Blog

September 15, 2009

The end of summer means preparing for cooler weather, but there is still a lot of life in the gardens and around the yard. Monarch butterflies have been flitting around the milkweed, bees are buzzing around the butterfly bushes, and a few frogs are still croaking.

Tomato corn salsa and pickeld vegetables

I canned a lot this week--tomato, pepper and corn salsa along with pickled peppers and cucumbers.

My butterfly garden

My butterfly garden has grown well all summer and I expect it to be twice as lush next year.

Below: swallowtail butterflies emerged this week. Here they make their way up the netting to dry their wings.

New swallowtail

New swallowtail2

Swallowtail new

swallowtail new2

This one had a very hard time, but eventually his wings unfolded.

Tosh and swallowtail

A butterfly crawled around on Tosh a while before being released outside.

New swallowtail dried wings

Here is one of the other butterflies after being released, getting its bearings in the garden.

Monarch caterpillar

A Monarch caterpillar has eaten about all it can of the milkweed growing in the whiskey barrel.

Monarch caterpillar

Here it is after forming the chrysalis.

Bee on a Buddleia Honeycomb Butterfly Bush

A bee enjoys a Buddleia Honeycomb Butterfly Bush

Marvin in fish tank

Marvin, our aquarium algae-eater. He also likes zucchini.

Floating pond plant blossom

A water hyacinth in my small pond. Theses floating plants multiply rapidly and make good cover for frogs and fish.

Below: what appear to be two sulphur moths

Sulphur moth

Sulphur moth2

Tomato seedlings

I plan to grow a variety of vegetables in my greenhouse this fall. Already the tomato seeds have sprouted. These will be transplanted into larger pots.

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