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Evening Magic in Photos and a Video
This mantis has been eating well, because everything in there looks healthy enough to put on such a show in the absence of destructive bugs, though tonight the place was abuzz with pollinators. That horsefly in the video at 0.38 was following me as I walked through making it. I’m looking at a dozen flowers that will likely all fruit, with more opening this week. These are open one night only and close up at sunrise.
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Sand Pear Harvest and Canning
The lion’s share ripened on two sand pear trees so overladen that the branches wept like an ornamental cherry, so I put aside cactus this week for the kitchen. With over 500 pear to peel and core staring up at me from the bushel basket, I started several very long multiple shifts along with my mom, who water bath canned at the stove. These Asian hybrid “sand pears” are ideal for North Florida and the few chill hours it provides in Winter, but they are tricky in that they’re tart and tasty when still rock hard yet beginning to fall off the tree at the end of July. When they…
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From Bud to Fruit in 46 Days
No, this is not some unusual variety of dwarf watermelon we’re growing at Cactus Island. That little black cactus bud I shared on June 8th? It flowered, fruited and grew into by far the largest fruit I’ve ever seen on any species of Pilosocereus. This eight foot plus Brazilian P. azureus took about 12 years to flower from germination and I’ve had it since 2012 when I bought it as an 8-10 inch potted pair. This biggie has to be an anomaly, because the seed count after cleaning was 5374 – way more than the normal, roughly 1800 I’ve been seeing in this genus. Maybe, just maybe, the two winters…
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Taste of July
This has been the summer of cucurbits, especially Seminole pumpkin and watermelon which have taken over the organic beds for the season. We are not disappointed, and neither are our birds or the way-too-tame deer that abuses Cactus Island as its personal salad bar. Despite the relentless young buck that thinks I’m playing tag with it when I try to chase it off the property at dusk, Mom is still filling the cornucopia and freezer with an excess of its favorite beans for our enjoyment. She has put in several long shifts baking, freezing or canning our harvest while I tend cactus, but I’ll be helping when the lion’s share…
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Mega Bloom Video, Fragrant Prickly Apple
Tonight the flowers and bugs are out in Tent #2, so I made and spliced together three video clips of six Harrisia fragrans buds swelling to open, expanding and finally, nearly open. That side of the tent provided a bit of a miracle and the right conditions because three quarters of the stems are now in some stage of flowering. We’re looking forward to seeing lots of bright red fruit to make it look like Christmas in July in there.
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Eleven Months from First Flower
Last year’s seed project from my Caribbean tree cactus from Puerto Rico was wildly successful. All those germination trays with tiny green plants kept growing and have been up-potted to plug trays where they’re quickly gaining size and white wool. Some seeds made it around the world and even into a botanical museum in Thailand. With that success and joy comes the challenge and stress of keeping crop pests from eating them. Spring has been all about watering and frequently misting with Bacillus Thuringiensis Kurstakii to control army worms. The loss count is only about 20 out of at least 10,000 so far but still too high for my comfort.…
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More Bugs, Things that Eat Them and One that Would Eat the Observer
More crawlies – not sorry! Here are some unusual living things, mostly from the yard. I’ve never seen such unusual and large sphinx moths, especially the mourning sphinx moth parked on my hand that looks like a weird experimental Soviet aircraft, with those aerodynamic tail fins. And the Tersa sphinx moth has an Art Deco or Iron Man thing going on. Our native grizzled mantis, green anole lizard and toad (probably Southern toad) wouldn’t have turned down these treats, and if I had gotten a little closer to that lounging gator at Payne’s Prairie, I might have become a snack too. Part of me (thankfully whole still) would love seeing…
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The Cactus Tents – Three Videos
Three years since sowing the first seeds and I have a lot to show for the effort. Growth is accelerating after up-potting into 1-3 gallon containers, and I’m finding myself at the edge of being able to walk into a forest of cacti fairly soon. I’d better get some new tunes and audio books because I’m facing three months of straight potting of large and small plants. A mix of Mozart and Motley Crue blasting away under the Hard Nursery will kick things off. I have yet another armada of tropical Caribbean, Mexican, Brazilian and South American seedlings to be decanted from the baggie rigs this week, as I did…
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An Adventure of Growing Madagascar Lace
One of the most exotic and unbelievably beautiful plants in all of Plantae is the Madagascar lace plant. Conspicuous for its lacy, or fenestrated leaf appearance (Latin base word for window – fenestra), Aponogeton Madagascariensis is a fully aquatic bulb plant that is endemic to shallow, cool and shady streams of Madagascar. These monocots begin life as tiny green seeds that form on double flower spikes emerging above water to attract pollinators, dropping into the water and taking hold in the streambed where they slowly grow into bulbs, or more specifically rhizoming corms. If given a chance these eventually form large rosettes of leaves that undulate in the natural current.…
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Signs of Life
Thought Tony the Tortoise (or Toni, if it is a she) – “The buffet is looking a little understocked in this joint, but at least I can cross the drive without worrying about that madman FedEx guy barreling through”. Even the coldest Winter in 25 years here has shown some color and signs of life, often delicious, though much of it wouldn’t be alive if we hadn’t gone to great trouble to protect the delicate things. The sweet potato vines from edge of the Mt. James bed yielded this gnarly monster, and we enjoyed about 25 huge pomelo citrus in November and December. A rare sight, Indian pipe root (Monotropa…
