Tiger Swallowtail - 2014

There have not been as many butterflies in our area this summer so I was delighted to photography two enjoying my deck garden in August and this week. In August, the butterfly weed and marigolds were the big attraction. Note how battered the edges of the wings look in this view of the feeding insect (with the butterfly pot decoration overhead).

I’m always surprised at how hairy the area where the winds and body overlap looks…at the powdery blue…at the delicacy of the whole wing.

From the side, the body looks robust compared to the legs and the proboscis. This insect spent quite a lot of time with the marigolds - so maybe the flowers will produce a lot of seeds.

This week the draw for the tiger swallowtail was the zinnias. When the wings are held vertically they are folded a little as well. Their ribs show more.

It was a breezy day so the insect would flatten itself to maintain its stance on the flower. The wings look very symmetrical when they are fully extended.

Notice that the edges of the wing are battered in this one too. This butterfly spent quite a long time at with the zinnia - flying away for a few seconds and then returning - and I’ll keep the seeds that develop over the next few weeks.

The Deck Garden - August 2014

The deck garden is probably at its peak this month in terms of foliage. The mint is overflowing the pots that also contain butterfly weed, a few carrots, and a tomato plant.

The cucumber plant is gone but the beans that were in the same pot are blooming again.

The marigolds and zinnias add color. Occasionally the morning glories have a flower although they have not done particularly well on the deck this year.

The sweet potato is still growing rapidly and the soil in the pot is beginning to heave - a sign that the potatoes underneath the plant are growing too. I have some peppers that came up from the ‘not quite decomposed’ compost; hopefully they’ll get big enough to be worth picking. I am starting to get the second crop of tomatoes from the deck plants.

I’m beginning to think more about what I want to grow next year on the deck. Right now I am leaning more toward plants with color (flowers and leaves) rather than vegetables. The CSA is supplying plenty veggies!  The sweet potato vine has been better that previous years in terms of growth and color (the new leaves are a deep red) so I may try to propagate cuttings from the vine after I harvest the sweet potatoes this fall.

Good to be Home

I enjoy travelling….but I am always glad to come home. It takes me a day or two to recover from being away. This time I got back in the late evening so about all I did before sleeping was drink water to recover from the dehydrating effects of the plane flight and the time it took to get through the traffic jam all around the airport even though it was 10 PM at night! 

Getting back to ‘normal’ at home started the next day. I was pleased that my husband had managed to water the deck garden enough for the zinnias and marigolds to be better than when I left….and there were new peppers and tomatoes growing.  A hummingbird came up to visit the plants while I looked through the kitchen window. What a good ‘welcome home’! After breakfast, a trip to the grocery store was the first priority.

Then I tackled the normal ‘after traveling’ chores of unpacking, laundry, and putting the luggage away. I sorted the laundry and put the bag of birthday presents I had purchased for our cats on the table.  Evidently the smell of catnip from the toys had pervaded the dirty clothes because the cats enjoyed messing up the piles!

Now that I have been home for 2 full days, things are settling back to normal. I am catching up on Coursera videos and have gone through most of the snail mail. There is a pile of reading waiting and plenty of CSA veggies to eat before the next share is picked up on Wednesday. I’ve got some volunteer work scheduled for this week. The situation is just the way I like - at home.

Garden Dreaming - March 2014

Spring is getting a late start this year….more time for garden dreaming.

• The racks of seed packets are hard to pass by. I bought colorful beans and carrots…and decided to start chives and cilantro indoors immediately.
• I’m always on the lookout for items that can be turned into ‘pots’ for the deck. The big plastic containers from cat litter are my latest target. We buy the big jugs of cat litter so I’ll have to cut off the top but that means I can make the ‘pot’ the depth I want. The maximum depth would be enough to grow sweet potatoes or carrots on the deck!
• It seems like freebie seed packets are coming from all directions. So far I’ve collected sunflowers and marigolds….cucumbers and tomatoes!
• It is pretty obvious that garden success will require some control of the deer browsing in my garden area (fortunately the deck is not accessible already). I’m going to try a ‘liquid fence’ repellent for my garden (and right away from my ornamental shrubs and bulbs coming up….the deer are starving….eating everything right now).
• I had to cut the sweet potato back in the pot I have growing indoors….and it is rooting in a glass of water. Now that it is putting out fresh leaves I probably will need to plant it soon but I need a pot of it (may be the first thing planted in an empty cat litter jug will be the sweet potato)!
• I’m thinking about what will go in the garden plot. It gets a reasonable amount of sun on one side although a young sycamore is shading part of it late in the day. The veggies have priority and I’ll try to start some indoors to give them a head start. The sunflower may be too large for my garden so I’m contemplating planting them along the sunny side of the house - which is not even a flower bed right now.
•  I enjoyed the cardinal flowers and zinnias in the pots on the deck last summer. This year I am getting more organized and thinking about combinations in the larger pots; the thriller - filler - spiller idea appeals to me. The first and last on the ‘dreaming’ list below is already started - assuming the cardinal flower survived the winter in its pot and the pot I have growing inside now makes the transition to outdoors after the last frost.