Controlling Caterpillar Pests with Packing Tape

I was coming in from the laundry room before sunrise one June morning and in what little light there was, I saw something moving down a mesquite tree that shades the patio. It was a squirming army of caterpillars of some sort, moving down the trunk as fast as they could wiggle and vanishing into the pebbles around the tree.

The caterpillar infestation explained the tree's failure to thrive that spring - the bean crop was vanishing, and unlike the other mesquites, it had not put out many new shoots. It wasn't dying, just not thriving, and had never recovered from the usual ratty winter mesquite look.

A co-worker and I discussed the easiest way to get the pests under control and came up with a brilliant idea.

The brilliant plan:

• Let the worms get up in the tree from their daytime hiding place in the pebble mulch.
• Band the trunk with an adhesive material late that night.
• Worms would get stuck on the adhesive on their way down at dawn.
• Mockingbirds would arrive at daylight and eat the worms for breakfast.
• The tree would be saved.

Caterpillars on and above the packing tape

What actually happened with the brilliant plan:

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Watching Grass Grow: Week Eleventy To Mow or Not to Mow, That is the Question

 It's Fluffy!  It's Green!

I came back after a summer's absence to find that the lawn had not missed my care.  This is  what dethatching, fertilizing, and a few heavy rains can do for a lawn,  It was fluffy and green and dense.

Buffalo Grass, Sept 21, 2014,
Mowed 6+ Weeks Ago

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Gimme Shelter! Queen's Wreath (Antigonon leptopus)

We needed shade for the west wall of the house to keep the electric bills down, so we built an arbor. Then came the discussion of what to grow on it.

• We wanted pretty flowers, if possible.
• We wanted native plants if possible.
• We needed a thornless vine
• We needed heat loving vines that would cover the arbor for the summer.
• We wanted a perennial vine to come back every year.
• We needed a drought tolerant vine in case we slacked on the watering.

TAH DAH!!!!  The winner was Queen's Wreath Vine (Antigonon leptopus), an  incredibly hardy, fast-growing, flamboyantly blooming native from the lower parts of the Sonoran desert.

Unlike the "other native", Cat's Claw (Macfadyena unguis-cati), Queens wreath is frost-tender and dies back to the ground every winter.  It's a less aggressive grower and can be controlled with occasional pruning.

Except for the trees ... It goes from the arbor to the old orange tree and covers it like a hat. This doesn't appear to harm the tree, and the oranges ripen under the vine.  We pull the vine out when the oranges are ripe.

Queen's Wreath Covering Orange Tree
(the tree is the mound at the left)

Are Bees a Problem?

Queen's Wreath attracts bees, dozens of honey bees and wild alkali bees - it's a great way to attract pollinators to your garden all summer long. 

Because it's growing on an arbor, the flowers are all "up there" and so are the bees. You can sit under the arbor and listen to the bees, but they stay with the flowers.

Self-Seeding

This is a prolific seed-producer. The quail and other seed-eating birds forage under the arbor most of the year, gorging on seeds.  They don't find them all, and those that land in a moist spot will germinate.

They pop up all over the yard, but they are easy to recognize and pull up.

Volunteer Queen's Wreath Seedlings
(after a summer of unusually heavy rains)

Removing the Dead Vines

We need to remove the vines every year or they build up a heavy, ugly dead mess on the arbor. The stems tend to lie on top of an arbor instead of twining through the mesh. We left space between the top of the vertical mesh and the side of the top mesh to make vine removing easier, and there is a foot or so between the top mesh and the wall of the house.

Removing the old vines in early winter is easy. Don't let them get dry and brittle.

1. Trim off all dangling vines at the top and edges of the trellis or arbor.
2. Roll up any mat of vines that is on top of an arbor and toss it in the compost heap. A rake works well to get the mat going.
   You may need to clip a few stems, but Queen's Wreath is more of a sprawler than a clinging vine on a horizontal lattice or mesh.
3. If you have room, get behind the trellis and cut the stems that you can find passing behind the trellis.
4. If the trellis is large, cut the stems to divide the growth into vertical sections 3 or 4 feet wide.
5. Start pulling the vines down from the sunny side.  I use a rake and pull from the top down, rolling the vines as I pull.  This removes most of the growth. 
6. Cut the stems close to the roots.
7. That's it until next year.

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Garden Fox on Candid Camera

We moved the camera and got a better head shot. The ears do not look large enough to be a Kit fox, so we'll call it a grey fox.  The desert foxen are less fluffy than the ones in colder climates, especially with summer coming.

It appears to spot the camera, bobs it head up and down - a common tactic to check something out - and strolls off.

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Do Arizona Foxes Poop in the Woods?

I don't know, but they are pooping in my garden.  We were curious about the source of non-feline feces repeatedly appearing in the side yard and set up a trail cam.

One or two foxes stroll into the camera's field of view and take advantage of my facilities.  The clips were taken a few minutes apart, so it may be one fox making a loop around the side yard.

This also explains a chewed-up leather work glove and probably the disappearance of the tree rats.

It's probably a kit fox (Vulpes macrotis)  or maybe a small Gray Fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus).  It's hard to tell with the infrared images.
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Watching Grass Grow: Blue Grama Grass

Another Experiment

This is a total experiment ... I over-seeded the buffalo grass with another low-care native grass from the short-grass prairies, Blue grama grass, (Bouteloua gracilis).

It's supposed to sprout in 5 or 6 days, so for a couple of weeks the lawn is getting a couple of minutes of water 3 times a day to encourage the seeds. Then we'll cut back as the Blue Grama gets established.

Blue grama. Bouteloua gracilis at Minnesota Landscape Arboretum
Photo by SEWilco from Wikimedia Commons

If it works, I'll know when we see seed heads pop up in the late summer.  The birds will love it, and maybe it will help choke out the Bermuda grass.

Blue Grama grown as an ornamental accent in Japan.

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Birds that Live in Glass Houses

The Verdins Built It Where?

Verdins (Auriparus flaviceps) are tiny yellow-headed birds that flit around the desert eating bugs. They are almost always in motion, cheeping and flitting incessantly, bustling around in the branches and flowers. They are great for keeping aphids and whiteflies under control in my yard.

Verdin on Peruvian Cereus

They build big, messy nests that are disguised as a clump of dead twigs caught in a branch. The entrance is low on the side, or even under the nest.  They build nests that are rough shelters for adults and more elaborate nests lined with soft material for raising a brood.

This pair of verdins started out in a mesquite tree.  Even when we pruned off a broken branch next to the nest, they kept building.

Verdin nest in mesquite tree.

Unfortunately we had a serious wind storm a couple days after I took this photo. The branch with the nest broke off and was dangling. We checked the nest for eggs or hatchlings and found none, so we pruned off the branch and scattered the nesting materials out for them to reuse. If we had to destroy their house, we could at least help them rebuild.

Several days later one of the cats was chittering at the front window, intently watching a pair of verdins picking up tiny twigs. I watched them fly .... here.

Yup ... the solar light over the entry.

They were stuffing one of the solar entry lights full of twigs and fiber, beginning another nest.

We moved it into a shadier location under a nearby eave, fearing the afternoon sun would cook any eggs they laid. The verdins kept building until that afternoon, when they apparently realized the nest was too hot. They abandoned the glass house briefly and are building a nest in the ironwood in the back yard.

Work is continuing on the glass house as well as the other nest. Maybe they like the view.





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Watching Grass Grow: Preventing Bald Spots

Where's the Grass-rogaine?

The buffalo grass is prone to develop bare spots, at least in this area with the watering schedule I keep. Unless you are keeping the bare soil moist, it's unlikely to fill them in with new springs.

I'm doing a week or two of short, frequent watering sessions to encourage the grass to spread. 

Dead spot where Bermuda grass died, before de-thatching.

Baldness Prevention tips:

• Empty the mower bag before it overflows and starts dropping clumps of clippings on the lawn. Those clumps turn into bald spots.
• Pick up fallen twigs and other debris frequently.
• Kill weeds, especially the ones with a rosette of leaves. When they die they leave round bald spots.
• Fill in any craters the birds dig.
• Don't let your dogs pee on the grass. It kills the grass in that spot. 
• If you have pop-up sprinklers, turn them on during the daytime and check the flow and alignment. Lack of water makes big bald spots.
• Trim back bushes that overhang the sprinklers.

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Watching Grass Grow: Feeding the Buffalo

Adding Amendments

Buffalo grass does not need or tolerate much fertilizer. Mine was last fertilized when we planted the plugs in March of 2009. 

However, it does do better with some help dealing with the alkaline desert dirt.  I applied about 20 pounds of soil sulfur and 15 pounds of Ironite, sprinkled evenly over the 1200 square feet. The sulfur lowers the pH a bit, freeing minerals that are locked up in the alkaline dirt. The Ironite is because our dirt is low in iron.

I made a large shaker jar to use for applying the granular amendments. It's a recycled roasted nut jar with 3/8 inch holes drilled in half of the lid. I can weigh the jar and contents and know I'm not overdosing the grass on nitrogen. 

Upcycled, recycled, totally cheap fertilizer applicator.

TIP: Weigh out half the amendment and walk back and forth, shaking out the contents of the jar as you walk. Then sprinkle the other half, going at right angles to your first path. It gives a more even distribution. Then water the lawn thoroughly to dissolve the granules into the soil.

How much fertilizer? 

Several university websites recommend lightly fertilizing Buffalo grass with 1 lb "effective nitrogen" per 1000 square feet after the grass has greened up. A slow-release fertilizer would be best.

TIP: Apply fertilizer AFTER you see the lawn start to green up. If you apply it before then it encourages weeds, it does not speed up the process of "greening up".

http://aggie-turf.tamu.edu/aggieturf2/calculators/fertsheet.html says 5 lb of Amminium Sulfate would do it. I applied about 3 pounds last week, and may apply the remaining two pounds later.

CAUTION: Do not use the "Weed and Feed" type fertilizers that combine herbicides or pre-emergents with fertilizer. They will damage your buffalo grass lawn. 

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Apian Orgies! Bees Shamelessly Wallowing in Pollen

Wild Pollinators

In honor of May Day: One of the local bees wallowing in my cactus flowers. It's a leaf-cutter bee, the ones that leave your roses and bougainvillia in tatters.

Watch the bee's hind legs as she stands on her head to gather the pollen. They do not have pollen baskets like the European honey bees, so they pack pollen onto the hairs on their abdomens. The front legs hold onto the filament at the base of the stamen and the back legs scrape pollen off the anthers.

It's the same clip, run at normal speed, slow-motion and slow + zoom.

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Watching Grass Grow: Buffalo Grass After Four Phoenix Summers

I haven't updated about the buffalo grass lawn because there hasn't been much to update.  It grows, it gets watered, it needs very little mowing, and it's reasonably weed free.  It hasn't been fertilized since we planted it.

We even tried to kill it, and failed.  I was out of town all spring and early summer, and I forgot to tell my roommate to set the watering frequency to every 10 days, so it went until late June on a couple of 15-minute waterings and a trace of rain. I didn't take a picture of it before the water was increased, unfortunately.  It greened up a bit, but the blades were short and a distressed-looking grey-green.  It was in survival mode, waiting for the monsoons.

Buffalo Grass: September 5, 2012
This is not meant to be a clipped formal lawn, it's a grassy meadow.

The remedy for the neglect was water - a double watering immediately to soak the ground deeply and sticking to the every 10 day schedule explained in "Calculating Buffalo Grass Watering".  It's using only half as much water as Bermuda grass. There are a couple of scanty spots, but it's recovered well.

Here it is after being resuscitated. The slightly darker patches are the !@#$@$ Bermuda grass that persists despite my efforts to eradicate it.  The buffalo grass seems to be acting as a living mulch for the Bermuda. Neither one can outgrow the other and take over.

It's been mowed twice, most recently in late July. 


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Growing Lettuce at 110° F

This is my experimental lettuce patch, in a photo taken early this morning. It was planted about 2 months ago in an old compost heap that was planted with tomatoes last summer.  The location under a mesquite tree was too shady for tomatoes, so I tried lettuce, mizuna and Swiss chard. It's leggy and pale from being in the shade, but if it were in the sun it would be dead.



It's surprisingly not bitter and despite the high temperatures, it hasn't bolted. All I did was add a bit more dirt to the top of the heap, soak the seeds a few hours and plant them. It has a drip line, and is being watered 3 times a day for a few minutes each time.

Lettuce Varieties: Rubin and Tango Read more!

Watering Buffalo Grass: It's not rocket surgery!

It's tough being on the bleeding edge of lawn management. For example, how long should I run my lawn sprinklers to water my buffalo grass? How often? No one knows yet, but I think I'm on the right track.

Step 1 was to find out how much water my sprinkler system delivers. The "tuna can" method as explained by the University of Arizona's agriculture department measures your lawn sprinkler's output. UC Davis has a downloadable guide for California that explains a similar method.

Step 2 was estimated from bits of information. The original research for UC Verde buffalo grass indicated that it would survive, and maybe even stay green with half the water that Bermuda grass gets. I also know that deep, infrequent watering is better for lawns.

I had the Phoenix lawn watering guide site calculate the run times I would need for Bermuda grass with my sprinkler system. If you are in California, download the UC Davis brochure and use its watering times.

I converted the number of minutes of watering into minutes per month.

Step 3, I divided the monthly watering time in half to estimate what UC Verde buffalo grass would need. During April and May I watered twice a month, delivering half the water each time. 15 days was a bit too long between waterings; the grass was clearly water-stressed before the next watering session. So I've changed to delivering 1/3 of that amount every 10 days to see if a shorter interval will help.

Calculating your own watering times:
It's not rocket surgery!

Figure out how long warm season grasses need to be watered in your area, based on your sprinkler system's water output. Convert the daily or weekly amount into a monthly watering time.

Deliver between 1/2 and 2/3 of that water every month, split into 2 or 3 watering sessions.
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The Flowers that Bloom in the Spring

Two of the gaudy xeriscaping plants, my rose bush and the neighbor's cactus. I am tempted to sneak over to his yard and steal a few pads to start my own cactus.

Beavertail Cactus (Opuntia basilaris)


Lady Banks Rose (Rosa banksiae)

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Watching Grass Grow: 1 Year Later, It's a Lawn!

Happy birthday to my buffalo grass lawn! It was one year old on Sunday, and a long way from the sea of mud we had last year. This coming year I'll be reporting on the mowing and watering it needs to keep it attractive. it's about 80% greened up, and with the predicted warmer weather this week, it should be completely green by the first of April.



Our goal is not a putting green, our goal is a low-maintenance lawn that uses less water than Bermuda grass. This survived the abnormally hot and dry summer of 2009, and the abnormally soggy winter of 2009/10 with no problems.

I don't know about the Bermuda that I know is surviving in there - the neighboring Bermuda grass lawns went dormant and greened up simultaneously with the Buffalo grass. I'm going to have to control it with low water and neglect and some old-fashioned pulling. Read more!

Green grows my Buffalo ... already!

After a very rainy, almost freeze-free winter, it's warming up. The low temperatures have been mostly in the 50s and the highs in the mid-60s to as high as 78. With that bit of encouragement, the buffalo grass started sending up a few tiny green blades of grass. I responded by cutting them all off.


Mowing the grass short in early spring lets the sun reach the base of the plant where the new growth will come from. It trimmed off most of the dry ends, revealing a blotchy greenish lawn. By the end of March it should be all green.
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Watching Grass Grow: It's Dead, Jim

The grass is now mostly khaki, not green. We had a 1-night cold spell and the temperature dropped to just below freezing. Apparently that's enough to trigger dormancy, because over the next week or so the green color vanished. This picture was taken December 12th.

The next question will be "How soon does it get green"? Read more!

Watching Grass Grow: Almost Thanksgiving, Still Green

As the title says, I'm still waiting for the grass to go dormant. Daytime temperatures have been in the 70s and nights about 50 for the past couple weeks. The grass is still growing, but more slowly. I'll probably mow it one more time this year.

Wayne Thorsen, Mr. Buffalo Grass, was here in early November. He doesn't know if the UC Verde cultivar will go dormant at all in this climate. It seems that I'm the on the cutting (mowing?) edge, and have the oldest UC verde lawn in the Phoenix area. Finally I'm trendy!

It's hard to photograph, but there is a faint purple tinge on the tips of the blades, which may be a sign it's going dormant. There are a few annual weeds sprouting through the grass,but nothing like the army of them we had this spring. Read more!

Okra Seeds as a Coffee Substitute?

One of the burning garden controversies of the 1840s was using okra seeds for coffee. The proponents were proclaiming it as the best thing since ... well, coffee.

Okra Seeds A Substitute For Coffee.—We find in the papers* a letter signed J. F. Callen, addressed to H. L. Ellsworth, declaring that the seeds of Garden Okra, when roasted and used as coffee cannot be distinguished therefrom, and many who have tried it pronounce it equal to the best 'Java.' The beverage is perfectly healthy, and as the seed is easily raised, he thinks it "destined at no distant day, to expel from our markets one of the most extensive articles of import."

We know how expelling coffee from our markets worked.

The comment from the editor was: "This sounds rather windy — but the matter can soon be decided by experiments, and we should be glad if some of our readers who have raised a surplus of of the seeds this season would try them as coffee and let us know the result." Ohio Cultivator vol. 1 No. 1 Columbus, Ohio, January 1, 1845

In the interest of science I sacrificed a half-cup of seeds and an hour of my time to toast and brew up some okra seeds. The resulting concoction was drinkable. With a bit of practice, you could make a brown, mellow-tasting, tolerable substitute for decaffeinated coffee. It was definitely better than Postum or Sanka.

Recipe:

Ingredients: 1/2 cup ripe okra seeds

1. Put a heavy skillet on medium heat for about 10 minutes to pre-heat.
2. Dump the seeds into the skillet and stir them frequently or shake the skillet.
   The seeds will go from dark green-black to light gray, then start turning brown
3. Keep stirring at least until the seeds start popping open - about 10 minutes. You can roast them longer, but cover the skillet or they will be all over the kitchen.
   (this would be a good place to use an old-fashioned popcorn pan)
4. Remove the seeds from the skillet and let them cool.
5. Grind the seeds in something (I used a coffee grinder) until they look like coffee. They are brittle and grind faster than real coffee. 
6. Brew, using about half as much water as you would for real coffee. Or twice as much okra as you would coffee.
   

*Instead of the blogosphere posting and commenting, our ancestors used a primitive "store and forward" technology called small town newspapers. Editors subscribed to many papers and routinely reprinted anything they thought their own readers would find interesting.
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Oh Rats! It's a Real Rat!

The mystery rodent of late August has been identified. R.I.P. Rattus rattus, who was found floating in the swimming pool today, dead. This is annoying, because they are the attic-invading, wire-chewing sort of rats. It's time to alert the neighborhood.

Rattus rattus, the "black rat" has recently invaded Phoenix, where the abundant citrus drop in some suburbs provides it with food. You can discourage them by meticulous attention to cleaning up dropped fruit and clutter that provides them with habitat.

I have compost heaps, a woodpile, tomato jungles, and many seed-bearing plants. This is not going to be easy. At least I only have one citrus tree left. Read more!