true bug Archives : Cast Iron Garden

October 29, 2023October 29, 2023

10/29/2023 first freeze forecast tonight

Piles of vegetable greenery on a concrete front poor with a black double door in the background — So, in spite of rain all day and temperatures in the 30s F, I went out and cut all the plants. That’s the giant pile of cut basil on an overflowing Rubbermaid tub and assorted cut off pepper plants nearby. The rest of the day was getting basil leaves off the stems.

An inch thick basil stem cut off, with my hand nearby for scale. — The basil stems were so big I had to use the loppers to cut them at the base.

A blue-gray rubber made plastic tub almost full of bright green basil leaves — 3608 grams of basil leaves. This is 7.95 pounds. Yes, we did tare the tub weight. Yes, it is a lot of basil. No, I don’t even know what’s going to happen.

Close up view of a red and blue striped leaf hopper. Its legs and tip of snoot grade to yellow. It has tiny hair like antennae. — Leafhopper

A small true bug nymph on my fingers. It’s small enough that you don’t see around my whole finger. The brown colors are speckled — Leafhopper

September 23, 2023September 23, 2023

09/22/2023 four point primrose

Several plants! Maybe they’ll actually reseed! They seem to be flowering during daylight morning now that it’s cooler (80s for highs, lows in 60s).

April 22, 2023April 22, 2023

04/21/2023 red columbine success at last, and other nice sights

September 5, 2022September 5, 2022

Wild Poinsettia (Euphorbia sp.)

The Wild Poinsettia is really buzzing with bees and other tiny friends lately over the past few days! It’s a very enthusiastic unsolicited volunteer but it seems to get a lot of customers now that the weather is cooling down into the 80s and 90s. It is a native plant and hosts also the very fun Euphorbia bug which has little pompoms on its antennae.

A jumping spider hoping to snack on a visitor to the Euphorbia!

June 23, 2022June 23, 2022

06/21/2022

There’s a new pollinator garden on campus!!

Very pleased at least one of the partridge pea seeds I sprinkled last year made it up.

Paper wasps made a nest on the debris of the invasive clematis.

Just noticed that the long true bugs have little flat pom poms on their antennae.

A second individual. I think you have to see them from the right angle to get a good view of the antennae spots.

A helpful cat saw this wasp (maybe a spider wasp?) In the aloe and knocked the pot over.

I took it outside and shooed the friend off. No dinner in the house for it. Only cat.

I spotted a plume moth hiding on rain barrel stand.

Potatoes in straw bale getting big. Hope roots are too.

June 18, 2022June 18, 2022

06/15/2022 to bee or not to bee, plus “freeloader flies”

Before I left for work, I saw two bumblebees on the culinary sage flowers. Local bee expert José Montalva helped confirm the identification as *Bombus bimaculatus* (two spotted bumblebee) and sent me a very helpful article on the status of this and other bumblebee species in Oklahoma. It’s more of an eastern species so it is very cool to have them here on the edge of their range. This is also the third bumblebee species for our yard.

This was the best picture though not the best identification angle. Big pollen bags on her legs!

On campus, I saw several Fiery Skippers on lantana.

Here’s another Fiery Skipper on campus lantana.

Back at home, the blue flax is thinking about blooming!

The Chef made egg drop soup with garden walking onions as a garnish.

Little lumpy beetles are on a lot of flowers right now. They’re cute.

In the evening I saw one or two more two-spotted bumblebees, this time over on the perennial coreopsis.

I didn’t manage to get a good picture of the spots in the evening.

An immature assassin bug eating some sort of probable pentatomid bug. Zoom in though and you’ll see several kinds of flies!! I’m not sure, but I think they might be some kind of kleptoparasitic fly that steals nibbles from bigger predators.

June 12, 2022June 12, 2022

06/12/2022 yard

I found at least four leaves full of my amazing tree hopper friends.

Each leaf had a different set of adults or immatures.

The leaf bends where the treehopper eggs were.

Frogfruit east of patio is doing well. Just moved a piece there this spring.

Rudbeckia maxima from Abby has a new leaf.

A planthopper (Flatidae) on curly dock. First time for this family in the yard?? I used to see them regularly at home.

Passionvine (seeds from Bartlesville) doing well in their second year.

June 12, 2022June 12, 2022

06/12/2022 a walk in the park

Just a bit of prairie here at Ruby Grant Park in NW Norman.

It is good pollinator habitat and good prairie too. I heard one Eastern Meadowlark singing and at least one Dickcissel.

A family of baby milkweed bugs on green milkweed pods. We looked but didn’t find any Monarch butterfly caterpillars.

Abby has suggested this is bottlebrush squirrel tail grass.

Thanks to Mom and Abby for identifying this as *Apocynum cannabinum*, or dogbane.

There was a lot of it along the trail and we saw the dogbane beetle that eats it too!

Really great stands of *Rudbeckia amplexicaulis* here!

May 29, 2022May 29, 2022

05/28/2022 after planting

Plants I got from the “pop up” location of Prairie Wind Nursery: Copper canyon daisy, Pineapple sage, local genotype Baptisia australis (planted between roses near the trellis fence), Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata, planted near the elderberry as apparently they like similar soils), rattlesnake master (planted on drier side of brush pile), chives (the round green type as only the flatter white edges kind survived the winter this year), and five kinds of basil in my ongoing attempt to find where they like in the yard. Varieties were African blue (in raised beds in front of tomatoes), mammoth (small plant but big crinkly leaves) in the herb bed (where I have not tried any basil before), and amethyst, Genovese, and large leaf in the front strawberry bed near porch.