Since it is the start of summer and I have been milling around in the yard inspecting for insects and bugs of all kinds, I thought I would add to the blog my first pictures of the many visitors I hope to see. This year I increased the amount of carrots in the yard along with herbs I generally don't use in hopes of providing companion plants for a lot of my regular vegetables. Dill, in particular, is one such herb. While I find it ok in regards to culinary use, it is getting a lot of attention. For instance, this Black Swallowtail caterpillar has made lunch of this stalk. I am pretty much ok with this.
The second type of visitor is more of a pest and appeared on my potted mustard greens (for some reason, not the batch planted in the garden boxes next to several other types of vegetables). I have stopped taking anything from this plant because I noticed the groups of aphids and then several tiny minute wasps. I can't tell if there are two different species present or if the same species but varying in age and size is occupying the leaves.
 |
| Swarm of aphids with a tiny parasitic wasp |
|
|
|
My first initial reaction was to pull the plants, as these clusters are rather disgusting, but if I can keep a habitat alive for the wasps, they may stick around and control any other aphid populations that spring up. Meanwhile, the rest of the garden looks pretty good.
July 10th 2011
I noticed a group of caterpillars (about 5 total) on the four dill plants in the garden. They are very tiny and on closer inspection, they turned out to be the same Black Swallowtail specimens, except they appear to be the first instar, whereas the first picture above, is the second or third. See below:
