What’s In My Garden – June 28th

We’re almost two for two! It’s late, and I really don’t have very much change from last week. I did end up getting a few photos of the Swallowtail Butterfly caterpillars that have been munching on my carrot tops! At first I was all upset at the fact that ANOTHER caterpillar seemed to be enjoying my garden, but this one, I can deal with. Those cabbage worms that turn into fuzzy little monsters are another thing though. They are HORRID. 

Here is a caterpillar in its first instars (that’s the first life cycle of caterpillars) and happily eating. They kind of look like bird droppings. I guess that’s so they don’t get eaten by birds. I mean, what animal eats its own poop? Wait. Don’t answer that, because I have seen it already. 

There hasn’t been much change to anything else in the garden, the tomatoes are growing, and I have my first flowering watermelon vines. They are yellow, just like every single other flower in the garden so far. Wait. Scratch that. The green beans have pink flowers, and they took a bit of time before spouting. I’m still enthralled with the caterpillars this week though. They are in their last stage before getting ready to go into pupa stage. They don’t make a cocoon, their skin actually splits and then the chrysalis appears. It’s quite interesting, and I hope to get a photo of it while it’s happening. Let’s cross our fingers! 

So, the new thing that is flowering in the garden is the watermelon. I’m REALLY new to this, and planted four watermelons in a row, not really thinking about where these plants would vine. So it looks like we’ll be snaking them through and letting them ripen on the sidewalk. I hope no raccoons decide to come and have a midnight buffet. 

I’m pretty positive that this is the male flower, and that it’s going to close up soon. I may just go out with a q-tip and pollinate the females myself. We haven’t had a large influx of bees, but we do get a TON of flies and while I hate them, I was told during a tour of Monsanto that they are pollinators. I still kill a large amount of them daily, so I’m not sure when they are going to revolt, but for now, the ones that pollinate the garden and are smart enough to stay out of the fly trap can fly around as they wish. 

I’m hoping that next Sunday, I can show you some tomatoes that are starting to ripen. My indigo roses are a nice deep blue purple, but no red bottoms yet! Soon I hope! Share your garden links in the comments below! I’ll see you next week.