"Italian" Caterpillars

Caterpillar feeding on basil

Basil (Ocimum basilicum) is one of the basic aromatic plants that I maintain.  Every summer I grow them in pots near the kitchen.  This is the first year when I had to deal with some caterpillars which were trying to defoliate my basil at a high speed.  I've never had "basil-eating caterpillars" in my garden before.  Could it be that they have migrated from Tuscany? :) 

Phytophagous insects are those that feed on plants.  We see them all the time in our gardens on different plants.  Different insects are attracted to different types of plants.  For example, the tomato hornworm which is the larvae of the Five-Spotted Hawk moth (Manduca quinquemaculata) feeds on tomato leaves as their first choice.  

How do they choose their host plant?  The adult female insect chooses the host plant before they lay their eggs.  The adult insects (moths and butterflies) are beneficial pollinators but their larval form is very destructive to plants.  Although the adult does not have the same diet as the larvae, it knows what its offspring will want to eat.  There are cues that they use to choose their host.  The first one is visual cue - they choose green (plants) instead of brown (soil).  Once they are on the right color location they start to inspect the other details such as the chemical properties of the plants that they have chosen.  Only after they have made sure that the location is right that they begin to check out the other details of the host plant.  The scent, palpability, and taste of the plant will be final test on whether the insect will decide to stay.  Otherwise it will continue to look for another plant until the perfect one is found. 

This is similar to house-hunting.  First we choose the right location or city and then we look for the house that is affordable, with a big yard to garden, or a sparkling swimming pool. We view different houses until we make an offer only on the one that meets our requirements.

The voracious larvae that are on my basil plants did not choose to be there nor did they migrate from another yard because they liked the good smell of the herb.   They were left there by their harmless parents (moth or butterfly) who made sure that their young will be fully supported.

Friends or Enemies?   Well, a couple of days ago I wrote something about saving the pollinators.  Now, I am talking about "future pollinators" eating my food.  How then should we treat them - enemies or allies?  No matter how I will answer this question it will always be wrong.  The butterflies and moths are our partners in food production and they deserve to have food during the different stages of their life cycle.  If we do not want them to feed on our own food then we need to make sure that they can find theirs somewhere.  Therefore, diversify.

  

Plant-eating larvae

Damaged basil plants.

Vegetables in the Garden

Radish (Raphanus sativus)

We have enjoyed a lot of radishes this year.  There are still some left of the 'French-Breakfast' variety in the garden which probably are too hard to eat now.  So far the first sign of bolting has just started.  I am curious to see how big they can get.  For the other variety (round red) bolting has occured a long time ago - in fact pods have already developed. 

Potato (Solanum tuberosum)

There are volunteer-potatoes growing in the vegetable garden.  They are flowering which indicates that they are long-day plants.  The leaves look green and healthy which means that the tubers underneath the ground are getting bigger.  When the leaves start to turn yellow and brown that is the sign that they are about ready for harvesting.

Tomato (Solanum esculentum)

All the tomatoes are doing great.  No diseases and pest so far.   I planted three varieties:  'Better Boy', 'Early Girl', and 'Sweet 100'.  

Yellow Zucchini (Cucurbita pepo)

 These Zucchini are starting to flower although so far no fruit has set.   That is not surprising at all.   Fruits will come; I just have to be patient.

Basil (Ocimum basilicum)

We have a very generous supply of sweet basil this year.  There's a whole plot in the garden and several of them planted in different pots.  That way we can bring some of them close to the kitchen to make cooking more convenient, I guess.

This is just a glimpse of what's going on in the garden at this time.  It will serve as a reference when I make my plans for next year. 

Rosa 'Zephirine Drouhin': Thornless Rose

Rosa 'Zephirine Drouhin': Unopened buds

Rosa 'Zephirine Drouhin': Cerise-pink flowers

The rose 'Zephirine Drouhin' is probably the only rose that would qualify to be planted in front of our house flanking our north-facing garage doors.  When I planted them (three plants) my children were small and played on the driveway a lot.   This rose is thornless and kids are safe around it.  I purchased three of them in Petaluma about eight years ago. 

This old Bourbon rose is overwhelmingly fragrant. It produces clusters of stunning cerise-pink old-fashioned flowers throughout spring, summer, and fall.   An excellent candidate to train on arbors, wall, trellises, or around pillars, it grows vigorously up to 10+ feet tall.   The front of our house gets the sun the later in afternoon and yet this rose is doing just fine.  Therefore, I can say that it can tolerate some shade.  This rose is very responsive to fertilizer.  A little complete fertilizer goes along way with this easy-to-grow and delightful rose.   

The problem I've noted with this rose is its tendency to attract aphids and its susceptibility to powdery mildew.  It is possible that the mildew problem could be less in full-sun growing environment.

Consider having 'Zephirine Drouhin' in your garden.  She will surely delight you.

Save and Celebrate the Pollinators

In the course of any given season, we plant and water, we fertilize and weed but for most of our crops someone else has taken the responsibility of performing the key job that result in a good harvest.  The pollinators are our partners in the backyard or in the fields.  They are the bees, butterflies, hummingbirds, moths, flies, beetles, and bats. 

This week (June 21-27, 2010) has been designated as the National Pollinator Week by the USDA.  This post is not that late - you still can check out their website and see what you can do.  

One small step at a time counts.  As gardeners, we can make deliberate attempts to make our backyards a favorable habitat for pollinators.  It does not take much from us to help improve this "world of pollinators".   In my garden for example, I allow my herbs and vegetables (cilantro, parsley, sage, mint, rosemary) to flower.  These are insectary plants - they harbor insects including pollinators.  Now as the season progresses, the annual and biennial herbs dry out - but the bok choy (in the picture) and radishes which were purposefully left to flower are hosting the insects.  These are just plants from my kitchen garden.   There are so many ornamental plants that can provide pollen and nectar for them.   Different plants attract different pollinators.  Diversify your crops to provide a continuous food source throughout their active season.  If you want to take action for pollinators there is a specific recommendation for your area. 

In food production, the pollinators are our allies. 

Cymbidiums: Good Things are Happening

Transplanted pseudobulb with new shoots.

New Growths on Pseudobulb.  Pseudobulbs are the swollen orchid stems where leaves are attached to.  When the leaves die and abscise during the season, pseudobulb is not relieved of its function.   Leafless it may be it serves as a reservoir of water and nutrients for the plant.  The picture you see above is a product my one mistake.  I detached the pseudobulb from the plant and planted it to see if new plant comes out.   This is not recommended since it would deprive the rest of the plants from the good stuff stored in it.  

New growths showing up

My inexpensive potting mixture is working.  Last May I experimented on the potting mixture that I used to repot the orchids.  I observe that the plants seem to like it as indicated by the number of new pseudobulbs coming out.   Spike is the term used to refer to the inflorescence or the flowers in cymbidiums.  As a general rule, a spike comes out at the base of each new pseudobulb.  If these plants continue with their current growth trend then I can safely say that you and I can save a lot of money by making our own cymbidium potting mix.

Cooler spot.  Cymbidiums love the sunshine but the blazing summer light intensity is too much for these traditionally-understory plants to bear.  For now I have moved the orchids to a more shady part of the yard.   The good thing about potted plants is that the microclimate can be adjusted easily by moving them around.

Rushing to Ripen

Plums (Prunus domestica 'Santa Rosa')

The plum tree is laden with fruits this year.  When plums ripen it happens in one week or two.  It's very fast.  Last week they were green with a tint of red on some of them.   Now there's no turning back!  They're ready.   Plums can be harvested before they are totally ripe.  They continue to ripen and get sweeter as they sit on the shelf - up to a certain point. 

Harvesting plums is one of the many fun summer activities in the backyard.  I enlist my kids to harvest them.  The tree is not very tall (it's only about nine feet) so they use a stool and an apple picker for the ones that are out there.  These plums are very sweet and excellent for eating. 

These plums will be a juicy welcome to my two older kids and my husband when they come back from a mission trip.  

Ripe fruits are bluish in color.

In case we fail to bring the fruits in, the Blue-Jay birds are more than happy to help themselves.  I spotted two of them already circling the tree trying to stake their claim.

Only a day or two to go before they're ready.

 With the way they look I might need to get my canning paraphernalia ready now. 

Understory: Rosa 'Sally Holmes'

Rosa 'Sally Holmes'

As mentioned previously, my rose 'Sally Holmes' has gone over my 10-foot tall patio cover.  As a result it has been difficult to make a close-up appreciation of the massive bouquets that it produces.   Although I used to cut the wedding-bouquet-like flowers to delight my children with, it's been a long time since I had the chance to touch one.  Most of the time now the flowers are being ignored except for the constant reminders of their presence through showers of petals that are blown down by the afternoon breeze.  

Well, recently the rose sent out new canes from the base of the plant.  It was amazing to see such flowers produced in an almost 1000-SPF-shade (meaning under a thick tree and the patio cover).   Compared to their sun-kissed counterparts sitting over the shade structure, these flowers exhibited a more pinkish-coloration - which I think is more beautiful.

'Sally Holmes', based on my observations, is tolerant to some shading.