All the Dirt on Gardening

Fall is definitely the busiest season of the year for gardeners. In some ways, it is more pleasurable than spring because the summer flowers are still in bloom at the same time the fall garden is being planted. In the past few days several dozen new daffodils have been planted. I bought from Daffodil Hunter this year again because everything I bought from her last year came up and wowed me. The Peruvian daffodils from Touch of Nature gave a great show for two years and grew many new bulbs - the 6 bulbs from my original purchase became 20. Photo: Seedlings of Mustard Red Giant from Botanical Interests These are volunteers from a plant that went to seed early in the summer. Red mustard is good picked small for salads and also cooked as a green veggie when the leaves grow bigger. Photo: This daylily is re-blooming in September! Photo: The bird bath is the scene of caterpillars becoming butterflies. The Gulf Fritillary butterfly eggs were laid and hatched on plants and the caterpil...

Photo: This Green Darner Damselfly sat on the amaranth for hours this morning. I walked by a dozen times getting supplies to plant seeds of bush beans, carrots and summer squash. I was lucky to get photos and sent them to www.whatsthatbug.com and they responded within an hour with the identification for me. I can't recommend them enough as a first resource for all things buggy. This is a fall webworm. Whenever we see caterpillars we look them up to help us decide whether or not to get rid of them. Get rid of these if you see them. They will defoliate everything they land on. FRITILLARIES This is a fritillary caterpillar eating our passion flower buds. This is a caterpillar wiggling as it begins to form a chrysalis. They are protected at our house so they are making chrysalis on everything, including the car tires. This is a completed chrysalis - the entire process from caterpillar to this form takes mere minutes. Here is an adult that resulted from the process above.

After an extensive search of whatsthatbug , I concluded that we have a swarm of Fritillary Butterflies in the yard. They are as calm as two-year- olds after cake and ice cream but freely lay their individual eggs in front of us on the Passion Vine at the front gate. The caterpillar stage involves the eating of Passion Vine leaves, of course, and there are dozens of the caterpillars munching away. Or, is this an Oleander Moth caterpillar? No they have long fuzzy hair where these caterpillars have black spines. Then, I found Bob Moul's photography site with nearly 4,000 nature photos including a time lapsed slide show of a caterpillar morphing into a Swallowtail Butterfly. Tak time to watch the show - it's fascinating. Photos: The adult butterflies that are swarming and eating and laying eggs in several flower beds. A tall trellis that was constructed to hold tomato vines was taken over by a cantaloupe vine when the 105-degree days forced the tomatoes to shrivel. Last nigh...