slow day out back

it must be august because the jerusalem artichokes are in full bloom...and, for august in these parts, it is a cool and overcast day which, in insect terms, means nothing much is going on...not that things are at a standstill...

a solitary bumblebee had the run of the blooms...

almost all of the teosinte plants have begun to produce silks...

and since the sap of the teosinte has a fair amount of sugars in it they have attracted ants who have herded their aphids to the stems just below the flowers to feed...if they become destructive something will have to be done...in my experience that won't be necessary...we will, however, be vigilant...i want ears and seed...

as another sign of august ( and the nearness of autumn ) the butterfly weed is producing seed pods...

two years ago from early july until about this time in august the ancestors of these plants were alive with monarch butterfly caterpillars...now for the past two years all they have had on them is pods...monarchs are officially endangered and i saw one last year...zero this...we can argue about the whys ( or you may...i will abstain ) however the empirical evidence is in my yard...which is a marked absence of maonrchs and their progeny...so it's a slow day and near as i can tell the news is a lot worse than anyone is willing to admit...have a look around where you live...what's changed?

silks, spuds, visitors

it was not raining when i got to the campus garden...despite an overcast sky...so the first thing i did was water and then took a look around the beds...

the asparagus was upright and the two summer spears are beginning to "fern"...

the hopi turquoise in my bed is doing well...there was some robust japanese bottle grass ( aka foxtail ) in there as well...it is gone now...there's stinging nettle in there too...i had no gloves...pulling it will wait...

all the maize plants have at least one ear in process...which is good...

one of the volunteer spuds had died back...

and it lived up to my expectations by producing a fair handful of elmer's blue fingerlings...which will be lunch...or dinner...or something sometime...

the bed did have some visitors...this harbinger of autumn...and, more pleasingly for me if no one else...

for the first time in the nine or so years i have been affiliated with this garden i saw leaf cutter bees in my garden bed...

of course they were not on the alfalfa i deliberately planted there for their benefit ( they are alfalfa leaf cutter bees...but do not be fooled by the label...back yard experience has shown they have a capacity to utilize other plants with no seeming ill effects )...

no, they were all buzzing about...

the maize flowers....just like out in my back yard

divsion of labor

on the south side of the house there is a bed of jerusalem artichokes wirh maize planted along the permeter..i was just out there watching and...

the bumble bees were all over the jerusalem artichoke blooms...

while not two feet away the leaf cutters were busy working the cornflowers...and there was no cross-training on other blooms between them...prefernce? perhaps...although...

i have seen leaf cutters on jerusalem artichokes...

and bumble bees doing acrobatics on bittersweet nightshade blooms...certainly there were unoccupied bloons of both sorts...enought o go around and, curiously to my thinking...

no one was paying any attention tot he raft of maize and teosinte flowers out on the east side.

rainy silks

it was beginning to rain when i left work at noon and by the time i got home my mud spattered rain gauge showed and inch of accumulation...

however home was not my immediate destination and i seem to be arriving at the campus garden in rain more often than not these days...

the hopi turquoise there is looking fine...

it is in full flower...

and silks and nascent ears are apperaing...even better...

the hopi turquoise here at home is flowering as well...

and there are silks and ears ( well, one so far )...

not wanting to be upstaged by its descendant, the teosinte has produced multiple flowers...

and, i am pleased to relate, the first teosinte silks i have seen this season have popped up in the rain...while we are taliking popping up...

a second summer generation of leaf cutters has begun to hatch out of the bee house...

and i have found a few of the girls...

hard at work on a third...good news all round.