Beetle-mania: 2021

This year I’ve enjoyed the mid-July success of: cutting weeds, trimming trees, cutting weeds, the first green bean harvest and… cutting weeds. It’s a never-ending battle of wills against a variety of nutrient sucking noxious weeds.

Another battle that arrives in early to mid-July is the annual invasion of Japanese Beetles. These little green voracious insects emerge from the ground and immediately engage in mating, then eating, and sometimes mating and eating at the same time. With a dozen or more beetles engaged in an orgy on a single apple leaf that they devour, with short pauses to fly to another engagement, I imagine that their overindulgences would impress Caligula of ancient Rome.

Nearly every year these beetles wreak havoc on our corn, apple trees, aronia and blackberries. They strip nearly every leaf of our valued fruit, while completely neglecting the weeds at the farm. I probably wouldn’t mind their presence if they would eat the wild parsnip but they only seem to target what we humans want.

Hungry little buggers

Not using caustic chemicals on our food, I concocted a potion made of lemony fresh dish soap and Thai chili peppers and tested on the aronias that our hungry, sex crazed beetles first attacked. While I found several dead beetles, I cannot attribute it to my formula. It could be they were resting (or dead) from coitus exhaustius. The next day I had even more of an infestation maybe due to this aphrodisiac spray inducing a redhot lemon/chili sex appetite and called all of their friends to join in. At least they were clean for that round of licentious debauchery and gluttony.

He could be resting

After exhaustive research (Google), I tried neem oil and a Spinosad bacterial concentrate that are approved for organic use. I was disappointed in not viewing their immediate death but it proved successful in that I no longer see the thousands of Japanese beetles but now only dozens of still breeding monsters and a second dose was administered.

The Gala apple trees are saved although damaged. The aronia berries, while stunted, should give us our best year of production for our wines.

I’ll raise a glass to their demise.

Cheers!

Posted to Poets and Storytellers United: Writers' Pantry #79: The Latest on the Shortest

Another kind of crop

Hidden among the branches of one of the apple trees, I found a robin nest. 

Stepping back, I realize that I should have done a better job of trimming this particular tree. However, it does a good job of providing a perfect nesting spot.

Another hidden nest in a pawpaw tree is another nest:

I was looking for signs of fruit among the branches and I disturbed one of the young robins in this nest.

Even if we don't harvest a single fruit from any of our trees, it looks like we should produce a large crop of robins.

Monday Moms - Twins

 We usually have set of twins every two years and this is the year:

A little evening grazing before calling it a night.

Legacy Trees - Catalpa

We planted catalpa seeds eight years ago and had about 100 seedlings but our local rabbits took care of almost all of them. What remains are just two with one slightly bigger than the other.

The seeds came from good friends of ours from a tree on their property and unfortunately, both he and his wife passed away.

It seems fitting that the two remaining catalpa trees should be in their honor.

 

Seedling from 2013

From that seedling we now have a tree measuring 10 1/2 feet tall and 3 1/2 inches diameter (March 2021).

Catalpa, June 2021

It has hundreds of flowers this year which may produce their seed pods with thousands of seeds. If so, this would be our first legacy tree that carries on to the next generations. 

 Which is what a legacy should be.

Catalpa trees are not native to Iowa but at one time the state was encouraging the planting for their use for fence posts. Publication from 1910: The hardy Catalpa in Iowa

My father was able to get a few hundred board feet of its hardy dark wood before he passed away. My brother bought it from the estate but I'm sure I could get a few boards from him, if he still has any left.

For a little more information and a few more pictures

Monday Moms - evening stroll

 We have two mothers on the acreage now, one has twins and the other has a single energetic fawn:

It's much easier to walk now that I mowed the weeds around the garden area and the fruit trees. 

Most of May brought us rain nearly every day which caused nothing but weeds to grow. The last three weeks of dry days was broken on Friday with about an inch of needed rain and this year's plantings look better (and the weeds took off as well.) 

We still have dry days ahead and hauling water (along with cutting weeds) will be on the chore list.

Apple blossoms

Winter was hard for our fruit production, especially for the blackberries that were decimated by the rabbit population. Snow drifts allowed access over the fencing and the rabbits feasted on the blackberries as well as the apple trees.

We may get a handful of blackberries this year but, for the most part, it will be a lost year.

For the apples, we found a source for the Ambrosia variety at a decent price and we added them as well as a couple of Fuji to the grove.

As we are working towards a more balanced pH for the fruit production, we're encountering more of these than in years past:

Apple blossoms

 This means we may be able to have some apples for ourselves instead of the raccoons taking them all (maybe.)

Legacy Tree updates, April 2021

 A brief update for a few of our legacy trees. 

I took measurements in March while the trees were still dormant (no real good quality pictures - I'll return later with some spring growth) and here's an update:

The pride of the farm, David's Kentucky coffeetree: - 11 feet tall, 2 and 1/2 inches in diameter. Grown from a nut planted on our second summer. David is our advisor-at-large for all manners concerning trees. For contrast, a second coffeetree planted at the same time is only 42 inches tall. I cannot explain the difference but we're working on it.

Jason's pin oak has a way to go but has an excuse of only growing from an acorn for 2 years now. It stands at 21 inches. It could end up being our tallest tree someday (in about 60 years, so be patient, Jason)

In our surprise category, a red buckeye to honor our border collie mix, Buckeye (Buck). Planted 5 years ago from a seedling we got from a vendor in Missouri, it was standing at only 16 inches in March and added 5 and a half inches by April 11th. With frost settling in, I didn't want to risk this new growth and I wrapped it in clear plastic until the dangers of frost ended about a week later. I kept it in this mini greenhouse until last Saturday, the 24th, when I cut the top open to find it was now at 30 inches tall. 

Buck's buckeye (I've got some cleanup to do)

There's always something different, something new to learn at the farm.

Tuesday Triumph - April 2021

 Triumph is back with us this third spring. After wandering around, most likely getting better food at the neighbors, she has made her appearance once again at the farm. I believe it was around Thanksgiving when we last saw her on one of the cameras.

We speculate a lot of what she does when she isn't posing for the cameras here and maybe we will find the answers someday. At any rate, she looks well fed.

Signs of Spring

 

Red oak acorns are starting to break open. We picked these up from a local tree last fall until the first snow and then "floated" the acorns by putting them in water. Whichever sinks, these should be viable. The acorns are placed into a bag of peat moss in the spare frig to simulate the cold winter - this is called the stratification process. If we planted in the ground right away, then squirrels and other critters could get them.

These are ready to be planted in a tube tray with a peat moss/sand mix and will I let them grow in the tubes until next spring. So long as the squirrels and chipmunks stay out, they should be ready to plant. We lost half of our white oak seedlings to them last summer. Previous year's surviving white oak, red oak and hickory will be planted in a few weeks.

We do this every year and we lost access to several white oaks last fall. Still looking for a black oak source that we lost a few years ago.

The numbers: of the acorns we pick up, we throw out 70-80% after floating. Of those seedlings that are planted, only about 20% survive rabbits and other rodents to year three. Putting up wire cages increase the chances of trees making it but no guarantees there.

Looking forward to spring planting.

Spring 2021

Spring has arrived at the farm. Don't tell me that spring is a couple weeks away because when the red-winged blackbird arrives, it's spring.

Dozens arrived on Monday (3/1), a week earlier than I predicted and they were active in a couple of cottonwood trees on the north side of the road. As I approached to get a better picture, they scattered to the soft maples along the creek that runs through the neighbor's field. Usually I can walk within 10 yards of a red-winged but they may be jittery this early in the spring. I waited behind the cover of a row of cedar trees for them to return to the cottonwoods.

When they came back, I was able to get that one picture above and then I left them alone but watched from the truck. With the ground still nearly covered in a foot of snow, there was little open ground but under the cottonwoods was a mound of corn that must have spilled when the neighbor harvested his field last fall. The snow melted to reveal the corn that was almost directly underneath those cottonwoods. 

The flock at the cottonwoods, both males and females, about half stayed perched in the trees while the others fed on the pile of corn. Maybe a half a minute later the birds on the ground flew up into the trees, their "chip" calls among themselves for a few seconds until the group that was perched took their turn to feed. 

I watched for at least 10 minutes as they switched from sentinels to voracious eaters until they decided to move on. Some may stay here at the farm while others fly to greener pastures. Maybe the chicks born at the farm last year will return to weave their nests for their own brood.

The first day of our spring started out on a high note but went down from there. More later on that. In the mean time, I'll remember the behavior of our friends on that day.