applestar wrote:...only THREE tomato plants, Lindsay?
I know....I know... Full time work, Full time kids, Full time Biology degree... I'm ashamed of my downgrade... I asked to go part time today. It's just too much.
I can barely manage 3!
(Haven't seen a squashbug yet though!!! I'm chalking that up to the invasive fire ant population currently making claim on the squash blossoms.)
We have lots of wrens. There's a nest on the crook of the gutter downspout 6 feet above the garden. Lots of cardinals. There are red breasted bluebirds and some yellow finches. There are bats here as well. They paruse the pool at night. I turn the light of just to attract them. There are Leyland Cypress lining the backyard. Maybe 50 feet tall. Lots of nesting sites here to attract. Cat birds (mocking birds) are in plenty here. I have dill, basil and cilantro actively blooming. They're all snuggled in there, and I'm seeing a lot of parasitoids, So I know that they're present. I saw a yellow jacket munching away at one of the cats today... that was encouraging. I found some five-lined skink eggs under one of the stones surrounding this bed. I made sure to leave them alone. The cleared dirt is a homing signal for fire ants. Even though its mulched and composted now... They are such a weedy species. They colonize so much faster than anything else, and they are predatory to every freakin amphibian or reptile that even tries to come around. They even run the spiders off here. I've been leaving Spinosad granules in a cup hoping to lure them, but they persist... they ate the skink eggs, and likely ran the mother off.
Everything is planted close. It's all rather intermingled. Cucumbers, squash, tomatoes, eggplant (I'm getting eggplant this year!!! First time ever!), marigolds, bolted herbs.
I'm wondering if the squash and cucumber blooms are attracting them....
I purchased BT. But I don't wanna...
Septoria is awful here this year as well. The Cherokee purple is holding ground, but the Coyote and German Queen are not.. it may just be a busy this year. I won't give up yet....
In my ecology class, we did an experiment with pastry caterpillars, measuring bird predation rates. I wonder if I made some more of those and put them in super obvious places if it would attract more birds. That was such a fun lab!