Store-Bought Beans?

With our inventory of fresh-blanched and frozen green beans in the freezer dwindling, I figured that it would be a good time to get our fall crop of green beans planted.  We like to harvest green beans in the fall while it is cool.  One of our favorite side dishes at our Thanksgiving meals is bacon wrapped, brown sugar green beans.  Beans are the easiest things to grow.

August was a really wet month with a lot of rain.  September, on the other hand, has been very dry. Nevertheless, I planted some Contender and Blue Lake Green beans in the garden plot in the side yard and planted a row of pole beans in the garden by the trellis.  In a few days I had beautiful green beans poking up out of the dried out soil.  Each afternoon I pulled the water hose out and gave the growing beans a good soaking.

Everything was looking good but the next afternoon when I walked out to the row of beans, this is what greeted me:

There was not a single leaf left on any of the plants in the side yard.  I went to check on the pole beans in the garden and found the same thing - no leaves only a stem remained.  I immediately searched for the pest that did this, but the guilty party was nowhere to be found.  Was it a bug?  A worm?  Slugs?  Rabbits?  Squirrels?  I do not know.  I've never had this problem before.  Since I saw no worm or bug despite inspecting closely, I feel like it is a rabbit or rat or squirrel.  I'll be setting out my traps to see if I can catch the critter that did this.

Our next crop of planted green beans will be for the spring crop.  Looks like I'll be purchasing green beans from the grocery store's produce section this fall.

Pesky Pests Partaking of our Parsley

We grow various herbs in pots on the back patio.  It is pretty convenient so that you don't have to walk all the way out to the garden to harvest a handful of parsley, oregano, mint, or rosemary when you are cooking.  I would do the same for basil, but we make so much pesto, that we really need a full garden row for growing basil.

Saturday morning I went out to pick some parsley and something bright and colorful caught my eye. Parsley is supposed to be green, not bright and colorful.  A fat caterpillar was making quick work in eating, no voraciously devouring our pot of parsley.

Parsley Eater

But he wasn't the only one.  His wife was in the back working on the Our Maker's Acres Parsley All You Can Eat Special.

Junior was finishing up his breakfast and going back for seconds.

I Google searched, Caterpillars in Louisiana and found This Link.  It told me that this was called a Ppolyx Papilionidae.  These actually become swallowtail butterflies.  I like butterflies.  I don't like caterpillars eating our herbs, though, and that was what was happening.

The entire family of caterpillars were having a feast.  They were so busy eating, they didn't even notice when I picked off the parsley stem that they were clinging to.  My plan was to walk these fat, parsley filled interlopers out to the pasture, where I would call the chickens and take enjoyment watching them snatch up and eat the caterpillars.  Sadistic, I know.

I called the chickens, they came running, I tossed the caterpillars over the fence and the chickens just stared at the offering.  They were not interested.  Strange.  These things are so bad the hens don't even want to mess with them.

If you are looking for a happy ending to this story, where the caterpillars form cocoons and and we gather around the chrysalis and joyfully shout when butterflies emerge and soar heavenward, well, you're going to be disappointed.  They were eating our stuff and instead of a happy ending for the caterpillar family, our story was more of a tragedy - a macabre one, at that.

The Predator Becomes the Prey

Yesterday afternoon I was slogging through my water-logged garden, putting the next strands of baling twine up on my Florida Weave trellising method that we discussed in previous posts.  The hay mulched tightly around the base of the plants is doing an absolute stellar job of thwarting any weed growth.

The huge amount of rain has many of my tomato plants to be in distress with yellowed leaves on some, stunted growth, and just sick looking plants on the lowest portion of the rows.  After this weekend, I think the rain chances will diminish and man, plant, and beast around Our Maker's Acres Family Farm will rejoice!

In addition to the enormous amount of rainfall, there are other predators at work in the tomato patch. The photo below is out of focus, but you can see that something has eaten all the stems and leaves off of the tomato plant in the foreground. Whatever it was, it sure was hungry!  I knew I just had to find the culprit before it consumed the entire plant.

Who's eating our Tomato Plants?

We don't use any pesticides in our garden, so it comes down to me hunting for the pesky perpetrator and eliminating him from the garden.  In looking at the damage, I knew it wouldn't be hard to find. He would have to be a fat caterpillar to engage in such a feast.  Sure enough, I spotted the green worm, gorging himself on our tomato plants - A perfectly healthy specimen of the Tomato Hornworm!

Why, it's a fat Tomato Hornworm!

Well, he wasn't giving up without a fight.  I tried to pry him from his place at the "supper table," and he clung to the tomato plant for dear life.  Finally, I had him loose.  The photo below shows why he's called the Hornworm.  You can see the red horn protruding from one end.  He's all bark and no bite, though and he's incapable of stinging you with it, but it's still kind of scary.  I dropped him when he reached around.

How the Hornworm got his name

Tomato Hornworms are the larval stage of the Five-Spotted Hawkmoth.  Here's what they look like:

Image Credit

The biggest predator to the tomato hornworm is the wasp.  Wasps apparently feed on hornworms.  However, I'm not likely to keep wasps around to control them biologically.  I kill every wasp nest I see because I don't like getting stung.  So how will I control the hornworms?  Well, I'll pick them off and give them to some creatures I keep around that probably like eating hornworms more than wasps do - Chickens!!

I tossed that fat hornworm over the garden fence and the Rhode Island Red in the middle grabbed that fat boy and took off running with all the other hens in chase. She gobbled it down with the quickness!  I continued scouting for hornworms on the other tomato rows and did find three more of them.  They weren't quite as fat, but they still proved to be tasty morsels for my fine, feathered friends.

Did you know that plants can tell when they are being eaten?

I tell you I learn something new every single day.  Plants can tell when they are being eaten and don't like it one bit!

According to this article recent research from the University of Missouri has shown that plants can tell when they are being eaten and don't like it one bit!  As weird as it might seem, the study shows that plants can somehow sense that they are being eaten and put out defenses to stop it.  Here's how it works:

This particular study was on the ever-popular Arabidopsis, specifically the thale cress, easily the most popular plant for experimentation. It’s in the brassica family, closely related to broccoli, kale, mustard greens, and cabbage, though unlike most of its cousins it isn’t very good to eat.

"...researchers had to first make a precise audio version of the vibrations that a caterpillar makes as it eats leaves. The theory is that it’s these vibrations that the plant can somehow feel or hear. In addition, the researchers also came up with vibrations to mimic other natural vibrations the plant might experience, like wind noise."

"Turns out, the thale cress actually produces some mustard oils and sends them through the leaves to deter predators (the oils are mildly toxic when ingested). And the study showed that when the plants felt or heard the caterpillar-munching vibrations, they sent out extra mustard oils into the leaves. When they felt or heard other vibrations? Nothing. It’s a far more dynamic defense than scientists had realized: the plant is more aware of its surroundings and able to respond than expected."

Pretty cool.  Except it has brought up another concern for our Brassicas in our garden: They must be experiencing hearing loss and cannot hear the caterpillars feasting on their leaves.  I am putting off getting a hearing aid for myself, much less getting one for my plants!  The only other option is that our caterpillars have developed a taste for mustard oil.  Regardless, my plants didn't get this memo. Since they can 'hear,' maybe I'll read this study to them when I get home this evening so that they can learn about the internal weapons against pests they have at their disposal.

Munch, munch, munch...

I say all that in jest, but to update the post from the other day, it appears that spraying the plants with Lye Soap spray has worked to discourage additional damage to the leaves.  That is very good news and we'll continue to keep this method in our arsenal against pests that want to eat our food before we do.

It remains warm in South Louisiana as we're still experiencing high temperatures in the mid-80's. The warm weather heightens the bug problems as evidenced in the photograph shown above, but according to news forecasts, we'll have a cool-down this weekend that will send low temps down into the low 40's, the coolest weather so far this fall. We're all anticipating it.