Recently in Insects Category

Just doing another update of garden photography, trying to catch up with last years photo's with some posts. I grew Zinnea's in a container last year just by the front door, and snapped this shot of a Manti having a little break and checking me out! Love the head turned towards the camera, I don't think I could have gotten a better position if I'd asked!

In the side yard we have Ivy, TONS of it. I keep it in check as much as I can but it grows like a weed. I'd really like to remove the lot but that's a while down the road as far as goals go. The one thing about Ivy is it's home to a host of insects, which means great practice for macro shots.

No idea on the species of Spider but she was protecting her eggsac which was under the leaf. Strange but before we moved here I was afraid of Spiders, but now I see all the weird and wonderful sizes, shapes and colors here in California my fear has lessened. I don't like them close or touching me, but I can leave them be and not freak out if they are in the house or around the garden. This rule DOESN'T hold true for Black widows which have a swift execution.

I really can't wait for Summer this year, armed with my camera and videocamera (new purchase in winter) I'll be a wildlife photography nut! Nothing more beautiful than a squash flower, ladybugs, or vegetables you grew yourself!

2008 was my first year growing tomatoes here in America, and although I'd grown them before in England I'd never encountered the tomato hornworm. I'd been on some gardening forums and heard so much about them that I was beginning to think I was going to get the whole season over without spotting one. I'd had problems with cabbage white caterpillars eating my radish greens but then in September after seeing some destruction on my tomato plants I saw this.

Now understand that this hornworm (and his buddy) was about 2" long so they'd been feasting up a storm for a while, I just hadn't noticed them. They are pretty tough to spot, so look closely at your tomato plants!!! Especially if they are missing leaves/branches. The problem for me is that I became fascinated with them. They are beautiful in a weird way, with their markings and horny bottom! I think the markings especially with the mock eyes and the diagonal lines. I'll say this for them too, they grab onto the branches really tight! I had trouble removing them from my tomato plants!

So why post these pics now? Because the new season is starting and tomatoes are pretty much on everyones grow list. Be aware of what you are looking for and take action early! These little buggers can strip plants bare in a day or two so get to know your plants and check them often!

I'm a gardener. I've been quite obsessed for a while now and it's only getting worse, but I do have other hobbies. One of those is scrapbooking and hand in hand with that is photography, which ties nicely into gardening! Very rarely now do I go out in the garden without my camera, always be prepared cos you never know what you'll find in your urban jungle! So I thought I'd share some favorite jungle animals from last year :) I moved up to a digital SLR last year so anything and everything got it's picture taken, like this little chap!

We're lucky to have had LOTS of Manti last year in the garden, and egg cases. This one was just approaching adult age from it's size but the one below well that was a baby and soooo cute at just 1" in length! This is a macro shot, the little guy was sitting in the crevice of the handle or my watering can!

Living in Southern California means we get a variety of insects, some of which are very weird looking (remember I'm a Brit, we don't get weird insects there!). We also get reptiles :) Which roam freely around the garden, especially so in the area around the citrus trees where there is dappled shade for cover, and a hot wall to sun yourself on!

This one looks a little podgy doesn't it? I thought maybe it was full but it just stood there eating insects between the rocks (bye bye pillbugs and ants!). Maybe full of eggs? Who knows... I do certainly see lots of smaller versions running around the yard.

Of course it's a tough battle trying to keep the dogs from eating the darn things, though that's after I've fallen about laughing at the dogs trying to chase them. If you haven't seen it, trust me, it's funny!

The biggest lizard I saw was a couple of years after we moved in and it was about 18" -2' from nose to tail tip, pretty big one that! Haven't seen any that big for a while, but I hope the ones we have stick around, it keeps the bug population in check!

The peas have taken a battering lately with the extreme winds here in Southern California. Honestly they need harvesting, ripping out and then the beds digging over to prep for Summer! But this morning I was putting out the laundry on the clothes line and noticed something out the corner of my eye. Naturally I had to go and grab the camera. We've had grasshoppers in the garden before but this one looked weird and I couldn't put my finger on why?

Did you notice anything odd? Incase you are wondering one of his back legs is missing! Poor thing! Plus the other is half missing. Obviously someone has been in a bit of a fight recently and lost an appendage (and a half). I snapped a few pics then left him alone to wallow in the misery of a lost limb. Hopefully he'll be ok!

The orange blossom is bringing in lots of garden visitors and no wonder 'cos it smells beautiful! Whenever I go out the back the tree is buzzing with life, literally! The bees LOVE the blooms!

The other insects that love the blossom are butterflies! Yep they are already flitting about here in Southern California and I see more each week! Plenty of blossom to chose from cos the tree is LOADED with flowers!

Of course the biggest lover of the blossom is this little one. Not sure what variety of humming bird it is but we get a couple zipping around the trees. I managed to snap this one during a 'blossom break'.

Love the wildlife in our garden!

I mentioned that the weird hot/cold/wet weather had bought the citrus trees out in bloom early and I thought I'd share a few pics I snapped last week whilst working on the raised bed walkways. As you can see all the blossom is open and boy do we know it! The garden smells DEVINE right now!

The humming birds are visiting it  A LOT as they do every bloom but the amount of bees this year is astounding! Maybe I just didn't notice so much last year or maybe we really do have lots of bees this year. The buzzing on this particular morning was immense!

As you can tell one of my other passions is photography and gardening indulges that passion well! If only the hummingbirds would be so gracious as to stay in the same spot for more than 5 seconds!

Nice shots but finishing off with my favorite! Kinda glad we have all these bees busily buzzing around pollinating the flowers, cos that means MORE ORANGES! I am harvesting enough for approx 1 a day which isn't bad considering the rather crude pruning they got last year!

Naturally more photography to come as and when the critters and weather allow :) We get some interesting 'guests' to the YardCraft garden so should be good for some nature pics! When I was out snapping these some ducks flew past, annoying the life out of the dogs :) Makes a change from last year when they decided that the pool was their pond! Other than ducks we see a host of insects, reptiles, rodents, birds and of course our dogs, the 2 spotty monsters!!! Some days its a positive nature trail out there!

As a relatively new gardener, last year I was just flying by the seat of my pants, this year I am planning! I am learning! I am absorbing information like a sponge! After my post last week about the ladybugs I spent some times on the UC pest management site. They have lots of information about pests and predators. I figure learn about the predators as there are less of them! Anyway I took in some of the information, bookmarked the link and then quickly browsed the predator pages when I come across this, Mantid page.

We get quite a few Mantid in our garden of all sizes. One thing that REALLY struck me was the egg case. I've seen those in our garden! Thankfully I wasn't sure what they were and figured leave them be could be pest or predator? Happy to know that up to 200+ eggs could be in those casings depending on the type of Mantid :) Come on my gardening friends hatch!

As always when out in the garden I usually have my camera handy and here are a couple of pics I took last year of the mantid in our yard!

This one was a little teeny tiny baby mantid, resting in the groove of the watering can handle.

This one was in one of my containers on the back patio.

I love wildlife!

With gardening you see lots of insects, LOTS! I'm sure anyone who's been out and looked at plants closely will have seen aphids, ants etc, but sometimes you come across insects that you don't know and it's all too easy to get cross assume they are pests and pick em off. Stop and think, is that a natural predator you are picking off? I say this because I was out in the garden last week (before the rains) and I noticed a couple of  these little things, wriggling along the beds and in my Mesclun patch.

I stopped and thought pest or predator? Took a pic, came in and researched. Thankful that I did cos they are ladybug larvae! And any gardener knows these are your best friend for fighting aphids and other nasties that suck the life out of plants.

Now you can see mine is a little different from the one above, definitely the same species though. So I did further research and found these: 7 Spotted ladybeetles

 

This one is definitely mine! Though there photo is better admittedly, lol! At least I know to leave these alone and let them do their thing, then grow into beautiful ladybeetles to eat all my aphids :)

So stop and think: pest or predator! The same rule applies to eggs! Afterall the larvae has to come from somewhere right? Anyone who's grown anything green will be all too familiar with eggs. From the hard round bright green pellet of a tomato horn worm to the ladybug eggs above that I saw on my lettuce last week. I wish I'd applied the rule then but I was so intent on stopping the pests I ripped the leaf off and threw it in a yard bucket. And now it's rained. I hope the little guys are ok! The good news is according to the site:

In a one to three month period the female can lay from 200 to over 1,000 small (about 0.04 inch or 1 mm) eggs.

So hopefully the females in my garden and busy laying more eggs! Next time I see some I promise I'd leave them alone!

At least now I know one predator in the garden! Off to research some more!