Late summer butterflies

About mid August all those many and varied butterflies I was seeing around the place seemed to dwindle somewhat, to be replaced by far too many 'Cabbage Whites'. For us here in Europe that means both Large White (Pieris brassicae) and Small White (Pieris rapae), and to a lesser extent, the Green Veined White (Pieris napi). I'm not sure that the latter are a real pest for brassicas (cabbage family) but I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the caterpillars of these and the Small White, as they are both plain and green. Of course the White explosion coincided with me sowing and growing my brassicas!

However I've still seen a few goodies here and there and in the last week or so it seems like the Whites' numbers have reduced, and suddenly we have a great wave of Peacock butterflies which although common, are so colourful they are always a delight to see. I'm also starting to see more of the usual autumn species such as Red Admirals and Commas.

The Whites have been so numerous that I've literally been swatting the darn things away as I was trying to flick their eggs off my baby kale and PSB! Since planting it out I've watched them lay eggs on it, and not just that, also on my rocket which I have to check when I pick it. They've also been quite promiscuous and I've found them mating all over the place too. I just wish I could get to see all this action with other species!

Cheeky Small White laying eggs on my purple sprouting brocolli!
At least they only lay single eggs.

Multiple eggs laid by the Large White butterfly -
this is on a rocket leaf. No I didn't eat it!

When those ones hatch out you get an invasion as shown on this nasturtium, which they are
welcome to munch. It's grown partially to help keep the caterpillars away from the brassicas,
but also because they are pretty!

There are predators of course, just as there are parasitic wasps which will lay their eggs inside the caterpillars. I didn't interfere when my OH yelled to tell me that a spider had captured a butterfly, just ran for my camera. Below is a female Large White that has been caught in a web, and I may have felt tempted to help had it been a more unusual species of butterfly, but really why should I deprive the spider of a meal? If you want to see more pictures of this spider and the butterfly, I've put the rest of the photos into a little album on Picasaweb here. I know that not everyone wants to see the gruesome stuff and/or spiders though!

Large White (Pieris brassicae) caught by a Cross Orb Weaver (Araneus diadematus).

OK moving swiftly on to prettier pictures! At the time of taking these photos I thought this was a Small Copper and was just taking a few pictures because it was the first one I'd seen in my garden this year. Luckily I checked in my butterfly book and was was really pleased to find that it was actually the far more unusual Sooty Copper, that I'd encountered for the first time on my Butterfly Walk last month. What I'd seen then though was the male, and this is the female, so I'm happy that I've seen both of them as they are quite different in colouring.

A female Sooty Copper (Lycaena tityrus).

Common Blue (Polyommatus icarus) - the only one I've seen in my
garden this year, although I saw plenty on the coast at the Pointe du Grouin!

Map butterfly (Araschnia levana) - I've seen precisely three this year.

It seems like the Painted Ladies (Vanessa cardui) left on our last hot day!
Couldn't resist adding this picture of one in the veg patch with leeks in the background.

To be replaced by the equally stunning Peacocks (Inachis io)...

... and Commas (Polygonia c-album).

I'll finish off with a Small Copper that I saw yesterday. Looking back through last year's photos, I didn't even begin to see them until September and they were around through most of October, so there's plenty still to look forward to on the butterfly front. Not to mention sunshine and warmth coming back for a whole week, according to the weather forecasts. I'm going to make the most of it!

Small Copper (Lycaena phlaeas) on Sedum 'Autumn Joy'.

December veggies

The veg patch is a complete soggy weedy mess that I have no inclination to work in or clear up right now. However it's still productive and I shall attack and clear the dead sunflowers and chickweed lawn in the new year (before passing over to my digging machine, aka my OH, to get it prepared for next season's planting).

I still have salad veggies - spring onions, beetroot, Chinese leaves/cabbage (although that's looking a bit the worse for wear after -4C last week) and rocket, which is still merrily flowering despite -4C last week! I'm quite surprised by that actually.

As for the usual winter veggies, I have purple curly kale which isn't as big as it could be, but there's enough of it and pointless having too much like I had last year. The PSB isn't very big and really needs better staking as it keeps blowing over in the wind, but I feel very bleugh right now regarding gardening so it may just have to grow at a 45 degree angle. My leeks however are disappointing for the first time in 8 years here. I sow seed direct in the spring then transplant them in the summer just as I always have done - by this stage they are usually much larger than the pencil thickness which is recommended - some of mine are more like chunky marker pens! However they just didn't grow much after transplanting, which may have something to do with the 2 month dry period which followed. Then again, we always have a dry period..... so I don't know. Suffice to say we have not yet eaten any leeks as just harvesting enough for a leek risotto would probably need the majority of my autumn leeks which are still small. The winter variety have grown a bit better.

Chillies looked like this when we came back from our trip to the UK, so whilst they'd survived mild frosts with temps above freezing, they weren't happy with temps of zero C! The background here is of dead marigolds and sunflowers - and happily thriving weeds!

Frosted chillies - I don't need them as I already harvested plenty

Rocket flowers with leeks in the background

Frozen rocket leaves - they survived!

Pathetic leeks. Left two rows are 'Bleu d'Hiver' which have grown
better than the autumn leeks 'Prizetaker' on the right.

They have been better as photographic subjects!

Chinese Leaves looking a bit frosty

Purple Curly Kale

This kind of kale also makes a great subject to photograph when covered in drops of rain.

This is my wildflower meadow after I'd cut back or pulled out all the dead growth, mostly annuals. There are plenty of biennial or perennial plants here which I'll be leaving in place to see what happens next year. I think I spot one Honesty which I am pleased about, various things I can't identify and quite a lot of what looks like Centaurea montana. There are also two Foxgloves which is rather amusing, as I weed them out all over my flower gardens - however they just might be white which would be great, as I only have pink ones.

Wildflower meadow.
When I know what these plants are, I'll be able to transplant anything
that I like to other parts of the garden.

Look! Something still flowering! (I don't know what it is)

Beetroot leaves - the chickens love these.
They are edible for us humans too.

Chunky Beetroot Soup
Only had time to take a quick snap at the last moment so that's why I've cropped
out all the background!

There's only one slight problem - I still haven't planted my garlic yet!!!
 

Veg patch update - August

At the moment there's a wonderful lull in between frantic harvest activities. The earlier fruit is over, the broad beans and podding peas have been harvested and cleared out; there remains only the overgrown mess that was the mange tout to get rid of. Oh my god, did they produce! We got sick of them in the end.

The blight that I mentioned in my last veg patch update in July was kept at bay by several sprayings with Bordeaux Mix; however whilst it was easy enough to pick off affected leaves from the tomatoes it was impossible to do the same for the potatoes. I managed to keep the maincrop Desirees going as long as possible until they started to look a mess and then cut back the haulms. Thankfully they had almost finished flowering and after digging up several plants I'm happy to report they had grown to full size. I've left the others in the ground for now.

This photo shows the harvest from nine 'Belle de Fontenay' earlies and three red 'Desiree' maincrops. B de F are not known as heavy yielders but are grown for their flavour, but I find with 25 plants there's more than enough. The Desirees that I dug up had scab but they were at the end of the rows under the overhang of the peach tree thus the soil was bone dry, whereas the B de F's were still nice and moist and had hardly any scab this year. Scab is caused by dryness at the roots (although strangely enough Monty Don was saying the opposite on Gardeners World ???? never heard of that before!!!). Look, I NEVER have wet soil, it's always dry(ish) and I always have scab, even when I use seep hoses to irrigate (which is still never quite enough moisture). The one year when we have enough rain early on that I don't need to irrigate I had no scab on my earlies!

About 10 days ago I harvested my first French beans, first 3 courgettes and first big red tom! Haven't had any more courgettes forming since then and we've had two more tomatoes, but plenty of beans.

My courgette plants are still tiny, but I will be removing the borage shortly to give them a bit more light and room. I'm really happy that certain veg were behind so I haven't been having to cope with gluts of courgettes at the same time as peas and beans. It's actually worked out really well.

Some tomatoes are doing better than others. Since cutting the haulms from the spuds there have been no more signs of blight on the tomatoes. The best tomato for yield and the one that I'm already picking is 'Fournaise'. Every truss is loaded and I wish I had bought more of these plants instead of some of the others. 'St Pierre' is a total waste of space and has about 4 tomatoes forming. 'Rose de Berne' isn't very impressive either.

This is 'Andine Cornue' which is a heritage variety with funny pointy tomatoes; some even look like large chillies. 'Fournaise' is behind it with the ripening fruit.

'Fournaise'. Yes I know I've got to wash off the Bordeaux Mix very carefully as it can't help but get splashed onto the fruit, but what do you think commercial toms have been sprayed with, even organic ones? It's a small price to pay to actually have any tomatoes at all! 

My chillies are finally starting to produce after a really slow start. I even have the first tiny chilli forming on the Basque chilli 'Piment d'Espelette' whose seeds I bought by mail order at vast expense.

Below are good old Cayennes (the larger plants in the foreground above left) which have never yet failed me and are forming tons of chillies already.

Another slow starter were my cucumbers which struggled so much with my potting compost that I complained about in an earlier post called Germination Woes. Look, I have a cucumber forming! Some of the other plants are still only about 3 inches tall though.

My only two self seeded Potimarrons (winter squash/pumpkin) are romping away nicely now and have quite a few fruit forming.

An overview taken early this morning.

A view of what was the bean/pea bed which I haven't finished tidying up yet. Still need to rip out the mange tout and the strawbs on the left hand side are finished as they are three years old and will be composted. So soon I'll have loads more room for planting more veg as there's only French beans in here and one row of younger strawberries.

It's not all rosy in the veg patch. This year I have a new problem. Sparrows. Whole flocks of the damn things that are not only dust bathing in my soil but are eating my lettuce and beetroot greens. I need to fashion some kind of chicken wire covers to keep them off.

In desperation I have covered the munched Little Gem with these cloches. You can see the difference between the one on the left which was left uncovered and the ones on the right which were under the cover and have started to grow back. Trouble is, these cloches aren't big enough for mature lettuce or beets.

Flowers always do well in the veg patch though and I welcome their cheery sight. This is my tallest sunflower, about 3 metres now!

At the barn end of the veg patch the fence is taken over by nasturtiums and there's also self seeded dill, Verbena bonariensis and knapweed, all loved by pollinators.

View from my 'Wildflowers for pollinators' meadow - which has gone rather floppy so is roughly staked up. This has been a huge success and I will be doing the same next year. I will be writing up a blog posting purely about this experiment shortly.

And yet more sunflowers around the edges of the tomato plot. Did you know they were edible? The flower heads I mean. That's another thing I have yet to try as apparently they taste not unlike artichoke hearts and you prepare them in a similar fashion. 

Finally, now it's August, I can start to sow my brassicas such as radishes and rocket. I can't any earlier as they just get decimated by flea beetle. I have sown my winter brassicas (purple curly kale and PSB) which are in the cold frame and need pricking out and growing on a bit more before planting out in the veg patch. I've also got Chinese leaves/cabbage in the cold frame which will be ready for planting out soon. The outer leaves get munched by the Cabbage White caterpillars but I strip them off for the chickens and we eat the hearted bit. It works out well for everyone!