind enough to give me a dozen eggs from chickens she is raising. Thanks Sunny and Brandy!

Wow! I got them home and decided the next morning to treat myself to some scrambled eggs loaded with mushrooms, green pepper and cheese. I decided toast and some fresh fruit would round out the dish. Nutritionally this was a good deal with the exception of the high cholesterol reading. But, was I worried? Actually no, as some studies have shown that eggs may not be the bad boys on the block we were told they were. Test subjects in Australia, ate four eggs a day for a month and actually recorded large drops in blood LDL levels. As a matter of fact, the mobile cholesterol testing unit they used failed to record any number at all! Some scientists now believe that a better connection can be made to heart disease and the amount of saturated fat in a diet, but even that can be misleading. Peanut butter and peanuts for instance have relatively high levels of saturated fat and yet are currently thought to actually fight heart related problems.

So, maybe Thoreau was right after all. Just do a diet that is moderate, get some exercise and maybe you’ll squeak through.

Hey! What happened to my summer?

It’s like some big switch that was thrown somewhere as I slept. My hot summer has turned into cool autumn and now I miss the heat. (I’m finicky that way). This morning I awoke to a reading of only 57 degrees. Because I’d left my window open, my bedroom felt somewhat like the inside of a malfunctioning fridge. Guess I’ll have to break out the Long John’s before too long. Thank goodness, though, I had the foresight to plant out my lettuce a week or so ago. This is perfect weather for them to grow in. Also, I don’t have to air condition on days like this. Note to self; is it cheaper to air condition or heat a home?

My neighbors across the street, God bless them; already have a fall motif in place on the front yard. While cute, it is yet another grim reminder of what is to come…winter. In answer to this insult, I ran a string of Christmas lights around a front facing window. Take that you fall fascists!

According to the Almanac, this winter might be a beast. Any extra cold and damp weather will no doubt make for some slick country roads. (I’m stocking up on cat litter as I write this). I reside in southwest Missouri, a geographic location that sees the confluence of as many as three distinct climazones. Down here, ice storms are always a possibility and they can be killers. Then there are the rare but heavy snowfalls followed by balmy seventy degree weather. I generally get a cold right about then.

Down in the neighboring recreational park, a large motorcycle swap meet is also being held on this date. An event, I understand, that has been planned for months and which now may suffer in attendance due to the lousy overcast and cool regime. I attended a similar event in April and have to say that not only were there some cool items for sale, the real attraction was the bikers themselves. You see a real cross-section of Americana when you attend a biker event. Some of the dudes look like they just got out of prison while others talk as though they were educated in Princeton. If you’re a people watcher like me, this is nirvana central.

So, it’s off we go into fall. This last summer was a ball, but now it is past, and I’m left out in the cold, holding a bag of cat litter.    

Coneflower in Glass

Paper Wasps are good guys for the most part!

My neighbor Jean, called me over to her property this morning to ask what the heck was hanging in a tree over her garden. Her friend Louis had guessed it was a wasp nest and she was right. It was evidently a paper wasp nest.

 

Paper wasps are 3⁄4 to 1 inch (1.9 to 2.5 cm)-long wasps that gather fibers from dead wood and plant stems, which they mix with saliva, and use to construct water-resistant nests made of gray or brown papery material.

Unlike yellow jackets and hornets, which can be very aggressive, polistine paper wasps will generally only attack if they themselves or their nest are threatened. Since their territoriality can lead to attacks on people, and because their stings are quite painful and can produce a potentially fatal anaphylactic reaction in some individuals, nests in human-inhabited areas may present an unacceptable hazard.

Most wasps are beneficial in their natural habitat, and are critically important in natural bio-control. Paper wasps feed on nectar, and other insects, including caterpillars, flies, and beetle larvae, and they are often considered to be beneficial by gardeners.

I'm pretty sure that, it being so late in the season, that the wasps that built this ting are now long gone. One can only marvel at the abilities of something so small as a mere insect. 

End of season notes.

Fall Comith

Well, lo and behold, it’s now almost fall now. Actually the official start will be a couple of days from now on September the 23^rd. That’s the date when the sun crosses the equator on its voyage to the southern parts of good old planet earth. If I remember my geology correctly, about the only continent that wholly benefits from the warmer weather will be Australia. Blimey mate. (At least the Roo’s will be happy as they hippy-hop all over the place).

Here in the northern latitudes (36 degrees north for me), the days are now getting noticeably shorter and cooler. The chart above represents the actual drop in temperature in the late afternoon to evening hours. The sky, that night, was slightly overcast to partly cloudy with a very light to no wind from the west. I was able to turn off the AC and open the doors! After surviving a very warm summer, temperatures like these are most welcome. (I guess radiative cooling is not a bad thing at this time of year. It’s when we get into winter that it can be a bit brutal).

A Late Sowing of Little Caesar Romaine

Since I had some seed left over, I thought it might be fun to plant a couple of rows of romaine in the outdoor garden even though it is kind of late to be doing that. Arguably I have plenty of time (sixty plus days). Problem is that the beds out back are close enough to the north facing back wall that the sun will not be getting to the plants come sometime in October. I figure if the plants are of any size at all I’ll try transplanted then out in front of the house where I have a little space. I’m not sure how well they will transplant but that will be another lesson for me to learn when the time comes.

Factors that affect romaine growth in a cold frame.

Ah, the joys of gardening. What is supposed to be a relaxing hobby for most can be laborious if you are a compulsive person such as I am.

So, today’s topic will have to do with my previous article on growing romaine in small cold frames. The question is will I have enough time to bring small starts to maturity considering that it is now past the middle of September and time is a wasting.

In order to answer the question, I need to start with some assumptions and some observations. The first is the time it will take for my small starts to mature. That’s an easy one as the published figure is about 65 days. Therefore from the planting in mid September I have until let’s say the end of November to get them grown. That comes to about 75 days, so at least I know what my target is. That is no longer than the end of November.

Next, I want to examine the major factors that will influence plant growth; length of day or sunlight, angle of sunlight or intensity and lastly the ambient temperatures I can expect.

Length of Day

The first thing I wanted to figure out was just how much sun the plants would get. As it gets later in the fall the amount of sunlight decreases as the arc of the sun’s travel dips ever lower in the south. Here’s what I found

As you can see my location here in southwest Missouri only gets a little over twelve hours (12.2) of light at this time of year. By the end of October I’m down to 10.6 hours and then as the end of November arrives my plants will only have 9.7 hours. The times are from official sunrise to sunset, so the actual usable times are much shorter. That is why it is so important to get time your romaine starts begun in such a manner that you hit the window of maturity right before it begin to get really cold which is mid December. (I’ve found that planting indoors anytime prior to the end of August seems to work).  By that time growth pretty much stops and yet the plants don’t seem to age if protected properly. That is as long as you maintain a temperature of at least the low forties in the interior of the frames themselves. I’ve accomplished this over the last couple of winters by using a small forty watt light bulb on a timer and then covering the frames with blankets whenever I knew it was going to get really bad outside. Perhaps surprisingly, whenever it has snowed, I’ve found I don’t need the lights or the blankets as the snow acts as a great insulator and the warmth coming up from the soil does the rest.

Angle of the Sun

The next consideration would the angle of the arc of the sun in your particular locale. The chart here shows how high the sun gets at particular from June through December at my latitude. As you can see, right now in September they’re enjoying pretty decent sunlight angles which can be also described as sun intensity. Too much intensity like I find in mid July will actually burn the plants up, while lesser intensity such as exists this time of year is optimal for growth. That seems to be true until about mid October when the angles begin to get pretty severe. On a side note, I decided for fun to verify that the sun’s angle at noon was a little over fifty degrees by quickly constructing the device you see here. It just a piece of cardboard with a circle drawn on it (I used a dish) and a thin length of metal punched through the middle. The angles I drew were on the rough side, but as you can see fairly accurate. Just make sure to align the board in a true north and south direction (use a compass) and insure the cardboard is level.

Temperatures

OK, so I have the feeling that I will have long enough days at good sun intensity for at least two more months. But what about the temperatures? I would like to keep the frames open as much as possible. Well, according to data taken from last year (2009) that should not be a problem. The graph represents the actual reading taken by a local weather station just a few miles from my home. The blue line represents 32 degrees or freezing. However, that is not really a problem with romaine as it has actually survived temperatures as low as 27F in previous years outdoors. So, assuming this graph of highs and lows is pretty close to what I can expect for 2010, then I should be good to go.

So that’s the plan Jan. I will do some updates as the season progresses. If everything works out, I hope to have a picture of me enjoying some fresh lettuce out of the garden on New Years Day 2011.

Growing romaine lettuce through the winter!

I think I’ve alluded to the growing of lettuce in cold frames in some earlier blogs. Not sure, but that's part of getting old I guess. My mind goes, comes back and then goes again. But, if you're wondering whether it can be done. The answer is yes! Just make sure to check out my seed starting video.

So OK, any earlier blogs not withstanding, I decided to start twenty romaine plants from seed about three weeks prior. (I choose romaine because they can withstand cold temperatures and are generally healthier than leaf lettuce). These have now grown to transplant size (about 2 to 3 inches tall) and have been transplanted into both of my small cold frames (10 in each) that were originally built in 2008. (I produced a You Tube video on these in case you might be interested). Over the last few days, I have refurbished the frames by adding some fresh paint and resealing the glass panes in the window frames that cover the top of each. As you can see, the end result looks pretty good.

During the past two fall and winter seasons, I learned that if I started my plants early enough, I could grow them to close to maturity and then hold them in a kind of suspended animation until I got a chance to harvest them later in the year. The key to doing this was to monitor the inside air temperatures (I used a wireless thermometer to monitor changes from inside my home) and to add heat via a forty watt bulb when needed. I’ve found that by keeping the air temperature in the frames in the forty to fifty degree range, I could keep the plants healthy for a long period of time. I also had to make sure not to let the leaves touch the window panes above the plants on cold days as that would turn their tips brown. That’s one of the reasons I decided to add a little height in one of the frames (designated as CF1). It was only four inches or so, but I think that will help. We’ll see this winter how that works out.

Head-space Increase

By adding a quickly made frame made from 2x4’s onto the top of CF1, I was able to increase the head space appreciably. In CF2 and CF1 the growing surfaces are the same at about 32 inches wide by 21 inches deep (roughly 4.7 square feet each). Head space, however in CF2 is eight inches in the back which tapers to 3 inches in the front compared to CF1 which now has 11 inches in the back versus 6 in the front. The increased area should allow for larger plants. That is one thing I hope to quantify as we go through the fall. By mid November all growth will have basically stopped and I’ll do a follow up blog at that time.

Soil Condition

At the last minute, I decided not to add any amendments to the soil in either frame. A casual inspection revealed to me that the soil is dark with a high crumb structure. It also appeared to be high in humus content, so I will wait to see how well the romaine starts grow before making any changes. If needed, I have blood meal available to increase the nitrogen content. (I may elect to do a full soil test by the end of the month, but for now I want to go with my gut instincts).

So that’s the deal. I’ve cleaned up my cold frames and transplanted the young lettuce starts. All that’s left to do is hope these plants get big before the cold stops them.

September means cooler weather!

September is here and not a month too soon! Magically, the brutal temperature regime we had been experiencing in southwest Missouri has now moderated considerably. (As I write this tome, the mid-day reading was a very comfortable 72F). Part of this was due to overcast skies heralding arrival of the remains of tropical depression Hermine. (A much diminished low pressure system whose name could well be changed to Hermie).

With the official first day of fall arriving on the 23rd of this month and with a few days of rainy weather pending, I thought it might be a good idea to transplant my small romaine lettuce starts out into my small cold frames. Right now I have about twelve small starter plants with about ten more on the way. I plan to put a few out every week or so until I have the eleven square foot combined space used up. The soil will be amended with a little leftover blood meal I have in the basement and that will be pretty much it.

Sometime around mid October I expect to have some edible plants to harvest. Any remaining plants will be covered with window panes by the end of that month to help keep them warm and happy when the weather gets cold.

Soldier bug eggs

What a cool little critter. The spined soldier bug AKA Podisus maculiventris, is a species of insect that is commonly found in North America. They are predators of gypsy moth caterpillars and the larvae of beetles such as the Colorado potato beetle and the Mexican bean beetle. Due to the fact that they eat Mexican bean beetles, they are regarded by me as very good things to have in the garden. A female picked yesterday, for her own reasons, to lay her eggs on my front door storm window. I was lucky enough to be there at just that time and the process was both fascinating and pretty neat to watch. I also decided it might be well worth my time to collect a few of the eggs and then observe them as they hatched under my microscope.

I wanted to do this in a way in which I could both observe the eggs mature, while at the same, time not harm them in any manner. To this end, I decided to try and move them to a microscope slide that would be kept securely in a covered Petri dish until they hatched. I wanted to observe their development and then would release them safely outside after hatching. (In my way of thinking, all life is precious). Following is some additional information I gleaned of the net.

Adult spined soldier bugs are brownish, about the size of your fingernail and have a prominent spine on each "shoulder." (This is not the origin of the name spined soldier bug . . . the "spined" refers to spines on the legs!) They overwinter as adults, hiding in leaf litter in woods around fields, and begin emerging around mid-April in Indiana. Females can lay up to 500 eggs and live up to 125 days. Males are slightly smaller than females and live up to 180 days. Females begin depositing eggs 4-7 days after emerging. The number of eggs a female lays depends on how well she is fed the more she eats the more eggs she lays and on the type of prey she eats (Colorado potato beetles are particularly "bad" prey; Mexican bean beetles are "ok"). Survival, development, body weight and longevity also depend on the type of prey and the frequency of feeding. Females in the field eat about 1 prey every 2 days, which is a lot less than they can eat when food is readily available. Females fed too much often die earlier than those fed less perhaps a health lesson to us all!

The eggs are deposited in masses of 15-70, and range in color from cream-colored to black. Eggs hatch in 4-7 days, depending on temperature. The brick red first instar spined soldier bugs are not predaceous (indeed they eat nothing at all!), whereas the remaining 4 instars (immature stages), are predaceous. Development from newly hatched to adult takes 25-30 days. There are 1-3 generations per year.

At right is a slightly blurry picture I took of the actual eggs.

I had already taken eight eggs from the window leaving the rest alone. The cement that the female bug used to attach the eggs was as tough as any super glue I’ve ever used. Credit Mother Nature for that.

On the 14th, four of the eggs have hatched as you can seen in the picture below. The bugs were tiny, but also were exact copies of their parents. After getting some pictures, I took the slide out to the front yard and released the bugs. A very cool thing to see. Thanks Mother Nature.

Another Mystery Vine – solved… or… maybe not!

Here in southwest Missouri, it’s now getting to be late summer. Bummer. It’s been a pretty good growing season for me and I’ve had lots of great veggies as a result. But as of now (early September), most of my plants are pretty much done and seem ready to throw in the towel. That is, with the sole exception of another vine plant that began to grow spontaneously by a rear retaining wall a few weeks back. I noticed it back then, but decided what the heck and let it be. Well, it continued to grow and thrive as though it was springtime!

Fast forward to this now and my goodness how large and sprawling this vine has become. (I suppose it must of really like that particular spot). When I checked among the large leaves, I was surprised to see a pretty good sized watermelon growing there with another just getting started. Wow! At least I think it’s a watermelon. Now the question is will it make to maturity before the weather get cold? Another good one will be whether or not it will be edible? This is a ‘parent unknown’ case to be sure.