Cabbage Worms

 

Eggs

What they turn into.

As far as I can tell, they're a cabbage worm.  I've just been checking the leaves, scraping of the eggs and picking off the worms, though I'm sure I could use Bt.

Mother Nature

So Mother Nature has decided that we weren't to have any freezes here in north Austin until late in the year - like I don't remember going quite this long before getting a freeze.  We may hit freezing tonight (predicted low of 34), and we'll likely get a brief freeze tomorrow as well (predicted low of 33).  And of course it's coming in with some rain which means that the sheets I put out are soaking wet and the Christmas lights on the plants keep tripping the CFGI on the outlet. 

Now you may be asking WHY I have Christmas lights on the plants - and I really only have Christmas lights on 2 plants - the tomato plant and the mum plant that has a queen chrysalis on it.  To be fair, the added heat isn't for the mum. 

This is the latest I've ever had a tomato plant; and it is loaded with green tomatoes. I may end up having to make Jenny's famous Green Tomato Chutney (which is very good); but I was so hoping to get some ripened tomatoes.  I just wish I had paid more attention to when the plant was flowering because then I'd have a better idea of when I should be expecting the tomatoes.  I feel like it was in early October because I was expecting them to be ready around Christmas-time...

Farewell, Queens

The queen butterflies finally emerged on November 25, and I released them the next day - a male and a female.  These are the last of my foster caterpillars for the year.

Female Queen Butterfly

Male Queen Butterfly.  You can tell the difference because the male has the scent spot (i.e. white spot) on his hind wing.

The butterflies sunned themselves for a few hours before taking off.

As I headed back inside, I checked the milkweed plant.

Uh oh...looks like we have a few more left for the season.

Moar 'Pillars!

So, last we left off, we had a few goobered chrysalises, a fritillary chrysalis that wouldn't stick, a new housing container to try and a few black swallowtail caterpillars.

First the updates:
There was one goobered chrysalis actually looked like it might turn out okay so I left it be.  It eventually turned black like it was going to emerge, but it never did.  I even left it out in the sun on the weekend hoping that would help.

Then there was the fritillary chrysalis that I had to tie to a twig.  It did eventually hatch, but one of the forewings was goobered:

For comparison, it should have looked like this:

The little bugger couldn't fly, but since it could eat perfectly fine, I took him outside and put him on some flowers so he could live out the rest of his little life.

Then there were the black swallowtail caterpillars.  The lighter of the two (i.e. the one that looked more like a regular black swallowtail caterpillar) ended up dying - it just stopped eating and then turned to mush.  The darker one, however, remained fine.

A few days after I took the above picture, I put him in a yogurt cup house with a few skewers in it (for him to have something to attach to).  A day or so after being moved, he formed a chrysalis.  He's now ensconced in the laundry basket home waiting to hatch.

Black Swallowtail chrysalis from the side.

Black Swallowtail chrysalis from the front.

And finally, the update on the new housing container - I was going to let the monarch hatch in the yogurt cup, but because I was going to be gone for the whole day, I opted to take the lid off and leave the chrysalis outside to hatch.  I just used two clothespins to pin the lid (with chrysalis) to a tomato cage.  It must have worked because when I came home, the chyrsalis was empty.

And now for the NEW stuffs!

One of the days when I was outside collecting milkweed leaves for the monarch caterpillars, I saw a bunch of Queen butterflies flitting about and figured that meant that I'd end up with queen caterpillars on the milkweed.  Sure enough, about 10 minutes later, there was a queen working the milkweed plants, so I took some of the leaves with eggs off and brought them inside to hatch and raise.

Queen caterpillars are also yellow, black, and white but the pattern is a little different; but the most easily seen thing that lets you know you have queens instead of monarchs is the 3 sets of antenna-looking things instead of only 2.  This picture is probably of the 4th instar (the antenna things don't really form until the 3rd instar...but of course, some of that is they're tiny little buggers until about the 3rd instar - seriously - the first instar was about a millimeter long), and I've since moved them into the now empty yogurt containers for chrysalis formation.

I swear I'm almost done with the caterpillar updates - I'll probably stop after these guys hatch.  Maybe.  No promises.

The Queen is Dead, Long Live the Queen

So I successfully kept 13 monarch caterpillars which turned into monarch butterflies. 

Monarch butterfly just after emergence.  The abdomen pulses and fills the wings with fluid.

I decided to try gulf fritillaries - one of which I accidentally smushed between the screen and edge of the tupperware container one day when I was changing the food for the remaining caterpillars (which included an additional 5 monarch caterpillars and another gulf fritillary).  The remaining fritillary went into chrysalis, which was fine and dandy, but the silk holder thingy isn't as copious as the monarch ones and so as I was trying to move it to the "hatching cage," it wouldn't stick to the pin and I had to tie it up with thread.  So we'll have to see if it works.

Then I started having problems with the monarch caterpillars; they did okay until it was time to pupate. The first one didn't form a proper chrysalis - it was fully chrysalized, but it was like it was only half formed.  The bottom half looked normal, but the top half, while chrysalized, looked just like a caterpillar encased in a green case.

The second caterpillar only half chrysalized.  The third decided to attach to the side of the tupperware instead of from the screen on top, so I've left it in place and moved the entire tupperware to the hatching cage (it may or may not make it to hatching - I've read that when they have a flat side in their chrysalis that it means the butterfly will likely be deformed).  The fourth, thankfully, formed a normal chrysalis on the screen (which I have since moved to the hatching cage with a straight pin).  The fifth, I put in a mini-hatching container made out of one of the large yogurt containers.  The hatching container is good for hatching, but the poor thing won't be able to fly in it, so I obviously have to pay attention and let the butterfly out shortly after it hatches.

I noticed that my fennel plant had a bunch of eastern black swallowtail caterpillars on it, so I decided to try them as well - now with those I'll have to add some sticks to the containers so they can attach properly since they end up at a 45 degree angle from whatever they attach to.

Swallowtails are cool because when the caterpillars are in the first 2 instars, they look like this:

By the 4th instar, they look like this (though admittedly the one in the foreground is more black than I'm used to seeing):

And of course, lest I think that I just suck at this, and the cats in the wild do better, here is a photo of a poor fritillary butterfly that didn't make it fully out of its chrysalis.

All Hail the Monarchs (Round 3)

Based on what you, the readers, wanted, I have done more monarch posts.

So, when we last left off, I had created the "chrysalis cage."  All those caterpillars started to pupate, but then so did the remaining 'pillars...in their 'definitely not big enough for them to actually get out of their chrysalis' cages. Most of the caterpillars I caught while they were starting to make their little silk mats to hang from, and rather than stress them out by moving them after they had gotten their little minds in the mood by making their mats, I left them to chrysalise (not a real word) on the screen.  I probably could have moved them at the 'just starting to create a silk mat' stage, but you definitely do not move them once they've hit the 'hanging out in J' stage.

Of course, letting them go to chrysalis in their little cages meant was that I would have to transfer the chrysalises to the pupating cage before they actually hatched.  After having 12 caterpillars go into chrysalis without me seeing it, I finally caught the last one in mid-change:

Of course, you can't really see it all that well in a still photo, but it was really weird because it still all pulses and everything until it completely wiggles out of it's old skin.  It will take about another 24 hours for the shell to harden completely before I could move it into the chrysalis cage.  It should also be noted that in order to get this photo, my husband had to hold the screen up while I took a photo with my phone.  We whispered the entire time because that's obviously what one does when watching a caterpillar begin its pupating phase - you whisper.  The best part was while we're taking this photo, Shawn even whispered, "why are we whispering?"

So a few days after the last cat began to pupate, I started Operation: Move Chrysalis.

You can kinda see the extent of the silk mats in the photo above - they go out just a scosh past the width of the chrysalis.  So the trick in moving them is to get the mat detached from the screen without dropping the chrysalises on the table.  Surprisingly a pretty easy task when you have the correct tools (i.e. a straight pin). Of course, since I needed two hands to do the process, I didn't get a photo of it, but I basically just took the pin and pried at the silk which is surprisingly strong, and sticky, so all I had to do was press the silk together around the pin after I got the chrysalis off the screen.  After getting the chrysalis off the screen, I stuck the pin in a branch I put in an old Thundercloud Subs cup with a rock in it for balance.

Pictures don't do the chrysalises justice - the yellow is actually sparkly gold, and the green is a consistent clear green color.

I then moved the cup into the chrysalis cage, so all my pupating butterflies are together.  It's a little tight (especially for 13 chrysalises, and the resultant 13 butterflies); but hopefully not all the chrysalises will hatch at the same time - though I suppose they could since monarchs pupate from between 10 to 14 days.

Stay tuned; next time we talk about monarchs it will be hatching day.

Support your Independent Nursery Month: Barton Springs Nursery

Welcome to October: Support your Independent Nursery Month.  Pam at Digging started SIN Month a few years ago to show all the benefits of going to an independently owned garden center as opposed to a big-box store.  Some years there are even drawings and give-aways.  I'm not sure what's on the agenda for this year (as to whether there are any give-aways or not), but I figured I'd go ahead and start blogging about the local garden centers in case you're new to town and want to get a start on fall planting.

I, personally, like going to the big box stores in order to ask them for things I know they won't have...like Milkweed.  Milkweed is quickly becoming the most sought after butterfly plant, and big box stores just don't carry it.  A HUGE oversight on their part.  But if you keep going in and asking for it, in theory, they'll eventually carry it.  Of course, I think it would help if the Grow Green folks added a "Butterfly Host Plants" section to their guide since I know the big box stores by my house hand out that guide, and try to carry a decent selection of the plants in that guide.  And I'm sure I have an inside track on this since I WORK WITH THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE THE GUIDE.  Jesus...you'd think that I'd have brilliant ideas like this more frequently, but alas and alack, I do not.  [10 minutes later] Okay, I checked the guide, they do have "Mexican milkweed" as a recommended plant for the Austin area.  But I still think they should have a little section on Butterfly host plants (much like they have a section on rain gardens).

Back to the issue at hand:
But you know who DOES carry milkweed?  Your independent garden center.

They also have things right now like strawberries.  Which you should plant now, not in January.

They also have garlic because now's the time to plant.

Anyhow, the garden center I'm highlighting this week is Barton Springs Nursery.  BSN (as those of us in the Biz call it) is a quick jog from my office - I work at Barton Springs and Riverside.  BSN is located on Bee Caves west of Walsh Tarlton and is usually quick and easy to get to (unless you're dealing with ACL traffic...so I'm really glad I decided to go there today at lunch instead of tomorrow at lunch).  The Wild Birds Unlimited which used to be in the shopping center at Walsh Tarlton recently (like earlier this year) moved to the building adjacent to BSN, so now you can get all your plant and bird needs met with one trip.

Of course, I forgot that this is SIN Month, so I didn't take any photos while I was there...but I've highlighted them before (also no photos...damn).

Anyhow, my goal for today was to find more milkweed plants.  My "Hairy Balls" plant I had through the spring and summer died and while I did just plant some plants in that area, I figure having additional milkweed isn't a bad thing*.  Especially since I'm currently raising monarch caterpillars in the house and they eat a crap-ton of leaves.  I found 4" pots and gallon-sized pots.  Since I was looking for more leaves over more plants, I went with the gallon sized.  Because it is a garden center which is in the business of trying to sell plants, they pick all the caterpillars off of their "for sale" plants and put them on their plants they have in the back which aren't for sale.  Unfortunately, they had too many caterpillars and not enough plants, as in their plants were completely denuded, so they had 5th instar monarch caterpillars free to a good home.  And that is how, even though I specifically got the plants to feed the ones I already had at home, I ended up with 3 more caterpillars to add to my menagerie.

*(aside: you have no idea how worried I was when I typed in "hairy balls plant" in the Google machine)

All Hail the Monarchs (round 2)

2nd, 3rd and 4th; or 3rd, 4th, and 5th Monarch Instars

So this last Saturday I went outside to do my normal garden walk about (mostly to check on the veggies to see if they needed water), and I came across a caterpillar on the milkweed.  So I went and grabbed my phone to research whether it was a Monarch caterpillar or a Queen caterpillar.  2 sets of antennae looking things...Monarch!  huzzah!  and then I noticed another one, and another one and so on and so forth and I'm sure at some point I went from ecstatic to forlorn and defeated because the survival rate of monarchs in the wild in caterpillar stage is about 10% (per the presentation from Chuck at the Monarch Appreciation dealie at Zilker in mid-September).  And so I decided I needed to help the caterpillars.  But I didn't really know how - it looked like, based on MonarchWatch's website that I could make a caterpillar container out of Ziploc tupperware and an old screen I use to keep cats from digging in my garden after planting seeds.  I fashioned 5 containers of monarchs, 2 per container, and balanced the screen on top; then I found another later in the day, and two more the following day.  In the end I had 13 caterpillars, mostly all at the same stage, but with 2 at least one instar behind.

My containers are set up thusly:

1. 1 tupperware-ish container approximately 3" deep.
2. 1 wetted paper towel lightly squeezed
3. 1 milkweed leaf per caterpillar in container
4. 2 caterpillars per container, maximum of 3
5. Ventilated covers (I just use an old window screen and cover all of the containers at once...this requires that all the containers are the same height in order to work, naturally)

Put the wet paper towel in the bottom - I open it up to cover the entire bottom so it catches all the catpoop.  Lay leaves on top.  Insert caterpillars. Replace the paper towel every day, replace leaves and add more leaves as needed.  The first day or so I got away with adding one leaf per caterpillar per day.  Around Monday morning I noticed that some of the containers were empty of food (I added fresh leaves Sunday night), so then I started adding one leaf per cat in the morning and one in the evening.  By Tuesday I was adding 2 leaves per cat twice a day.  Today (Thursday), I'm up to 3 leaves per cat twice a day.  But of course, most of them are in 5th instar stage so they should be pupating soon.

Pupating.  Crap.  Forgot about pupating.  Pupating in a tiny little not-super-deep container probably isn't the best.  This meant that I needed to come up with some way to allow the caterpillars to pupate and have space for emergence (enough space to allow them to hang upside down to get fluid into their wings and flap their wings about).  So I went to the good ol' Walmart (because I figured by Sunday that there was no way for me to find one of those fancy zippered butterfly cages in time for the pupating stage), and started looking for some of those screen food covers.  I didn't find any.  But I did find a 13" cube pop-up laundry baskets.  I then used some tulle and duct tape to fashion a top to the container, which attaches with clothes pins and safety pins.  Wednesday night I moved three of the tuperwares into it since those caterpillars are in 5th instar which means they should be pupating soon.

Of course, after going through this hassle, I found that I could have put my plethora of old yogurt containers to good use.  Oh well, maybe I'll do that for the next few caterpillars that are reaching the 5th instar stage to see which way works better.

Attracting Butterflies to the Garden

How to attract butterflies to the garden:
1.  Plant Gregg's Mistflower.  The mistflower I have in the back (i.e. full sun) is blooming right now.  The mistflower in the front (i.e. dappled sun) isn't blooming, nor will it until the fall.

2.  Plant Butterflyweed.  Oh my God.  This plant is ALWAYS COVERED in aphids.  But! Aphids eventually bring lady bugs and lacewings.  And, of course, it is the host plant for the monarchs, and they need as much help as they can get.

3. Plant Dill, Parsley, or Fennel (though I've found that Dill works the best).  When it blooms, it brings the bees, and until it does, it will host all those swallowtail caterpillars.  And eventually, you'll find a few of these on other plants (the swallowtails sure like to travel to a different location to pupate).

Passionvine

Another host plant - this one for the Gulf Fritillary.  Passionvine.  This one isn't the native variety (though it is native to South America, so it could easily have found its way here eventually); I believe this one is Blue Passionvine.  The Fritillaries don't care.  To them, it's just food.  Beware - as with most passionvines, it can be a bit invasive and spreads most by roots - surprisingly I've found that this one spreads by roots, but will pop up like 3' away from the mother plant.

Plant This: Milkweed (aka SAVE THE MONARCHS!)

Dude.  I don't know if you've heard yet, but the Monarchs need our help.*  They have been taking some devastating hits to their population over the last few years. And by devastating, I mean like over 60% of the population just gone.  We're talking worse than the Black Death here, people.

Providing adult food sources is a good start - they tend to LOVE Gregg's Mistflower.  Other good plants seem to be Shrubby Boneset (also called White Mistflower), a whole host of daisy-like plants (disc shaped that are wide and flat), and even Lantana and Turk's Cap (though it tends to be frequented more by the Fritillaries).

BUT!  If you REALLY want to help the monarchs, you'll also plant host plants.  Or, in other terms, the plant that the caterpillars will eat (it never ceases to amaze me how many people will plant host plants only to get upset when they're munched down to nubbins by the insect they are hosting).  The Monarchs only lay eggs on milkweed plants.  And yes, your milkweed plants will be chewed down to twigs.  BUT! you'll be helping the monarchs, which is really more important anyway.  Gardening for nature is why you garden, isn't it?

Grouping your plants together to create large masses of the same color will help attract butterflies since they are near sighted (that's probably why they like the mistflowers - the plants create a large grouping all by themselves).  Plant some milkweeds close by, add some dishes of water with some rocks in them (for the butterfly to perch on)and Voila!  Instant Butterfly garden.  If you want to get really ambitious, you can add throw out some fruit trimmings, leave one spot of dirt that isn't covered by mulch (for puddling), and a large clumping grass (for protection at night), and you'll have a garden that the Monarchs will flock to.

* okay, right now probably isn't really the time to plant things like milkweed, but it IS time to plant most perennial plants like the shrubby boneset and lantana.  Plus some future planning is always a good thing.

Pictures from the weekend

Spotted cucumber beetle - a sucking mouthparts pests - usually associated with curcurbit plants (cucumbers, squash, melon, etc)

Salt Marsh Caterpillar - a voracious eater.  Here they're on some pineapple rinds - I was hoping to get them to leave my plants alone, it seems to have worked for the most part.

Damselfly - when a nymph in a pond, these guys are quite good at eating all those pesky mosquito larva.

Snout nosed butterfly - host plants include hackberry, and favorite nectar sources are Tall Verbena, goldenrod and Joe Pye weed.

Queen

I was beginning to think the swamp milkweed wasn't a preferred plant for the Queen caterpillars.  Nice to see that it will do.

Things that Make me Happy, and Sad.

Gardening always has its ups and downs: 

Love:  Gulf Fritillary caterpillars on the Passionvine.
Hate:  the state of the vine, and the fact that most of the caterpillars end up dying because of lack of food.

Love:  Swallowtail caterpillars on the Dill
Hate:  That I have yet to see a swallowtail chrysalis since the wasps/birds keep eating the caterpillars. (Perhaps I need to make a caterpillar hotel like Meredith at Great Stems)

Love:  Finding a new caterpillar.

Hate:  Not knowing what type it is.

Love:  Having a habanero plant that is producing habaneros.
Hate:  Not knowing what to make with all these habaneros.

Love:  Having a tomato plant producing tomatoes.

Hate:  Not knowing what type of tomato plant I have.

Dinner

A wasp stung and is trying to pick up and carry off this caterpillar. Picture taken at Draco Gardens.

OMG! I HAVE FINALLY FOUND A CHRYSALIS!

I was going to make some dill dinner rolls today, but opted against it when I got out there and saw all this.

But I also saw this:

I shall name him/her Billy.

Billy turned into this a few hours later:


And I finally found the one that I thought I saw getting ready to pupate last week. I shall name this one George. George is the lighter green 'leaf' in the center of the picture.


Best of luck little buddies. Hopefully this turns out better than the last chrysalis I found.