qebo’s 2015 garden (3)

Starting a new thread before I forget...

Monarch status: 16 butterflies tagged and released, 1 butterfly newly eclosed, 12 chrysalides, 13 caterpillars, 5 eggs.

Another monarch butterfly eclosed this morning. It was so anxious to get out a few hours later that I was unable to tag it. Whether male or female, I don't know; it was too fluttery.

If anything should be fluttery it should be a butterfly. :)

3 more butterflies out this morning. 1 caterpillar looking for a place to hang. 1 caterpillar molting. 8 caterpillars remaining from the recent batch. 3 caterpillars died at just a day or so old. I have a few remaining eggs, but they don't look healthy.

All 3 monarchs tagged. Anxious to fly away, but I was more careful to keep them contained until I had them in hand.

Today’s trio:


Molting:


I’m heading to the National Book Festival tomorrow, so the caterpillars have to be in autocare. These are the recent hatchlings, shouldn’t need much food over the next few days. The milkweed in my yard is deteriorating, but portions are in decent enough condition.

Ooh, pretties!

Thanks for the pictures. My Milkweed plants are finally about 12" tall, but I did plant them rather late.

2 more butterflies out and tagged this morning. Can’t keep the remaining chrysalides confined because they’ll probably eclose over the weekend, so the detachable ones are hanging on the back porch, and the attached ones are in an open mesh container, which seems vulnerable, so it’s protected by a recycling bin. I checked the sleeves, and all seems well with the caterpillars.

Chrysalis earrings? :)

3 butterflies eclosed while I was away. 2 look about ready this morning.

They chrysalis I gave to a community gardener eclosed yesterday. She messaged me about the time frame because she'd been sitting on the front porch waiting waiting waiting... and I helpfully told her to keep waiting. She got nice photos of the entire process... which are on Facebook and copyrighted so not presented here.

1 butterfly tagged, 1 was uncontained so I couldn't get hold of it. Can't tag until the wings are dry enough for flying, and at that point they don't wait around.

2 on the ends eclosed while I was away. 1 in the middle after I returned.

Yesterday a male monarch was patrolling the milkweed patch for a couple hours, spiraling above the yard, occasionally landing.

A wild caterpillar in my yard this morning.


3 wild caterpillars at the community garden yesterday.

Lotsa milkweed bugs.

Lacewing eggs. I’ve seen them in photos but never before in real life, found two batches at the community garden yesterday.

The dill in my yard is nearly done. The dill at the community garden is long gone. Volunteer fennel at the community garden is still fresh and has acquired several black swallowtail eggs.

Signs of fall in the back yard...

Goldenrod...


Grasshoppers...



Katydid...


Spider...

Apparently I will be adopting two fish that come with the new house.

>20 qebo: you got the house? Woo!

And with a pond...oh, there's SO much fun you can have with a pond.

>19 qebo: what are those round seedheads?

>21 fuzzi: The house is still wending through bureaucracy; it won't be mine until next week. I have permission to go into the yard, was over there last week and noticed the fish had not been taken away, so I asked the real estate agent to ask the owner what's up. Yeah, the pond is a nice feature. It's small but in an expandable area.
The round seedheads with the grasshopper? Rattlesnake Master

I have a pond and love my fish. I've gotten them trained. I whistle when they are about to be fed and they come running towards me sticking their little faces out of the water. Also, if it's after work and I'm wearing heels they know I'm coming by my clicking across the pavers.

>22 qebo: I hope everything goes well, and the house becomes yours, soon!

I love my goldfish, too. I have to move the floating plants in order to drop some pellets into the pond, so now when I move the plants they zoom over to my side and circle in anticipation!

A few deaths among the caterpillars in mesh sleeves in my yard, e.g. one smallish caterpillar and one J that didn't make it through yesterday's pouring rain. The remaining caterpillars are either quite large or Jing. The patrolling male returned today. I haven't looked carefully for eggs but a casual check yielded nothing.

The dill in my yard is done, and I haven’t seen a caterpillar in awhile. I cleared out one raised bed today, carefully since last year I found a monarch chrysalis. The other raised bed includes parsley, and I watched a swallowtail lay eggs on it fairly recently though I haven’t actually found any.



I checked the fennel at the community garden where I saw several swallowtail eggs a couple days ago. Today I saw several small caterpillars, and counted about a dozen eggs. There’s not much more fennel than you see in this photo, so I guess ma swallowtail doesn’t have many options. No way this fennel can support so many caterpillars to maturity, so maybe I’ll bring them home and feed them parsley.

Milkweed bugs everywhere...

I wished we lived closer. My daughter would love learning from you

>28 labfs39: It's mostly trial and error and google.

This morning with rain imminent I moved several large monarch caterpillars from mesh sleeves to a mesh container on the porch. They're nearing J time and the mesh sleeves don't give any protection from rain, which is usually OK, they just keep munching away, but if they J on the mesh instead of under a leaf, the silk pad gets loosened and I suspect that's why the J of a couple days ago fell off and died.

A monarch in the yard yesterday sure seemed to be laying eggs, though I couldn't get a photo to be sure. So this morning I checked a few plants, and found two eggs, which I brought inside. I don't have much decent milkweed left either in my yard or at the community garden, but I can manage to support a couple caterpillars.

The two monarch eggs of yesterday are doomed; one turned entirely black, and the other caved in. A chrysalis wants to be a butterfly but today is chilly and overcast so maybe it'll wait. A J became a chrysalis. A caterpillar is preparing to J. 3 large caterpillars are munching away. When I cleaned the container this morning I found a small volunteer caterpillar too.

Yesterday was pouring rain until evening then soggy ground, so I didn't get to the community garden to check the swallowtail caterpillars.

This caterpillar was in a mesh sleeve, a J attached to a leaf yesterday morning when I reorganized, so I let it be, didn’t want to disturb the process, but as the rain got heavier I worried that either the silk would weaken or the plant would sink and it'd get squished; without a mesh sleeve it would’ve found a sturdier place to attach. The clip was not my idea, saw it on the internet, and it works nicely, secures leaf and silk. The mesh hammock was just in case. This morning the J was a chrysalis, which I’ll move to a mesh container once it’s had time to solidify.

On yesterday evening’s walk I passed the house of a community gardener, whose family was huddled in the front yard watching this large caterpillar trek around on the mistflower. Anyone know what it is?

I love this thread! Thank you for taking the time to keep us updated. (And thank you for visiting my daughter's thread. :-)

Chilly again this morning but the monarch butterfly was already hanging out by 7:30, so it's either optimistic or desperate. Two more caterpillars are preparing Js.

I checked the swallowtail caterpillars at the community garden yesterday. They have increased in size and number, but there's enough fennel for now so I'm letting them be. Another gardener offered parsley from her plot if I need it to feed them.

I'm enjoying this thread too, so much knowledge of what goes on all around us! If there's any need for proof that the actions of a single person can make a difference, I think: just look to the various instances of caterpillar, J, chrysalis, and butterflies mentioned here. Pretty fabulous.

>35 qebo: Well it must've eclosed well before 7:30am; despite its location in the chilly shade on the porch, it was flapping its wings by 9:30am. So, tagged and released.

Still reading and enjoying your thread, @qebo. :)

The J of yesterday is a chrysalis. The preppers of yesterday are Js. 2 small caterpillars remain in the container. Another chilly morning so everybody is progressing slowly. I found a large caterpillar in my yard yesterday, and another large caterpillar at the community garden; I let both be.

>36 elenchus: There's a study making the rounds recently comparing tag recoveries in Mexico of early/late, male/female, wild/raised etc. The tag recoveries indicate that a significantly higher proportion of wild monarchs make it all the way to Mexico. Question is why. Proposed answers are health (raised monarchs tend to be smaller, perhaps a consequence of crowding) and migration triggers (raised monarchs are often indoors with artificial light and temperature). But... raised covers a range of conditions and the study doesn't. Some people raise 100s of monarchs with a hope of saving the species, which is probably misguided. The fundamental problem is habitat loss, along the way and in the overwintering region. I got into this from curiosity to watch the life cycle and interest in the citizen science aspect of tagging. I'm raising a few dozen this year because I don't have access to a meadow with monarchs flying through.

It makes sense to me that habitat restoration / preservation would have a longer-term effect than efforts at raising, but of course they go together. I'm thinking of looking into planting Milkweed in our small urban yard (Chicago). Having a coordinated effort to expand that over a larger expanse, especially on the migration path, seems like it could help. For now, I'd like to see what I can do in my backyard.

>41 elenchus: Habitat includes milkweed along the migration route, and every little bit helps; lotsa small efforts eventually fill in the gaps. I have maybe a dozen milkweeds in my yard, and I see it scattered around the city. People hear about the problem and do their part, plant a few milkweeds in a strip along a fence or in the alley, so a monarch butterfly flitting through the city is likely to find something. And although I doubt that raising monarchs does much to help the species as a whole, I still feel an impulse to rescue individual eggs and caterpillars from predators.

>41 elenchus: I planted Milkweed this year, hopefully it will be big enough next year to help host some Monarchs. My visiting bunny ate two of them down to the ground...I hope he doesn't get sick.

Mine. :-)

Not obvious from the photos, but the front yard is about the size of my current back yard, and the back yard is several times that. So large enough to play with, small enough to be manageable.

Love it!

And a slope...for a natural waterfall... :)

Pretty, pretty!!!!

Looks lovely!

This afternoon I met with an arborist for tree identification and advice. The situation is better than I’d expected. Almost everything is native. The house is about 80 years old, and he guesses that many of the large trees were there from the beginning. A few large trees need minor pruning and a few small trees should be removed altogether, which he’ll do for a surprisingly small fee.

This new yard will be quite an interesting change, considering that my current yard has zero trees.

Starting in the front and going clockwise around the yard (I’m reading my scribbled notes now without reference to the actual trees, so may have minor errors here), I have:

front
Japanese maple (non-native – needs minor pruning to stay clear of windows and roof)
American dogwood (native)

along south fence
American black cherry (native – needs minor pruning of small dead branches)
American black cherry (native – needs minor pruning of small dead branches)
(I've heard indirectly that the neighbor complains about these trees, which overhanging her yard, but the arborist said nothing can be done without damaging the trees so she'll have to live with them. In exchange, I get the residue of her sycamore tree.)

along alley
mulberry (didn’t get details - small, should be removed)
viburnum (didn’t get details)
viburnum (didn’t get details)
larch (didn’t get details)
larch (didn’t get details)

along north fence
American black cherry (native)
American black cherry (native)
hackberry (native)
American black cherry (native)
American dogwood (native)
American dogwood (native)
spruce (stunted by surrounding trees, probably should be removed)
black walnut (native – small, should be removed)
hackberry (native)
hackberry (native)
silver maple (native)
silver maple (native)
Norway maple (non-native)
hackberry (native)
red oak (native)
pin oak (native)

Also scattered mountain laurel, rhododendon, viburnum.

I dropped by the community garden yesterday after the tree consultation, and counted 14 black swallowtail caterpillars occupying less than a cubic foot of the fennel. Size range is 1/8" - 1/2", so they're OK for now, but when they're all 2" this'll be a problem...

>48 qebo: ooh! Wonderful!

Hackberry Emperor butterflies only eat Hackberry tree foliage.

Why get rid of the Mulberry? The birds love mine when the fruit ripens.

>50 fuzzi: Why get rid of the Mulberry?
Dunno, didn't get details, he immediately said "weed" so maybe it's the type? It's at the edge near the alley in the midst of other shrubby things. I'll ask when he does the pruning in a couple weeks. He was quite enthusiastic about the cherry trees providing food for birds.

The larger trees don't have branches near the ground, so I won't necessarily find caterpillars.

Mulberry trees (white mulberry) are non-native and invasive. They are native to China. Mulberry fruit is great, though. I love to eat the berries of the mulberry tree :D

My neighbor has a very tall chokecherry tree (native and sort of related to the American black cherry). It is amazing to watch robins completely strip this tree within about one week of all its berries in the summer.

I love black walnut trees! The only issue is that the nuts produce juglone which is toxic to some plants. However, you can harvest the black walnuts and eat them...although they are a pain to clean. Squirrels also eat them. The next time you come to visit, remind me to serve you some black walnuts my husband harvested in past years. I keep them in the freezer and use them for baking. They have a stronger taste than English walnuts.

I also have a red oak and a pin oak. The red oak is very small (it's quite young), but the pin oak has tons of acorns on it this year! The squirrels love the acorns and are already trimming the tree to get to the acorns.

I guess if you're going to be talking native trees, I'll start following your thread more closely once again! :D

Our Mulberry is actually on the neighbor's side of the fence, in an overgrown tangle. It's behind our shed, and overhangs it some, so we don't mind. And the birds love the fruits!

>49 qebo: Sigh. 21 black swallowtail caterpillars on the fennel at the community garden.

>54 qebo: I skipped a couple days then passed through the community garden yesterday to check the swallowtail caterpillars and... zero. Somebody had a feast. Maybe it's not really zero and a caterpillar is burrowed in the fennel and will surface eventually, but wow. I shoulda rescued them.

In monarch news, one chrysalis is nearing eclosure, and one caterpillar is looking for a place to J. We've had a couple cool and overcast days, but the sun is out this morning.

We had a black mulberry tree at a former house. It really made a mess during the fruit season. Not just there but anywhere nearby where the birds sat to shit. I liked to make jam from the fruit, but they are awkward to harvest as the berries drop as soon as they are ripe. The colour takes a few times through the wash to come out. The branches are weak. My kids liked to climb in it, but I made it out of limits when we had visiting kids. (Easy, just flipped the rope ladder up where they couldn't reach it.)

It was the only big tree that yard had, but with other fruiting trees, I probably would have removed it. The current owners did.

We had a white mulberry and a black (red) one, at the house where I was teenager. I loved them - ate the fruit constantly, and climbed when I could (they weren't very large, and after a while it wasn't a good idea). We tried harvesting them by spreading a sheet underneath and shaking the tree - got a lot of berries and a lot of trash (leaves, twigs, bugs...) that we had to pick through to get the berries. It was probably easier than climbing and picking, though. Made jam, and my parents made mulberry wine.

Our tree had lilacs around it, so the sheet method wasn't workable. Climbing and picking isn't great.

We had a white mulberry tree (black fruit)* that overhung our next door neighbor's patio. She was thrilled when we removed it because of falling fruit.

Another one was in my front neighbor's yard. It overhung our driveway and caused a true mess (black fruit) when people entered our house. I'm glad that one's gone.

However, my favorite tree for climbing when I was a kid was on a back lot. You've already guessed that it was a white mulberry tree.

*The invasive white mulberry tree (Morus alba L.) can have either black, pink or white fruit. This tree was introduced to the United States from China during colonial times for the purpose of establishing a silkworm industry. The ripe fruit contains abundant seeds. A single tree is estimated to produce twenty million seeds!

*The seeds are spread by wildlife which consumes them and deposits the seeds in other locations. White mulberry displaces native species. It is slowly outcompeting and replacing red mulberry (Morus rubra) through hybridization and possibly through transmission of a harmful root disease.

Note: This information came from Plant Invaders of the Mid-Atlantic Natural Areas which you can order from the National Park Service - U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

I now remove any of these trees that I see trying to grow in my yard.

>55 qebo: The wandering caterpillar became a J yesterday and a chrysalis today. A wandering caterpillar of yesterday is a J today. This leaves one large and one small caterpillar to feed. My milkweed is, barely, up to the job.

Most of the cute baby milkweed bugs of >16 qebo: and >27 qebo: have become adults. They hang around for awhile afterward, then go away. Where they go, I don't know.

One more wandering monarch caterpillar this morning. So that's one caterpillar left to feed. It's about 1".

>61 qebo: The wanderer of yesterday has died. Yesterday it appeared to be preparing a silk pad. This morning it was lying on the bottom of the container oozing green goo. It had seemed too small to J but the timing was right, a couple days behind the other two in the same container.

I assume this is representative of the broader process: some caterpillars make it, some don't. But as ever it makes a difference when you are following an individual caterpillar, it's little solace to think - this is nature, this is the process, it's working as it should. The tragedy of the individual in an eternal cycle.

>63 elenchus: My experience has been that many eggs don't hatch (I don't have precise numbers), but most caterpillars become butterflies if protected from predators. I haven't had trouble with OE as far as I'm aware; I haven't tested (I got a microscope this year but haven't devoted time to setting it up) but I haven't seen the symptoms either (difficulty eclosing, too weak to hang, deformed wings). The dead caterpillar wasn't one I raised from an egg; it was a bonus caterpillar found on a leaf when I was foraging for food. At some point I'll scout around for a possible explanation of its symptoms.

The temperature is up from recent days, and two chrysalides have turned dark, so maybe I'll have butterflies by this afternoon.

No butterflies today. Tomorrow will be warm again, but with rain beginning afternoon or evening. Then the temperature drops and the rain continues for several days.

Yesterday’s green goo caterpillar.


Today, the two butterflies are out. And, a bonus! This is my milkweed patch, still home to numerous milkweed bugs. In the midst of the mess, I had failed to notice a monarch chrysalis. This morning while foraging for leaves to feed the one remaining caterpillar, I discovered a freshly eclosed butterfly.

And all three are tagged; two released, third "wild" butterfly fluttering and resettling so its wings are dry enough. Temperature in the low 70s, and rain not expected for another couple hours.

Bah. Another monarch eclosed today, not ideal conditions, breezy and overcast with rain expected, but the temperature is around 70. Obviously adequate for flying, because the butterfly was too agitated to be held for tagging and was out of sight within seconds. Another looks ready to eclose. The last caterpillar grew significantly during the two warm days, so it shouldn't need to be fed for much longer.

qebo, how do the tags work: do you look for returning tagged butterflies next year, and document them online somewhere? I assume they're not RFID or in any way GPS enabled tags, but have to be read by a person and documented so as to capture the trends.

>69 elenchus: I get tags through MonarchWatch. Instructions here. They're small round stickers w/ contact information. People actively look for tagged butterflies in Mexico; otherwise it's left to chance. MonarchWatch keeps records. The proportion of tag recoveries is very low.

And another butterfly is out and hanging. The temperature is dropping and the next few days will be chilly.

I tagged it a little while ago, and it has flown away. The temperature is still in the high 60s.

>66 qebo: woo! :)

Chilly and rainy in recent days, but today is supposed to be the end of it. I brought my remaining caterpillar inside so its development won't completely stall; I haven't turned on the heat, so no danger that my house will fool it into thinking it's summer. 2 chrysalides are in the same container, recent enough that they won't eclose before the weather improves. 2 other chrysalides are still outside. I'm pretty sure one is dead, weirdly discolored. The other should be nearly ready which is why I didn't bring it inside, want nature to convince it to wait for a sunny day.

Well the rain is gone but the overcast and chill remain. The chrysalis that I left outside has looked nearly ready through a few days of miserable weather, and I was worried that the delay might've doomed it, but today the butterfly emerged. The temperature is high 50s, but tomorrow is supposed to be mid 60s with some sunshine, so it should be OK. It's still hanging with floppy wings, but last year one stayed hanging overnight so that's not a problem, and they don't need to eat for a day.

The monarch butterfly is beginning to flap its wings, but they feel too soft for a tag. I don't want to keep it trapped if it's ready to fly before dark or before I get to it in the morning, so I opened the mesh container and put it inside the recycling bin for extra protection as in >8 qebo:.

The last caterpillar, sigh, is still eating.

And another butterfly season comes to a close...

>77 fuzzi: Not quite yet...

Yesterday's butterfly stayed in the container overnight, and was still hanging early this morning, so I zipped the door shut and put it in a sunny spot. When I checked a few minutes ago the butterfly was flapping its wings, so I applied a tag and set it free.

Go, butterfly, go!

Hallelujah. The caterpillar is looking for a place to J. I am out of the feeding business for the season.

Did you raise a lot fewer caterpillars this season than last, or did you just do them all so much more smoothly? *waves*

>81 ronincats: Somewhat fewer, but mostly it's not a novelty this year so I didn't take as many photos.

>72 qebo:

I tagged it a little while ago, and it has flown away.

Haha, Katherine! You tag butterflies, and I tag books!

It was fun having you here in Maryland for a visit. Looking forward to your next visit. Enjoy your newest garden!

>83 SqueakyChu: Your recovery rate is higher. :-)

I saw three monarch butterflies in the wild yesterday afternoon, a couple miles from my house. I still have 2 chrysalides with another imminent; the last caterpillar is now a J.

Nothing much will be happening with my newest garden this fall. I hope to clear the small sunny patch and plant milkweed seeds, but mostly I have to focus on getting my old yard tidy for potential buyers.

>84 qebo:

Your recovery rate is higher.

LOL!

The new house now has a maintenance guy. He was mowing the lawn next door a couple weeks ago, I asked whether he'd deal with my yard too while I'm in transition, and he agreed but we've been playing telephone tag ever since. Today finally we connected in person when he was at the house next door again. He's maybe 60+, and after a career in something technical (I don't recall details) pieces together various construction and maintenance jobs and spends winters in a cabin in the mountains. It's all quite informal; he doesn't want to devote evenings to preparing invoices, so he'll drop a note about $ in my mailbox once in awhile. I mentioned the weeds coming through and over the fence where I want to put a milkweed patch, and he's willing to coordinate efforts. (The owner is elderly with health troubles. I haven't met her. I met a woman who tends the flowers in the front yard. Somehow the patch of weeds in the back yard didn't get onto anyone's task list; it's mostly visible from my yard.) I expressed concern about chemicals, and he said he keeps milkweed at the edges of his 2 acre property and his nephews raise caterpillars, and he is an advocate of bees, so he knows to be sparing though I gather he's not 100% organic. He can also help with pulling up ivy and taking out bushes next spring.

Guys like that can be worth their weight in gold!

>87 ronincats: Yeah, I like the informality and flexibility, and he seems helpful and competent.

Over the weekend I removed carpet from the basement so I can use it for storage. (It wasn't really a "finished" basement. The carpet was slapped over an uneven concrete floor, and there's cheap paneling on some walls. It's clean and dry, which is more than can be said for my current basement.) On Monday, the humongous tool shed was hauled away. (The guy who inspected the house wanted it.) I should've taken photos. I was most impressed that the hauler was able to back his truck + flatbed to the far end of the driveway, which is more than I can manage with a Honda Civic. On Monday also, the deck was power washed, and yesterday it was stained. The relevance to this thread is that I'm now in a position to move garden stuff from my current basement and deck and back porch.

Keep it coming, I'm living vicariously!!

Another monarch butterfly has emerged. It looked ready yesterday, which would've been better temperature-wise. 2 more chrysalides to go...

Another case of wings too soft for a tag, so I've opened the container to let it depart or not as it prefers before dark. I'm guessing not; it's been slowly flapping wings but not fluttering around.

Another chrysalis is looking almost ready.

The butterfly of >91 qebo: stayed in the container hanging overnight, so I was able to tag it before it flew away the next morning. The almost ready chrysalis remains, and hopefully will be OK until Tuesday when the temperature rises.

The accomplishment of the weekend: exiting the community garden for the season. Last weekend I untangled tomato vines from trellises, piled plant remains in one plot, piled equipment in the other plot. Today I transported all the equipment to the basement of the new house. I could pretty things up a bit more if I find myself with spare time, but I've done what's necessary and don't have to set foot in the community garden until next spring.

Woo hoo! One more thing out of the way and you can concentrate on getting your houses in shape.

I love basements/cellars, but they are pretty much non-existent here. :(

And as hoped, the butterfly of >92 qebo: emerged this afternoon. I expect it to remain overnight.
This leaves one more chrysalis, from >84 qebo: less than two weeks ago so it'll be awhile.

Tagged and released today. One more to go...

Catching up and see you've been busy the past couple of months! The new house is beautiful, and it's great you've found a good maintenance man. I may have missed it, but is your new place in the same neighborhood as the old one? Also, love the news and pics of the caterpillars and butterflies. I saw a wild monarch in the back yard last week for the first time in awhile and was surprised, as here in Colorado it's going to get cold soon. I hope it will be okay.

>97 Storeetllr: The new house is 3/4 mile from the old house, but a different neighborhood; new = suburb with mostly detached houses, old = city with mostly twin & row houses, divider is a street that runs along the edge of the city. All other things equal I would've preferred to stay within city limits, but smaller house with larger yard is a nearly impossible combination in the city. I am staying within walking distance of everything that matters.

I still see the occasional wild monarch here. It's getting chilly, but with intervals of days in the 60s. The monarchs need 60-ish to fly, so I don't know how far south they can get each day, seems awfully precarious, but I guess the butterflies keep laying eggs until they can't. I did not intend to raise these last few caterpillars; I collected them accidentally when I was foraging for milkweed leaves, and then I felt obligated to see them through. It has been useful to learn that the almost-ready chrysalides (orange wings showing through a clear case) will pause for several days until the temperature rises.

Would you believe, I still have a monarch chrysalis? It's still green, and I'm still seeing reports of migrating monarchs on various forums.

In community garden news, the founder has decided to pull the plug on the non-profit under whose auspices the garden rents the site from the school district and holds a bank account. So... we're on our own. Who "we" are is not yet clear, whether we can be an informal bunch of people, or are required to form a legal non-profit. As of today, I'm in email contact with the relevant school district administrator. I don't want to seize control, but I do want to make sure all the institutional and legal details are in place by February so the transition is smooth from the POV of gardeners renting plots, and experience suggests that it's wise to start now and apply continuous pressure. I am already a tad overwhelmed with moving, so this is quite a nuisance, but I'll be disappointed if the community garden ceases to exist. I'm keeping several of the most engaged gardeners (the ones who regularly do extra tasks beyond their own plots) in the loop, and they've all expressed interest in continuing, but nobody has actually volunteered to deal with the bureaucracy, so I'm it by default.

Hi Katherine! It sounds as if you're quite busy! Sorry about the need to work on the garden plots issue, but I know you don't want to lose them. I'm sure it'll be a fun winter in your new house, Can't wait to hear more details.

Why do glitches always seem to happen at the least convenient times? I hope work, at least, is quiet. I hope you are enjoying your new spaces and that your fellow gardeners step up to the plot, so to speak...

Started a thread for winter birds at the new house.

So my last monarch of >84 qebo: has been in a container on the back porch for nearly 6 weeks. Several days ago it turned black, and I thought finally it has definitely died; in the dim light through the mesh I didn't see any orange. Well this morning... a butterfly! Awfully late for migration, though I still see occasional reports of monarchs north of here, and I still see scattered flowers in bloom. The temperature today is supposed to reach 60. I guess I'll release it to nature, but I don't have high hopes for its chances.

Go, little butterfly, go! Fly south!

This one didn't go so well. As a caterpillar, it grew slowly, well behind others of similar age. As a chrysalis, it developed slowly, double the normal time when accounting for temperature. As a butterfly, it was weak. Typically the newly emerged butterflies begin flapping wings and agitating to get out and fly. This butterfly was lethargic even when I brought it inside for warmth. Yesterday I tried to feed it sugar water, and it had trouble balancing, fell forward. So. I decided to euthanize. The recommended method is freezing, and a further suggestion is to cover the container so the butterfly is in the dark, and refrigerate for awhile first so the butterfly essentially stops functioning. So that's what I did. The alternative seemed to be watching it die slowly. Or it can simply be squished, but that's just too horrible.

:(

IIRC, this was a bonus caterpillar that came with a foraged leaf. I should've just put it back on the plant and let nature be the bad guy.

:(
:(

>44 qebo: Oh! I had missed your move! Wadda great looking house and yard. I'll look forward to seeing what you do with it.

Community garden cartoon:

That looks like an English setup, though I suppose it might apply to the States. I dunno, do Canadians have a garden culture more similar to the English or to the U.S.?

I certainly understand the irritation depicted, but my sympathies are more with the Reader at Leisure. I wonder if the shed is full of books?

>109 2wonderY: I haven't moved yet. :-( Getting miscellaneous disruptive work done, floor refinishing and painting and such. I hope within a couple of weeks.

That's much too well tended to be my community garden. How has the reader at leisure dealt with the thistle?

The community garden status hasn't changed. We have a contact in the school district, and a tentative plan to meet with him as a group in early January. No specific time has been set, and it's not at all clear what the scope of options might be. Several gardeners expect to attend, but we'll see how this plays out in reality. Meanwhile I will talk with someone at the bank to find out the requirements on that end. Maybe not at the bank where we currently have an account, because I don't want them to know just yet that the account we've been using, which is under the auspices of the dissolving non-profit, won't be legitimate next spring.

Hmph. Very nice in the spring - but in the summer and autumn, all the rest of them will be eating delicious stuff out of their gardens (and recounting the horror stories of how they got it, despite bugs and drought), and he'll still be sitting there. I _like_ my edible gardens!

Wow, qebo, did I drop the ball somewhere, or what? I was going through my starred posts and your last one got buried in the shuffle! I'll have to go back and catch up, as skimming it I saw lots of cool Lepidoptera pics. I need to cut down on how many starred threads I have, apparently--at least during the fall-spring semesters. Don't worry--I'm starring this one. I really prefer the gardening posts over the general discussions, I think. For one thing, I don't come across a million new titles I feel I need to read (just more caterpillars I wish I could raise!). ;)

Remember to star the 2016 one, too!

>113 CassieBash: Well this one is fading away...

But, I was about to add a post anyway for the sake of completion. We left the community garden in >111 qebo: with uncertain status and a question of whether it would survive. And now we know: yes. A bunch of us met with the school district CFO a couple days ago, and the plan is to continue with essentially the same agreement, but to replace the non-profit name with the garden name in the legal document. This means the garden has to reincarnate as a legal entity, so it can carry liability insurance and open a bank account. This is a nuisance but a standard and not terribly expensive process. I'm doing most of the work, e.g. contacting the bank and the IRS and the insurance company, because I'm the one who cares most about having all the pieces in place before March when people will arrive to rent plots, but two other people have volunteered to cosign anything legal.

>115 qebo: Glad to hear you had a couple of others ready to help out with the legalities. If you're officially done with 2015 (and why not--all the calendars say you should be), I'll unstar this one once I've caught up with the caterpillar pics.

Going to find 2016 post right now for following! :)

I'm glad you saved your community garden! k8 and I weren't able to do much on our own last year (it was a bit of a transition year), but this year our neighbor wants to share our garden space for a mini-community garden. Since she has six kids, that's lots of labor!

>117 labfs39: Well, it's not saved yet. Took a couple of weeks to determine that we can become an unincorporated nonprofit association, which is significantly less expensive and bureaucratically demanding than an incorporated nonprofit. This was suggested by a lawyer and an accountant, and deemed acceptable by an insurance broker. We've submitted the application for registering the name, which is the crucial step to everything else, time frame unknown. And then comes the reality test as we present our legal entity to the next steps in the sequence. March 1 is seeming awfully optimistic for getting all the pieces in place, though we can manage if things drag out a couple weeks longer.

With six kids, it's kind of a question about who's doing the labor...

>118 qebo: Agreed! Plus she homeschools. But the kids were over today and started cleaning up from the winter. I lost a little in their enthusiasm, but it's a start.