Monarch Butterfly Migration Time

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Did you know that Monarchs are the only butterfly to migrate?  In the spring they make the long journey from Mexico to the Northeast US/Canada. The butterfly that starts in Mexico does not fly all the way.  It stops and lays eggs for the next generation, which will go another leg on the journey.  There can be up to 4 or 5 generations of Monarchs that are involved in the north migration.   In the fall, the migration goes south, but often one butterfly will make it the total journey.

To support the migrations, it is essential that they find plants on which to lay eggs (only milkweeds!) and nectar producing plants for food. Thus, waystations are planted to attract these amazing creatures and support their migration.

For those in Oklahoma or Texas, Okies for Monarchs (https://okiesformonarchs.org ) provides information on what to plant, how much to plant, where to find the plants/seeds, and how to certify an individual waystation.  According to their website, “For optimum Monarch habitat, plant at least 10 milkweed plants, made up of two or more species, and several annual, biennial, or perennial plants that are in bloom sequentially or continuously during spring, summer and fall.” 

Monarch Watch (https://monarchwatch.org/waystations/ ) also provides a wealth of information, including how to install and certify (register) a waystation. In addition, they have information suitable for use in the classroom, and provide links to follow the migrations in spring and fall.

I’ve included a picture of a Monarch butterfly. But, watch for the caterpillars (particularly in the spring) on milkweeds. They are a lovely sight to behold.

Discovering Amaranth

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In a garden that I superintend, I get the question, “So what is that tall plant with the red top growing in the garden?” It’s amaranth! Here’s a picture….

Amaranth is such a versatile plant – it is used for food (greens and seeds/grain), as a dye plant, and even a food source for some butterflies and moths.

Amaranth has quite a history as a staple food source for people, dating back thousands of years. Although it is thought to have originated in the Americas, various amaranth species (of which there are 75!) are found on six continents, according to Wikipedia.

The leaves are cooked and eaten like spinach, while the seeds are treated like a grain. Most notably, in Mexico the seeds are toasted like popcorn and mixed with honey, molasses, or chocolate to make a treat.

Amaranth can be found in Africa, as well as in parts of Asia, where the greens are popular. In Greece, the purple amaranth leaves are boiled, then served with olive oil and lemon juice.

The red top seed-head is known as Hopi Red Dye. And I intend to test it out as a dye plant in the next few weeks – I’ll report on the results when I do.

Finally, a species of amaranth has a questionable reputation – it is known familiarly as pigweed, and is viewed as a noxious weed by farmers who strive to eradicate it from their fields. But, like all amaranths, pigweed is edible.

So look for amaranth and maybe try cooking some (young, tinder) leaves.

Meditation on Bees

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As the sun strikes the basil plant in bloom, it teems with life.  Stop and watch – honeybees, tiny native bees, butterflies, and an occasional bumble bee stop to sip the nectar of the tiny flowers.

Did you know that there are over 4000 species of native bee in North America, and over 800 in the Oklahoma/Texas blackland prairie?  They include leaf cutter bees, ground bees, mason bees, among so many others.  Honeybees (imported from Europe) are the only ones that produce honey.  The others are solitary and don’t live in hives – they may have colonies of several holes together, but they do not cooperate like the bees in a hive.  Each (female) bee finds nectar and pollen, puts them in a nest, lays her egg and seals it off, then repeats the process until her hole or nest is filled.  Then she dies.  Interestingly, the mason bee lays male eggs toward the last of her hole so that they emerge first and can wait around for the females to emerge to breed.  Most native bees do not sting.

A bit of trivia – mason bees can nest in small tubes about the size of a drinking straw.  You may have seen bee nests sold in nurseries – several hollow bamboo or other reeds bound together.  Because the nest is compact, commercial orchardists in California are now hiring mason bees for pollinating their crops (like almonds) because the beekeeper can put the nest in cool storage, and time the warming of it about 30 days before they want the bees to emerge.  Then, they place the nest in the middle of an orchard.  The honeybee can travel up to 2 miles, looking for nectar.  The mason bee only goes about ½ mile, so it pollinates the orchard more thoroughly and crop yields can increase by as much as 15%. 

When I visited Cozumel in early 2020, I was surprised to learn that they have a native bee that produces honey!  The bees build  their hives in logs, but the output is only as much as a liter of honey for a small log.  Therefore, the honey was very valuable and available only to the upper classes (to mix with cocoa powder and water for a rich chocolate drink!). 

Seeds Have Arrived!

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The seeds for the spring garden (and beyond) have arrived!  To me, there is nothing more hopeful than seeds; they represent new life. Children, especially, seem to be excited by seeds.  I’ve watched as they sort through a basket laden with seed packets, dreaming and wanting to plant everything.

            Seeds represent dreams.  We can dream of the foods we will eat and the flowers that will bloom.  We can dream of the joy of planting the seeds, and cultivating them, to be rewarded with plants growing.

            So I share with you the hope that these seeds bring – of an abundant garden (no matter the size!).  Hope, which fills this Christmas season.   

I hope that your Christmas season is joyful and full of hope and dreams. 

The Last Rose of Summ … er …Winter

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Here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the fall/winter has blended together and for two days we’ll have highs in the high 70s and then a cold front will move through, and highs will only reach the 40s or 50s. Our first hard freeze didn’t happen till the Thanksgiving weekend. Not only are people confused, but the plants are too! As witness the roses by my front door. Now I will say that these roses are in a micro-climate – they are protected from the north and east winds. But still…. I’m in awe.

How to Move a Garden

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This past month has been occupied with moving a 750 sq ft garden from a site that is being converted to an access road. Although a permanent location is not solidified, nor is the design, the temporary arrangement is …. crates! About 110 sq ft of crates!

This was our garden … RIP

Milk crates (12″ cubes) are being used for the primary (new) crops, while vegetable crates (22″x14″x9″) are housing the asparagus crowns and the strawberries. Liners for the crates vary: the vegetable crates holding asparagus are lined with burlap bags, donated by a local coffee roaster. Since the burlap will deteriorate over time, when the asparagus needs to be transferred to its permanent bed, we can just lift the burlap and crowns as a whole and place in the bed, with minimum disturbance. When we moved the asparagus we carefully dug as far under the crowns as possible to minimize disturbing the roots. After a rain, they crowns have produced another crop of fronds. This is a good sign.

The strawberry crates are lined with net bags that housed onions for transport. Again, the strawberries were lifted with as much native soil as possible so that there was little shock. They have now been thinned and are mulched for the winter.

The milk crates are lined with weed barrier, to allow for drainage, but not allowing the soil to leak out. They are filled with soil from the garden and seeded with kale, spinach, carrots, turnips, arugula, and chicory greens. Take a look at the kale and spinach, thriving in the fall weather in its new home!

Thriving kale and spinach!

Now, as an aside, I’ll say that the milk crate garden idea comes from the Riverpark Farm NYC, which created and maintains a large farm solely in milk crates! And milk crates are so portable, that the farm has moved a couple of times since its inception. It’s a marvel.

So … here in Tulsa it can get quite cold. There is a plan. There are two methods that we used in the old garden beds:  mulching heavily and using row cover. The new, temporary, garden will receive those two treatments.

The asparagus already has been given a mulch of straw.  The mulch will insulate from temperature extremes, and will help the soil hold moisture when it rains (or we water).  When the spears turn yellow, we will cut them to about 1-2” and then mulch with about 3” of straw.  This should carry them through freezes.

 The strawberries are getting some light mulching, but as the freezes start we will be adding straw.  In February of this year, when the Great Freeze happened, we completely covered the plants with straw.  When the weather began to warm again, we pulled it aside and the little green leaves perked up.

As for the rest of the crates, we’ll be creating a microclimate.  That means modifying the environment around the crates to lessen the impact of extreme weather.  In the next few weeks, bales of straw will be placed on the north side of the milk crates.  The straw will protect the crates from north winds.  Then the crates will also be sporting hoops to support row cover.  The row cover will also lessen the impact of weather extremes.  And, if it snows or ices, the snow/ice will settle on the row cover and become insulation! 

Mystery Beetles on Arugula

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Harlequin bug on arugula – telltale brown spots where it is has been feeding

The beetle that has infested this arugula (which is beyond saving, because of the spotting on the leaves), is yellow with dots on its back.  It looks like the harlequin bug, which especially likes the cruciferous crops:  cabbage family, mustard, turnip and radish.  However, it has been known to munch on tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, okra, and beans.

            As you can see by the picture, there are brown spots on the leaves where the bug has sucked juices, which causes that portion of the leaf to die and turn brown.  The life-cycle of the bug can be as short as 48 days, and so can have a number of generations go from egg to maturity during a growing season. 

            There are several control strategies.  Hand-picking is first, but when there is a prolific infestation, it is difficult to pick all those little critters than can fly.  A trap crop of turnip, mustard, or kale in the late spring or early fall could be used to attract them, but then the trap crop must be destroyed.

            An organic spray can be made from insecticidal soap (which penetrates the hard shells) and neem oil.  However, this is a control that must contact the bug or eggs, and is best applied in the early morning.

            Prevention is perhaps the best method of control.  Strong plants will tend to deter the bugs.  This means encouraging deep roots through thorough watering.  Also, the plants attractive to the harlequin bug are heavy calcium feeders.  So, adding ground eggshells when planting may help prevent infestation.

            Another preventive measure is to use row cover on the crops that don’t need pollination to grow.  That means, the leafy crops like cabbage, arugula, mustard, kale, etc. 

            Companion planting can help too.  Plants like basil, garlic, rosemary and sage, as well as chrysanthemum (with its natural pyrethrins) are strong-scented and mask the odors of the bug-targets. These companions can either be boundary plants or intermixed with the bug-targets.

            Parasitoid wasps (attracted to yarrow, caraway and fennel, as well as other herbs with umbrella-like blooms) can be effective against the harlequin.  If you purchase the wasps, be warned not to choose the braconid or trichogramma wasps, because they prefer soft-bodied pests rather than the hard-shelled harlequin.

References:

harlequin bug – Murgantia histrionica (Hahn) (ufl.edu)

12 Organic Ways to Control Harlequin Bugs – Hobby Farms

Barbara Pleasant, The Gardener’s Bug Book, Storey Publishing, 1994.

Weeds Have Jobs – #6

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Purslane, an edible green

Purslane (Portulaca oleracea) is a succulent that comes in many varieties, and the one usually found in the garden or driveway has small leaves, spreading close to the ground.  It has a cousin that has larger leaves, but still has a spreading aspect, and is found in the produce department of Latin markets under the name Verdolaga. Its used both raw in salads and cooked, as greens.

This “weed” can be found often growing in cracks in driveways, or along a hard-packed garden path.  It’ll also find its way into a garden bed with dense, clay soil.  It is drought tolerant and  grows in full sun as well as part shade.  Purslane is also attractive to bees. It grows where there is little humus and low moisture, as well as low calcium and phosphorous. As such, it is considered a “dynamic accumulator,” pulling in calcium and phosphorous from deeper in the soil via a long taproot, to make the minerals available to other plants. It can also indicate very high potassium and magnesium in the soil. 

Purslane growing amidst straw mulch in garden bed

Weeds Have Jobs – #5

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Our weed this time is a much maligned weed that is actually a good food that foragers look for!

Chenopodium albus (Lambs quarters)

The name, Chenopodium, refers to the shape of the leaves – “goose foot.”  Lambs quarters grows where there is very low calcium and phosphorus, very high potassium and magnesium, high sulfur and copper, low humus, good drainage of the soil.

Lambs quarters is another edible, and is in the amaranth family of plants; the seeds are gathered and used similar to quinoa (a relative).  It is wind-pollinated and so it does not have showy flowers to attract pollinators.  But it is a food source for various insects, caterpillars and wildlife. It can grow to be nearly 2 feet tall, and is often removed from vegetable beds because it is considered a “weed.”

Recognize it? Now you know it’s not a weed, but can be an indicator of soil needs and a source of food.

Weeds Have Jobs #4

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Stellaria media (common chickweed)

Chickweed grows where there is a need for calcium, phosphorus, potassium, and manganese in the soil.  It also indicates that the soil has high levels of magnesium and iron, and high sulfur and copper in the soil.  It indicates that there is low porosity (the soil is tight). 

Chickweed is another edible and is in the carnation family of plants.  It also has a history as a medicinal herb for a variety of ailments.  As the name implies, chickens like it.

The flowers are small, and star-like.  It is a plant that attracts trichogramma wasps, that prey on tomato hornworms – a great natural insect predator for the garden!

Stellaria media – common chickweed