Monarch Caterpillars galore!

Who doesn't love Monarch Butterfly Caterpillars!

Yay! We have Monarch Butterfly caterpillars! Six of them, to be exact! Well, that is what I saw yesterday. Today, I only saw two! We only have two stalks of Swamp Milkweed which are not enough to support all those caterpillars. But looking at my photos, some of them were quite large and might have gone off to find a place to pupate. I need to do some exploring. In the meantime...

“Caterpillar Anatomy.” Wisconsin Pollinators, 11 Dec. 2019, https://wisconsinpollinators.com/Caterpillars/CA_CaterpillarAnatomy.aspx.

I am interested in insect anatomy and couldn't resist posting a picture of the structures of a caterpillar. Can we find some of these on our specimens? 

On the side of the body are the SPIRACLES - which help the caterpillar "breathe." These little holes open and close letting air in and out to circulate throughout the body. Cool!

Here are a few other parts of the body. The FILAMENTSs are like "feelers" that may be sensitive to sonic vibrations as well as touch. The HEAD has lots of little parts, which are difficult to see in this photo, but I did label the EYES (of which there are 6 tiny raised black dots.)  There are three pairs of TRUE LEGS, each of which has a tiny claw to help to hold onto the stem that they are crawling on. Further back on the abdomen are the four pairs of PROLEGS. These are considered to be false legs that are fleshy and help the caterpillar crawl as they support the abdomen. There are lots more structures, but I didn't have the right camera or get close enough to photograph them.

Veggie Garden Update

The veggies are growing very well this year. The cucumbers are doing well up on the deck in their City Pickers grow box.

As are the lettuce, spinach, and basil.

We are particularly loving the Hungarian Heart heirloom tomato plants, although the cherry tomato yield was not as good as expected.

The zucchini plants are yielding very nice looking and tasting veggies.

I am particularly excited by all the peppers on the pepper plants, although we just don't have a long enough growing season for them to redden.

And, lastly...the potato plants...we cannot wait to see the yield from this pot! If it is good enough, we'll go with several pots next year...

Tips for ripening tomatoes on the vine

Optimal Temperature for Ripening Tomatoes - 68F to 77F. Tomato ripening is slowed when temperatures are cooler or warmer than the optimum range. Tomatoes stop ripening when temperatures fall below 55F or are greater than 85F. Once tomatoes have begun to blush or turn color, they can be brought to full color or ripeness off the vine at a room temperature of between 70F-75F.

We can’t force the plant to ripen tomatoes on the vine, but there are a few things we can do to help them out. So, if fall is quickly approaching, and you’re stuck wondering how to turn green tomatoes red, then try these six tricks:

1. Cut off the new growth – The growing season is coming to an end, so your plant doesn’t need to waste anymore energy growing new leaves.

Topping the plant and cutting off all the new growth will give it more energy to ripen tomatoes faster.

2. Trim the flowers – Since it takes a couple of months for tomatoes to ripen after the flowers have been pollinated, it’s a pretty sure bet that new flowers aren’t going to amount to anything. So pick off all the flowers.

3. Pinch the suckers – Suckers are the smaller stems that grow between a branches and leaf joint. They get their name because they suck energy from the plant. So be sure to pinch off all of the suckers you see on your tomato plant.

4. Pluck off tiny tomatoes – I know it’s hard to remove any tomatoes from the plant, but these poor little babies won’t have time to mature before frost. Pull them off so your plant can focus on ripening the larger green tomatoes instead.

5. Prune some of the leaves – Don’t cut off all of the leaves, de-leafing tomatoes is never a good idea. But if your plant is huge and full of healthy green leaves, you can trim off much of that vigorous growth. 

6. Reduce water and food late in the season. Reduce water and fertilizer to encourage “mature green” fruits to ripen. Fertilizer–especially excess nitrogen–encourages new leaf growth at the expense of fruit growth and maturation. (Use fertilizer low in nitrogen 4-8-4 for tomatoes.) Reducing water as fruits reach mature size will enhance ripening (and concentrate flavor) and direct the plant’s energy away from new fruit set to ripening fruit already on the vine.

Great Golden Digger Wasp

I was outside looking for Monarch butterflies when I glanced over at the stump garden, on the north end of the yard, and saw a flash of orange. As I approached the Swamp Milkweed, I saw the biggest wasp I have ever laid eyes on!

You can bet that I was nervous at first, as I had no idea if it was aggressive, but I've photographed other wasps and have never been stung by them due to remaining calm and moving slowly. It turns out that this Great Golden Digger Wasp (Sphex ichneumoneus) is a very gentle wasp.

This wasp was at least an inch long, maybe more. Males are around 1/2"  long with females getting up to 1-1/2", and rarely up to 2" long. I do believe that this was a female.

These are thread-waisted solitary wasps who feed on the nectar of flowers, and thus are important pollinators. They are called digger wasps because they dig holes in sunny spots, with sandy soil, to lay their eggs in long vertical tunnels.  I believe that in colder climates, the young wasps overwinter underground and emerge the following spring as adults. Possibly in warmer climates, the digger wasps lay eggs in spring and the young wasps mature and emerge as adults later in summer. I found conflicting information on different websites. If you want to know more about them, here is an interesting article on Insect Identification.org

Loon Survey # 12 (I only post those with notable observations)

9:30am - While I was at the south end of the pond, both loons were diving simultaneously and preening at the north end. They were not attending to the nest, nor were they territorial about the nest, nor did they notice me.

I thought the nest might be abandoned as there were 5 boats on the pond (and previously the loons would be calling and displaying if someone was even 100-200 ft distance from the nest.)

I spent about 2 minutes at the nest and observed one egg. There are pieces of egg shell in the nest (green arrows), so I am assuming that the first egg yielded a chick that hatched, but for some reason did not survive. We do have a lot of snapping turtles in the pond, so that could have been the cause of death. The hatching date would have been sometime between July 26-31. Because I was on a trip to Millinocket, I have no way of knowing.

I then motored toward the north end to observe the loons, but no chick was in evidence. 

11:15am - I observed the female on the nest again, and the male was swimming and diving in close proximity to the nest. A fishing boat was about 200 feet from the nest and the pair swam away from the nest, called once, and then went out diving together. I cannot figure out this behavior. I am doubting that the second egg will survive as the female seems very inconsistent about sitting on the nest. Could this be a young pair who don't know how to care for their eggs or hatchlings?  After all, this is the third nest attempt. The first nest was abandoned soon after it was built, the second nest yielded one hatchling that was preyed upon, and now this third nest had two eggs, with one hatching that has died.