GARDEN SURPRISES

I love the common or garden coreopsis, golden tickseed, Coreopsis tinctoria. Especially when I get some variations on a theme. This year two different flowers have shown up.

These are the kind of surprises I love.

This is the kind of surprise I can do without. Yesterday I discovered my swiss chard eaten to shreds. Overnight!

Here's the culprit. They can move with some speed. I have seen them barreling across the ground.

Or should I say culprits. I no longer have any tolerance for these caterpillars and they are getting the bag treatment. Birds don't want them and nor do I. What are they anyway? I have so many of them. Some eat mint, some eat zucchini leaves, some eat chard.... in fact they eat everything.

Then there is the time spent on bended knee checking for the eggs of the squash vine borer. It's the only way to have squash.

A lucky catch. this morning I caught the culprit, but not before she had been busy laying eggs. A count of 15 this morning.

Tomatoes are looking good this year. I picked the first ripe one this week, which is a record for this garden. It was celebrity in more ways than one.

It looks as though we are going to have a late crop of beets this year. This is the first time I have planted them other than in the fall. Beets and beans in the same bed.

SNAKES ALIVE!

This morning I was talking to my neighbor about a coral snake that had been seen in another neighbors garden. As I walked through the gate there was this Eastern Black-Neck Garter snake. They are fairly common around here but this is by far the largest I have seen. A few minutes later I came across another snake, this time in the garage. It was much smaller and possibly a juvenile garter snake. I wonder if it had anything to do with a little frog I saw hopping in the garage the other night. It is one of their favorite foods. Yes, it's that time. Warm enough for snakes and tarantulas and scorpions. I need to make sure I don't leave the door open. Not that closed doors stops the scorpions. I killed one in the living room the other night.

The first flowers opened on the ice plant I started from seed. It is Delosperma floribunda 'stardust' The color isn't quite as vibrant as I had hoped for but it should do well planted in one of the spaces in the sunken garden. The pelleted seeds arrived in a tiny capsule and I had little hope that they would germinate. They did and I have six plants.

I almost missed this group of lace cactus. I was busy removing bluebonnet seeds in the front granite area. It was hiding underneath bluebonnets and zexmania.

The flowers at the top of the now 7' stalk on the Manfreda sileri, finally started to open. Not very interesting I'm afraid.

Now here's a horn worm with a difference. Anyone have an id on him. He's busy eating the Missouri primrose leaves and looks as though he is about to burst. Caterpillars in general seem to be quite drawn to the leaves of the primrose including the pink evening primrose. The furry caterpillars have stripped all the leaves from those plants leaving only the seeds! Smart move on nature's part. I did finally break down and spray the tomatoes with bt. There were just too many hornworms this year.

Finally we watched a young mud dauber emerge from the adobe nest by the kitchen door. He ran up and down the wall drying out his wings and finally made his first attempt at flight. Just a short one, but long enough to know he needed to dry out some more. I think we can finally remove it from the wall.