Bouncing back from the summer heat

It has finally cooled down a bit and the plants are definitely looking happier (at least until it starts getting too cold for them soon). I have cleared nearly everything out of the raised bed, including a number of rotten tomatoes and nasty tomato horn worms - ick! For better or worse, I was able to see beneficial insects in action on the tomato horn worms. I do believe a parasitic wasp or two laid her eggs on a couple of the worms and nature took its course. I did not bother taking picture as I would like to forget the sight, myself.

On to more enjoyable topics - I am trying something new this year and have thrown a large number of flower seeds into the raised bed. These plants are supposed to perform better next year if their seeds are started in the fall of the previous year (fingers crossed). I went a little wild at the seed store and the variety of plants include sweet peas, scabiosa, cerinthe pride of gibraltar, butterfly bush, butterfly weed, and many more. With any luck (or a lot of it), the raised bed will be exploding with butterfly friendly and stunningly gorgeous flowers next year.

Here are some pics of one of my favorites from this year:

I still can't believe how well these begonias did this year (and from seed!). They never stopped blooming from early summer through now (beginning of fall). I will definitely need to propagate these for next year.

Next up are some fall goodies. This is the second year I have grown Mexican Sage bush and it was quite a bit taller than I was expecting. Ideally, I would like to move this to a better spot in the raised bed, but we'll see on that. The mums I bought for 88 cents each at Lowe's last year came back in a very large and vigorous fashion. I even cut them back midway through the season. Great investment.

Butterflies and Babies!

Well, even though half the people I know are either pregnant or new parents; the babies referenced for this blog are actually caterpillars that eventually grow into beautiful swallowtail butterflies. Now that I finally figured out what the little fellas are, it has been great fun watching them grow through their multiple instars (different stages in development). We were only lucky enough to see the chrysalis for one or two of the first group of cats (caterpillars) and the butterflies have been super sneaky and fly away before we get around to welcoming them. It's still great knowing that they're out there somewhere. Below are a few pics of the babies and one of the actual butterflies that did hang out for a day or two (I think she's the mom ;) ). You'll notice that their preference leans heavily to parsley plants which I was slow in growing this year. After an emergency run to a nursery in Durham (the only one around that still had herbs in the middle of the summer), we should be set on food for the little ones for awhile. Phew.

You'll notice they faintly resemble bird droppings in this stage. This is not a mistake. Mother Nature is just trying to protect her little ones from birds and other predators.

Super close to forming a chrysalis and turning into a butterfly!

Look closely at the green stem about the red coleus leaf. The chrysalis is green with a little yellow on the body and blends exceptionally well with the surrounding plants. If you look at the 'head' it almost seems to have little horns. Now that you know what the chrysalis looks like, see if you can spot it in the next picture. (Hint: it's between the brown stick and the green stem.)

Okay, so now it's time to see the actual butterfly. I'm glad the cosmos seeds I planted finally bloomed as they seemed to be a favorite of the lone swallowtail in our garden.