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The cage of doom

18 Feb

Remember that caterpillar we caught eating one of my heirloom organic Australian butter beans?

The bean eating caterpillar

Yes, that one. I’m pretty sure it’s a looper caterpillar. Well, he/she has made a silky cocoon and is pupating.

Yeah, I know, it’s very hard to see

The caterpillar tried to hide the cocoon, so it’s quite hard to see. It’s the green thing inside the furry looking thing under the stick about mid photo on the right. I couldn’t open the cage to get a photo or the vegetable grasshopper probably would have escaped. As you can see, taking one through the plastic didn’t work out so well, but you get the idea.

I thought Hannah’s class might like to see a weird looking grasshopper and a cocoon, so I asked one of her teachers if they’d like me to bring it in. I don’t think most kids around here have seen such bugs up close before. They probably don’t have weird parents who stick bugs in cages when they try to eat their vegetables.

The teacher was very excited and said she’d love me to bring it in. It’s been raining the last few days, so on the way out this morning, we saw an obnoxious snail about to munch on my strawberry plants (they are in big pots at the front door), so I stuck him in the cage of doom with the grasshopper and caterpillar cocoon. At least there is a live snail in the cage now, rather than only empty shells. Never again will any of them taste freedom. But at least they have shelter and food. And won’t be eating my crops.

Speaking of my strawberries, they are making runners like mad, and have already infiltrated the garden bed next to their pot. I also have a native finger lime tree in a very deep pot at the front of my house. When I got it, it was so small that it looked ridiculous in it’s pot. I left a couple of inches between the soil and the top of the pot, and the tree didn’t go past the top of the pot. That was less than a year ago. And if anything is crazy enough to brave the long thorns and attempt to eat my finger lime tree, it too will go in the cage of doom.

In the top left is my peanut plant that is in the garden under our front window. Below are my strawberries, and to the right is my finger lime tree which has grown by leaps and bounds since I got it.

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Tags: caterpillar, cocoon, family, finger lime, life, pupae, snail, urban farming, vegetable grasshopper

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Categories Gardening, life with a 4 year old, pre kindergarten, prep

The bug cage

14 Feb

I seem to have accidentally killed all of the snails that were occupying Hannah’s bug cage
by not feeding and watering them, and leaving the cage in the sun. Oops. I guess that whole hibernation thing is negated when it’s 40 degrees (104 f) out.

The snails ended up in there because they were eating my lettuce and I don’t particularly enjoy the crunching noise their shells make when killing them. The kids liked looking at them in the cage anyway. “Can I see the snails?” Daniel asked me every day. You’d think that would remind me to feed and water them, but what can I say, I still have baby brain. I don’t think it ever goes away.

About a week ago, while I was watering my beans and corn, I found a weird looking bright green grasshopper trying to eat my crops. I chased him all around the yard, jumping on the ground with my hands cupped, hoping the little brat would be under there until I finally caught him and shoved him in the bug cage with all of the now empty snail shells. Turns out he is a vegetable grasshopper. Good thing I captured him.

vegetable grasshopper. Image courtesy of Queensland Museum.

He probably would have made an awful crunching noise if I tried to kill him, so a life in captivity is much better (for me at least…).

Our heirloom beans (climbing blue lake which have a green pod and white beans inside, and Australian butter beans which have a white pod and purple beans inside) are actually growing beans now, as opposed to leaves only, and then leaves plus flowers, so I check them every day for pests. My garden is organic; I don’t blanket spray with insecticides, and if I do need to spray anything, it’s home made white oil with an earth friendly brand of biodegradable dish soap, and vegetable oil. I’ve only had to use that on the grapefruit tree though.

Yesterday, we found a cheeky caterpillar on one of the immature beans. Nearly the whole bean had been devoured! He/she went straight in the cage with the grasshopper. Hopefully grasshoppers don’t eat caterpillars. We did put a very small baby grasshopper (regular grasshopper, not a vegetable one) in the cage with the vegetable grasshopper, but it disappeared after only a couple of hours. It was a bit too big to get through the air slots, which can only mean that we are in possession of a cannibal grasshopper.

The bean eating caterpillar on some lettuce we gave it.

A year ago, Hannah found a caterpillar on her pillow, and we put it in the bug cage. A couple days later, she turned into a moth and we let her go. Needless to say, Hannah is crazy excited for our new caterpillar to turn into a moth, only this time “we have to keep it in the bug cage or I will miss it too much,” Hannah told me. That’s even better, then he/she can’t proliferate with other moths and lay eggs all over my vegetables (which hatch into caterpillars and eat whatever they are on after emerging from their eggs).

Now that we have vegetables growing, I think we need a bigger bug cage. Captivity is the price they have to pay if they eat my vegetables (or even go near them). *insert evil laugh here*

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Tags: caterpillar eating my vegetables, family, heirloom beans, life, organic gardening, urban farming, vegetable grasshopper

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Categories Annoying things, Gardening, Life with a 2 year old, life with a 4 year old, Posts you can actually learn from

Veggie garden

28 Jan

Aaron has been busy making me a garden in the backyard. We don’t have a big yard, but I still want to be able to plant vegetables/fruit/herbs. We also want to have room for the kids to run around and play. So Aaron made me a garden bed that takes minimal space, but is still enough for me to plant a few things:

The garden bed is almost finished. A shed will eventually go on top of the cement tiles in the top left corner. There is a water access point that can’t be covered or blocked, between the future shed and edge of the garden, otherwise we had planned to have the garden go all the way to the fence. A potted plant will go between the shed and the garden so there isn’t a bare patch.

Aaron has been building the garden bed in stages since it took a whole lot of digging, followed by bricking. There will be one more row of bricks on top of the ones that are sunken in the ground, and then it will be all finished. Oh, and I’m going to nail boards across the beams that hold up the clothesline so that heavy things like pumpkins can grow up instead of out.

This is the first section of garden that Aaron made. I planted two types of heirloom beans, heirloom corn, and a marigold (helps keep pests away). In the corner in the pot is a grapefruit tree, surrounded by thyme, oregano, and mizuna. In the next pot is a macadamia tree (which needs a bigger pot and will be moved to the front since one macadamia can kill a 10kg dog) surrounded by rosemary, and next to that is my stevia plant, which also won’t actually stay there.

My heirloom beans are thriving. Behind them is a row of corn, which is also thriving, and there is a marigold in front of them, and it’s mulched with sugarcane.

I love growing my own food. I know what has been put on it (nothing), that it’s not GMO, it’s fun, and best of all, the kids love helping in the garden and eating straight from the plants. It’s good for kids to know how plants grow and see it happen right in front of them.

Vegetable gardening isn’t as easy as popping some seeds in the ground and then reaping the rewards though. Different plants like different conditions, different soils etc. Some fix nitrogen, some don’t. Some plants don’t prosper when planted near other kinds of plants. Some plants make other plants taste better and/or grow better. Some plants attract beneficial insects, others repel bad insects. They have to be planted at different depths and with different spacings. You could spend a whole lifetime learning about gardening.

But to make it easy, there’s the UrbMat. The UrbMat has holes the correct distance from each other, close enough to maximise space, but far enough apart so that the 10 different edible plants grow properly. Weeds are suppressed under the mat. The types of plants have been carefully chosen and placed for compatibility and even pest control plants are included. So you don’t have to stand outside for ages watering everything, there is even an inbuilt irrigation system. The UrbMat shows you what to plant where, making it great for beginning gardeners and kids. Best of all though, for every UrbMat sold, two meals are donated to kids in need.