When the daytime highs reach the mid-60’s, and the nighttime highs inch close to 50, I know that things are truly going to start hopping in the garden. Flowers feel safe enough to bloom; warm-season veg begins to put forth tiny buds; and the insects start to wake up. I’ve noticed native bees in more numbers, flies hanging about the compost pile, and even a butterfly or two. And today, I spotted my first paper wasp. I like paper wasps. They are excellent pollinators and good predators of the kind of caterpillars that I don’t want (like tomato hornworms). They aren’t aggressive and stick mostly to themselves, so I welcome them every year to the eaves of the train shed where they build their nests. But, if paper wasps have arrived, that means yellow jackets will soon follow. I feel a bit differently about yellow jackets.
Yellow jacket queens overwinter in their underground dens, emerging (as so many insects do) with sun and light in spring. They are looking for food and a mate. If we can trap the queen before she mates or lay eggs, we can break one tiny part of the cycle now, and hopefully have less of them over the summer months. Today I put one by the chicken coop and one by the beehive, because those are both areas where YJs like to hang out. Let me be clear: I don’t want to eradicate all YJs; after all, they are an important part of the ecosystem and valuable because they eat dead things. But even if I wanted to, I could never get rid of them all. There will always be plenty of them. So I’m just trying to put a little dent in the population. If you’re in agreement with me, now’s the time to start putting out traps. The one above is the only kind that has every worked for me. Those plastic round things are useless, in my opinion.
This warmish weather also brings other creatures out of their dens, namely the college administrator who is on video and phone meetings from early morning till evening. Any outdoor spot is a good place for that, as long as it’s quiet. And it has definitely been quiet, although there are a lot of people doing house projects right now (and why not?), which means the college administrator is also taking a fair amount of meetings from the bedroom with the doors and windows closed.
Warm weather also causes the winter veg to bolt. These are Brussels sprouts flowers, aren’t they pretty? Like all members of the mustard family, they attract lots of bees. I’ve been feeding the chickens one of these plants each day. I just cut it off at the base and throw it to them, and they strip it to the stalk. Chickens love brassicas. Not so much the chard or beets, a different family of plants altogether.
I’ve planted potatoes - three kinds (Russet, French Fingerling, and Yukon Gold) for three different harvest times, and also seeded some sunflowers in cow pots for later transplant. This weekend, Tom and I are hoping to work on a new way to trellis tomatoes. What are you working on in your garden?