Today in Our Gardens

 Today in Our Garden

2024

This post was a long time in coming...I am proud to announce that I have completed my graduate coursework and now have a Master's in Applied Nutrition! What better a way to celebrate than to walk around outdoors with my camera! 

• Hummingbirds are still in NJ visiting our feeders and their favorite blooms, including cannas and salvias. 
• The best fruits we grew this year were two varieties of figs and Petit Moineau heirloom tomatoes.
  

It was great to discover a robust and healthy monarch caterpillar in Harry's meadow!! This was the first one we've seen all season. My guess is the reduction in insects could be from people's use of systemic pesticides and insect spraying. Some insect reduction could be from our hungry Mt Laurel lizards! Lizzy's like bugs but wouldn't eat monarch larva, since monarchs are poisonous.

The incredible passion vines have taken over our vegetable garden! Fruits looking like limes are now dangling all over the place.

We missed the veggie market on Saturday, but enjoyed a walk around the Burlington County Agricultural Center's community garden plots. The above pollinator photo was taken in their herb garden located near their farmhouse where they do the cooking demos.

Hopefully, my next post will be sooner rather than later!

Best for good health and happiness,

Diana 

Blog post and photos Copyright (C) Wind. All rights reserved.

Today in our South Jersey garden: beautiful blooms, Milkweed, Monarchs, Figs and ants! #GardenCuizine

Today in Our NJ Garden - zone 7a (was 6b)

September 5, 2021

Labor Day weekend marks the unofficial end of summer. "End of Summer" seemed like the perfect title to my above photograph taken today in our front garden of Black-eyed Susan's with Sweet Autumn Clematis. 

The highlight of my day today was to see both a Monarch caterpillar AND a Monarch butterfly!! The monarch caterpillar was resting on Common Milkweed in Harry's Milkweed Meadow and the Monarch butterfly was visiting a small patch of native hardy Ageratum. Of course, both got reported on Journey North's website as fall Monarch migration is officially underway! 

I snapped a few photos of the Monarch caterpillar and butterfly with my cell phone and when I went back with my good camera to get better pictures later in the day, they were gone.

Today, our veggie garden is bursting with blooming garlic chives, zinnias and cannas. We also have dahlias (not blooming yet), chia and peppers and heirloom tomatoes that will keep producing here and there until the first killing frost.

This is our best year ever for figs! Figs have to be picked as soon as they ripen. Both trees are producing figs. Today I picked two huge figs from our littlest fig tree (variety unknown). One fig had to be sacrificed to the ants; they beat us to it.

One quick note about when to pick figs. I had this question, "Will figs continue to ripen once picked?" I read that figs do not ripen after they are picked. However, we just discovered that they do continue to ripen. Our Chicago figs continue to ripen and get sweeter after they are picked. Now, we just need to improve our timing of picking figs before the ants march in.

Happy Labor Day!

Related Links

Journey North - report your Monarch Sightings!

Photos and blog post Copyright (C)Wind. All rights reserved.

@monarchwatch @SaveOurMonarchs @journeynorthorg Our milkweed meadow monarch watch update #monarchbutterfly

Our Milkweed Meadow

Monarch Report

My last post talked about the many monarch caterpillars we have this summer thanks to allowing milkweed to grow in our front yard. In the USA, monarch butterfly populations have been declining rapidly due to habitat loss of mainly milkweed. Monarch butterflies need milkweed to survive. We grow it just for the monarchs.

We love milkweed's pleasant fragrance; it's a native plant. And, you do not need a green thumb to grow it. Any homeowner can grow it. Ours grows in a small area that we don't mow or water - basically, a mini (pocket) meadow.

This morning I went out to look for a monarch caterpillar that I noticed Sept. 2nd, hanging under a milkweed leaf in the classic "J" shape - shown in the top photo. And, sure enough, the caterpillar must have shed it's skin soon after I saw it and produced an outer green protective, thimble-sized, pupa (chrysalis) in perfect form. 

Wow! Super exciting to see; and, beautiful too. I never realized chrysalis have a sparkly gold band at the top. I also discovered another chrysalis hanging from a branch in a nearby shrub. 

When metamorphosis is complete, a spectacular monarch butterfly will emerge and join the others in a captivating fall migration. These special, fourth generation, monarch butterflies live the longest. This generation of south-bound butterflies travel over 2,000 miles to their over-wintering destination high up in the mountains of Central Mexico. And, when winter is over, they turn around and fly back to the USA - absolutely an amazing journey.

Updates: 9/15/19- The good news is the chrysalis under the milkweed leaf is still hanging. The bad news is that the leaf is shriveling up and dying now and won't last much longer. ...Come on butterfly... come on!! I just saw a monarch butterfly, but it wasn't this one. I have been watching 2 other chrysalis too; 3 in all. The one in the sun on a shrub branch has beads of sweat on it and you can see the darker butterfly wings inside! 

9/16/19- Guess What? Harry said the chrysalis on the shrub was dark in color this morning. By the time I got home from work, later in the day, the monarch was gone! The other 2, including the chrysalis on the dying milkweed leaf, have turned darker in color and look ready now too. My bet is sometime in the morning. I also saw another caterpillar! The Monarch life cycle is fascinating.

Related Links
Journey South
Monarch Butterflies Migrate 3,000 miles  
Blog post and photos Copyright (C)Wind. All rights reserved.

@monarchwatch Success! Monarch caterpillars all over our milkweed meadow. Yay! #savethemonarchs

Grow a Milkweed Meadow 
for Monarch Success!

Our pocket meadow is proving to be a huge success! Harry's Meadow covers a small piece of our front lawn that we decided not to mow. With a little encouragement and select weeding, common milkweed is flourishing. Milkweed leaves are where monarch butterflies lay their eggs. When monarch caterpillars emerge, they are at the table of their only food source - milkweed. 

A few weeks ago we enjoyed watching and photographing monarch butterflies. We have had a banner year for butterflies - more than ever! Some of the attraction may be that our yard now has many plants that are good nectar sources, including: Milkweed, Joe Pye weed, Echinacea, Liatris and Mexican Sunflowers. 

A few weeks ago, monarch butterflies mated and laid their eggs. Now, we are seeing lots of monarch caterpillars (larvae stage) on the milkweed plants eating the leaves. 

These feeding monarch caterpillars take 10-14 days to molt (5-stages) and grow before leaving the caterpillar larva stage. 

After the larva stage comes the pupa stage, when their chrysalis hangs camouflaged somewhere. It takes another 10-14 days to develop into beautiful monarch butterflies. These late summer monarchs are the 4th generation that join the monarch migration to over-winter in Central Mexico!

Our meadow didn't start out as all milkweed. The area has been invaded by Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris), an undesirable, invasive weed. We continue to pull it out to make room for milkweed to spread.  

Along with monarch caterpillars we also have lots of orange milkweed bugs. We decided to leave the bugs alone and let them do their thing. They seem to be coexisting on the milkweed plants along with the feasting caterpillars. Yesterday, I stopped counting at 11 caterpillars and one monarch butterfly!

I have been looking around the meadow for where the caterpillars may go to form their monarch chrysalis for metamorphosis. I noticed a caterpillar hanging straight down from a dying Queen Anne's lace plant. Could this be the chrysalis spot for that caterpillar?

In searching for more information I came across the links below that I found helpful. And, I joined and reported our sightings on Journey North.

Happy Gardening and Monarch Watching!

Related Links
Monarch Life Cycle
Monarch Biology
Advocate to your elected officials

update 9/2/19: the hanging caterpillar from the Queen Anne's lace plant was dead. Not sure what killed it. The good news is that today I did spot a live monarch caterpillar going into the pupa stage underneath a milkweed leaf.

Blog post and photos Copyright (C)Wind. All rights reserved.Top photo of monarch caterpillar on leaf edge was also posted on Journey North who was given permission for use.