The Yellow Farmhouse Garden

Spring arrived early this year, at least that’s what some grasshoppers at our house thought.

Last fall we planted some small, glass terrariums using plants growing in pots outdoors. We used a variety of tender succulent plants which meant we had to bring them inside so they wouldn’t freeze.

This week we discovered a group of baby grasshoppers  had hatched inside one of our small terrariums. It looks like there are about 30 of them.

You’ve probably heard the saying “cute as a bug”, well these little guys really are that cute! You rarely see them at this stage because they are the favorite food of a wide variety of predators. Just a small percentage ever make it to be full-sized adults.

Grasshoppers spend the winter underground in the egg stage of their life cycle. They hatch in the spring when the temperatures warm up — that is known as the nymph stage. The nymphs look like a miniature versions of adult grasshoppers except they don’t have wings. They’ll earn their wings later on in the season.

In our case, an adult grasshopper laid its eggs in the soil of a potted plant we had outdoors. The eggs spent the winter in our home inside the terrarium. There the eggs transformed into nymphs and hatched out.

They’re safe and sound behind the glass — for now. When the weather warms up, I plan to release them outside where they will have to fend for themselves.

Bob

A couple of weeks ago I spotted a moth on a tree in the yard.  It took me a couple of seconds to  realize it was a female gypsy moth.

That  gypsy moth was in the middle of laying its eggs.  I could have destroyed it right there and then but decided against it.  I thought  maybe a few readers of this blog might want to see what an egg-laying  gypsy moth looks like.

The brown egg mass it deposited contains hundreds of eggs, most of which will survive the winter and hatch out next spring.  Cold winter weather doesn’t bother them at all. Once all of those caterpillars  hatch, they will climb the tree and start devouring leaves.

One female gypsy moth will lay an egg mass containing hundreds of eggs.

The next time you’re outside enjoying your yard, it might not be a bad idea to look at your trees for signs of gypsy moth egg masses. They normally lay eggs on the trunk of a tree or on lower branches. You can also find them on backyard swing-sets, picnic tables, RVs — just about anything that’s left out side.

It’s a good idea to destroy these eggs masses as soon as you find them.  Scrape them off of the tree and throw them in the trash.  Don’t let them lay on the ground thinking that you took care of them. They’re pretty tough and will hatch even if left on the ground all winter.

Now I have a bit of a dilemma, do I take off that egg mass from my tree? Or do I leave it there until spring and take pictures of hatching caterpillars for this blog?

Bob

I’m not the only one busy in the garden. My helpers, wasps and hornets, are out there too.

Most people look at wasp and hornets as enemies, but in the garden they can be a real help by killing insect pests. Yesterday I spotted a wasp on a broccoli leaf holding a cabbage worm caterpillar it had just captured. The wasp had stung the worm to kill it and was getting ready to fly back to its nest.  Wasps and hornets use chewed-up caterpillars and other insects to feed young larvae.

This hornet is gathering wood from my garden shed to use as raw materials for building it's paper nest.

I was happy to see this wasp helping out in my garden. Not only was it harvesting insects from the garden but it also reminded me that there were still plenty of caterpillars around.

I need to do something soon before the cabbage worms do anymore damage my broccoli.  The biological insecticide Bacillus thuringensis is a good choice. It kills caterpillars but is harmless to benificial insects like wasps and hornets.

Bob