Hornworm

Fall Tomatoes

The Fall Tomato season is upon us.

Chico III

I mentioned previously that I took a few cuttings of the Blueberries tomato plant  - I ended up with 3 (which makes it sound like I tried to start more than 3 - I didn't, I only ever had 3, so rooting hormone for the win, YAY!), I gave 2 of the rooted cuttings to coworkers who were so in love with the copious amounts of tomatoes I brought in from the plant that they begged me to do cuttings (they're actually the main reason why I decided to get the rooting hormone) (the coworkers, not the tomatoes).

I pulled out the original Blueberries tomato plant because is was leggy as all get out and planted the Blueberries cutting in its place.  I severely cut back the Purple Cherokee, I removed the Dwarf Arctic Rose (since it died), and trimmed back the Chico III and Japanese Black Trifele.  I did all this in late August, I think (I'll confirm with my garden journal).

The Purple Cherokee ended up with a huge ol' Tomato Horn Worm on it, and it plant looked so devastated that I figured it wasn't worth keeping, so I ended up removing it in late September or so.  The other plants were doing fine and started flowering.  And then they started fruiting.  I've noticed some tomatoes disappearing from the Blueberries and the Japanese Black Trifele (the low-hanging fruit if you will).  I think the Timmies are taking them (aka opossums).  The blueberries tomatoes I don't care so much about because there are a bunch of them and they're nowhere close to ripe - but I do care a little that they've made off with the 2 almost ripe Japanese black trifele tomatoes.  Oh well, c'est la vie...and I can always hope that the Timmies are eating the cockroaches which live in the Asiatic jasmine.

[aside: I call all opossums "Timmy."  I don't remember why I started doing that, but I think it had to do with the momma opossum that used to live in the yard, and after she disappeared, one of her babies stayed around so I started calling it Timmy.  And then I just started referring to all the other opossums as Timmy as well.  It's kinda like every black and white springer spaniel dog is a Zip-dog, or every black and white long-haired tuxedo cat is Figa-cat.  In any case, I've noticed a few different opossums around and my cat gets along with them so I'm claiming she's started a band called Ivy and the Timmies.]

October 2014 Wide Angles

Damn.  Only 16 days late...so I suppose that means that you should be looking for Bloom Pics around the 1st, and Foliage pics on the 2nd.  Anyway, thanks to Heather at Xericstyle for hosting.

The Front yard as a whole:

The Rose Bed...which should probably just be called the Zexmenia bed...except that I'm going to pull out some of the larger plants and put a Firecracker Bush out here, too...

The Hell Strip.  I'm currently loving the Fall Aster...which I completely forgot that I had planted.

Walking up to the front door.  The passionvine was starting to wind it's way up the trellises, but then the gulf fritillaries ate off all the leaves (it happens twice a year).  Oh! I 'saved' some fritillary caterpillars when I was cleaning up passionvine around the yard (because damn that plant spreads by runners), so I will have to do a post about them.  Also, the Gregg's mistflower and the artemisia are starting to really fade in this area...I think they're just getting too much shade from the pistache.

Around the side to the gate...where the Turk's Cap has gone crazy.

From the Rain Barrel:

From the back door:

From the other side of the deck (by the bedroom window)

The white flowers in the foreground are unscented plumeria

I tried to get a picture of the garden...but the cosmos are crazy again.  So really it's just more like a cosmo photobomb.  I have since pulled out the Purple Cherokee tomato plant because a tomato horn worm ate off all the leaves.  And I really should probably pull out the eggplants, and maybe some of the peppers so I can start the fall garden.  It's just so tough when I have no idea how long I have until the plants won't produce anything anyway (I know the average frost date is like December 6, with a likely first frost date of November 15, so I should probably look into what I could conceivably get from the current plants [tomato, pepper, and eggplant]).

5' tall cosmos.  Because they're on steroids or something.

And the world photo can be found here.

Bad Photography

After reading the Not-So-Angry Red Head's blog entry a while back about bad photography, I decided I'd do one as well.  I mean, it's always good to show the screw ups as it makes us all better...and more human.  So here are some photos I took around the yard for bloom day/folliage follow up in which I thought, whilst taking the photos, that they would look awesome.

Fennel flowers.  What is the point of this photo?  Why is it out of focus? Plus, the utility box in the background is obnoxious.  (as I said, I need to do something about that...)

Agave Lopantha - the focus point is off, the white splotches are distracting, the framing of the photo is too closed in.

The only remaining bluebonnet in my yard.  Too bad it's fuzzy as all get out (and this is after the camera said it was in focus, which means it could be motion blur as opposed to completely out of focus...still.  Disappointing.)

What the hell?  How could I have gotten the focus on the wrong thing?  I was aiming for the monarda to be in focus with the guara out of focus...yep, totally effed that one up.

Just because early morning light is good for photographs doesn't mean that it's good for ALL photographs - the shadows are distracting and the tree trunk is blown out.  boo. 

Horny Fly?

I keep thinking of the 'There's a lady who swallowed a fly' song whenever I see this photo.

I've discovered that each of my pepper plants has one tomato horn worm on it, and each of my tomato plants is horn worm free. Odd, that.

Yay for Hymenoptera Braconidae

Yep, that's right, we've got Parasitic Wasps. Yay!!!! Here they are eating a hornworm:
The wasp pupae are the little white grains of rice on the worm. Eventually, they will kill the worm and eat it. Furthermore, they are called 'wasps' but they aren't harmful to humans. Is it any wonder that some people will pay good money to buy some of these wasps to naturally control garden pests like caterpillars, ants, and aphids?