Don't squish that (lightning) bug!

It's almost the fourth of July, and time for fireworks. My neighbors across the  back meadow have a big party every fourth, ending with with a spectacular amateur fireworks show, but I'm in bed by the time they light the fuses.
I don't mind, because I've got fireflies. Wow, do I have fireflies! When we moved here twenty years ago I knew the hayfield out back was a good thing. I thought that was because it was a privacy buffer between us and neighboring houses. We'd moved from the city, and craved privacy.
But the field has been so much more. It is a factory for producing life in all forms, from insects to deer, and we get to watch it all from our patio. The lightning bugs (also known as fireflies) are spectacular every year, with hundreds displaying across the field and in our yard from June through September, peaking right around the fourth. I wish I could capture the display on camera, but I'm not tech savvy enough to do a long enough exposure.
I looked up some details on the fireflies of New England, and learned a lot. Here's a link to one of the posts I read:http://uconnladybug.wordpress.com/2011/07/12/in-appreciation-of-fireflies/.
One of the most important things I learned is that all the species native to my area are carnivores, and that their grubs hunt and eat other grubs and earthworms under our feet in the soil, some for up to two years before hatching into the beetles we call fireflies. As adults all they care about is sex, and they use their glowing tails to attract a mate (except for the sneaky species that eat other lightning bugs by pretending to be mates...).
I wander the garden morning and night this time of year, harvesting crops and squishing insect pests, including Japanese beetles, cucumber beetles and potato bugs (also a beetle). But I always pause before squishing an unknown beetle, tilt my head and look under it's body. If it's back end is pale yellow, it's one of the several species of local lightning bugs, and I say hi and let it be.  Usually the bug will ignore me, unlike the sharp-eyed cucumber beetles, which often drop into the leaf litter before I can squish them. Lightning bugs are distasteful to many predators, and so spend their days unworried,  resting and waiting for the night's show. My pesticide free garden, combined with the field of tall grass beyond, make a perfect place to rest safe from lawnmowers and poison sprays.

Here's a firefly I caught napping on the Jerusalem Artichokes yesterday. I'll see him and his buddies at dusk on the fourth, celebrating their right to light up the night.

How to grow lots of peas

As I have mentioned in earlier posts, I am a card carrying legume lover. This has been a very productive year for peas in my kitchen garden. Some of that success is due to good weather, but I have also learned some important things about growing peas I'd like to share:

1.) Grow tall varieties if you have room.  Shorter pea varieties are cute, but they are not as productive.  I've grown many pea cultivars, and the most productive have been Mammoth Melting Snow Peas and Miragreen podded peas, by far-- both tall. I couldn't find my leftover Miragreen seeds this March, so I planted Little Marvel, which is a solidly tasty and productive  three foot pea, but nowhere near as productive, delicious and heat  tolerant as Miragreen, which reaches  five feet. And the Mammoth Melting Snow peas have produced a quart a day for the last two weeks-- enough to hand out like zucchini  in August!  They are so tall and heavy that the vines tend to fold over at the top, but they keep on producing. (note: I initially thought Miragreen and MMSP were hybrids, but they are not, they are just superior open pollinated varieties).

2. ) Prep the soil. Manure, deeply dug a month before, makes a difference.

3.) Use inoculant. Yes, it costs $5 every year for a small bag of fresh inoculant, but bacteria are living things, and you need to buy them fresh every year. Legumes make a lot more of their own nitrogen with the help of the bacteria in the inoculant.

4.) Water well in hot weather. Peas like cool weather, but many varieties can survive a short hot spell if their roots don't dry out.

5.) Pick every day. If you don't the plant thinks it has done it's job of reproducing and stops or slows down blooming.

6.) Give them good support. Yes, lots of books say just stick some twigs in the ground for them to climb on. Phooey! That may be quaint but it won't be productive.  Peas need a strong vertical structure  to grow up.  A tall, narrow planting is easy to harvest, especially one you can reach into from multiple sides. And the tall varieties I prefer need lots of support.

7.) Plant peas close together. They don't mind two to three inch spacing!

Pretty simple stuff, but it  usually works.

Here are some pictures of this year's pea crops, in order over time.

Little Marvel:

Mammoth Melting Snow Peas:

And how about some color after all that green.

Amaranth:

And a bouquet from the perennial garden:

Early Haying

I walk Sol by this dairy farm every day.  There is always a beautiful, ever changing view over the fence from the road.  I was struck yesterday by how golden the first cut of hay was- everything has been early this year!

Snakes and chipmunks

I know I share the garden with lots of other residents, but I rarely have hands-on encounters with them. That's what made last night so unusual. I picked up and moved both a garter snake and a chipmunk in the course of an hour.
There's a big population of snakes in the garden this year, and I welcome and enjoy their presence.  Here are some pictures from a week or so ago of two of the four garter snakes that live in and around my stone wall:

I love the variation in their color patterns. Snakes are welcome in my garden because they are beautiful and because they are predators of many larger insects.

I'm also comfortable handling them; my father kept snakes.  Last night I startled one of the garter snakes while it was warming itself on the concrete apron in front of the garage, and it slithered under the door. I did not want it to get used to hanging out in the garage, so I went inside, lifted it by the tail, and returned it to the lawn by the wall. I guess I'd better add some weather stripping to that door.
Later I was in the garden picking peas. Sol stood outside the fence perimeter attentively waiting for the  occasional older tough pea I'd throw his way.  As I leaned over the vine, I caught a flash of movement in the strawberry bed to my left. 
I put down the coffee can half full of peas and turned towards the strawberry patch. It had been a light harvest, mostly because the plants had been thinned hard the previous year. I'd also lost a lot of berries to thieves, despite my netting. 

I saw one of the thieves now, wrapped in netting. It was a chipmunk. He'd tried to move the wooden weight aside to get into the bed, and somehow entangled himself thoroughly.

I lifted the section of netting, and cautiously began to unwind it from his little body. He was hardly moving, but his eyes followed me. I suspect he had been trapped for a while, as he seemed to have lost his usual feisty nature.
I was still careful, knowing he might bite in fear. I hung the netting over the gate of the garden, and he  dropped out, and lay on the ground for a moment.  Sol was oblivious to this drama, busy eating peas on the other side of the garden, or their might have been further drama.  In a moment the chipmunk recovered and scurried off. 
I have no use for woodchucks, and very little for the rabbits that nibble at my garden. But despite their  depredations in the strawberry patch I have a soft spot for chipmunks, know at our house as ' little striped dudes' for their cocky attitudes and fierce chirrupping when annoyed.  Sometimes character makes up for other flaws.

Mammoth Melting Snow Peas

It's been great weather for peas-- moderate temps and lots of rain, but enough sun to keep fungus at bay. The snow peas are so vigorous I had to wrap them in clothesline to keep them attached to the trellis. But this year the trellis is tied to rebar pounded a foot into the ground, so it should hold under the load.

Enjoying June

I notice that in the last few posts I've been writing of the struggle to grow and harvest crops without sharing too much of my produce with the other residents of my yard. Sometimes the chores and challenges of organic gardening in the country (with so many hungry mammals, birds and insects around) keep me from sitting down for a moment and seeing and enjoying the beauty and bounty of June.  And yet back on December I thought so fondly of June ( see the post 'Remembering June').

So here's a little perspective in photo form:

The garden in March:

The garden in June:

The lush bounty of June is a joy that is worth pausing to appreciate. And this year I have planted and succeeded with more crops than ever before, including the  Jerusalem Artichokes on the left in this photo.
Lat year I planted them outside the fenced garden and the rabbits ate them repeatedly, even when I constructed makeshift fencing.
This year they are safe inside the main kitchen garden, and I'll finally see them bloom this fall, and produce lots of tubers for the winter.

Yes, the birds and chipmunks got some strawberries, but they don't touch the rhubarb, and I've even bartered some for food at my local diner.

Yogurt with rhubarb sauce and strawberries for breakfast:

This morning I harvested lettuce, snow peas, and english peas: 

The long warm days are perfect for walks in the woods that leave Sol contented and relaxed on the drive home:

And June flowers brighten the dining room table:

I resolve to enjoy June while it's here, in the midst of all of life's challenges,  not just when looking at pictures on dark winter nights. I want to enjoy both the present and the past. 

The good bugs are back.... and other things that make me happy

 I haven't posted much in the last two weeks because my husband has been ill, and I just didn't have the focus to write. He's not better, but the initial shock has worn off, and I'm able to notice and write about the good things that are still going on in the garden.
And lots of good things are happening.  Despite my recent fears the vegetables are not being decimated by  hungry insects. Instead, my companion plantings and other strategies to bring in and retain beneficial insects are working.
What other strategies? Not spraying with indiscriminate pesticides that kill everything. Not over fertilizing so that the plants are excessively lush and tasty. Encouraging birds in the garden with shrubby habitats, water, and native berried plants. And finding and moving praying mantis egg cases.
I mentioned the egg cases in an earlier post. There were a half dozen in my bed of grasses last fall, and I clipped the twigs attached to four of them and stuck them into the strawberry bed, where they would be protected from harsh weather when young.
Mantis eggs hatch in late May, so I've been watching for them. And I found the first young mantis a couple of days ago while picking strawberries. We were eye to eye, and he (or she) tilted his tiny triangular head to look at me.  I stared back, and noticed he was clutching a fat green aphid.  My hero! Here's a picture of him (or a sibling) I saw tonight on the red romaine:

Meanwhile, the June crops are coming in.  Tom Thumb lettuce is forming perfect one meal lettuce heads on the deck:

My short and tall peas are full of fattening pods:

On the deck the Brown Turkey Fig (new this year) is finally leafing out:

And all the summer crops from seed are sprouting -- including five kinds of squash, all planted with radishes next to them as a repellant for cucumber beetles. 

And both pole and bush beans, including these Masai filet beans.

Note the living pole-- a privet branch from a recent pruning which rooted and started growing when I used it to hold this fence in place.

Finally, there are lots of strawberries ripening.  Sol doesn't like  strawberries unless they are mixed with yogurt, despite the hopeful look he's giving me in this photo!