Sunday, June 22, 2014

Catawba Tree Fishing Worms

Earlier I was out working in the yard/garden and went over to check out the, what I feel pretty sure are, cucumbers in the Hugelkultur bed.
(They "volunteered" there, grew out of the compost dirt we used to fill the bed, so we're not entirely sure what they are.)


I was also out there yesterday - not working - and noticed that there was a Catawba (Catalpa) worm on one of the leaves. Since I read that those worms only eat the Catawba (Catalpa) tree leaves, I thought it was lost, and carried it back over and put it on the Catawba tree.

Today we (me and Ryan) noticed there were more worms on the (cuke?) vines. I lifted one of the large leaves and saw a large worm with it's - mouth? - sucked to the leaf. Some of the leaves have what look like insect gnawing, but again, I read that the Catawba tree was these worms only source of food, so - I don't know.

There were plenty of the worms on the tree itself, though.



I never really paid too much attention to the tree before. I mean, it's just there. It grows leaves and flowers and some years it gets worms, some years it don't.

Ryan had his (fancy, expensive) camera outside taking some "Nature" snaps, and called me down there where he was. He said, "Shh, listen, what is that falling out of the tree?"

I shh'd and listened and didn't hear anything. Then, a little something. I thought maybe it was leaves hitting together when the wind blew.
But then I heard/saw something hit the ground and make the noise.
I walked under the tree to see if whatever was falling out would fall on me.
Eventually I saw a tiny piece of brown something fall on a leaf on the ground, and once I saw it, I noticed that the ground was pretty much covered with the tiny brown pieces...

WORM CRAP!!

aka, so that's why the Rutgers tomatoes are so tall, even though they're not getting sufficient sun? (Fertilizer)

After all these years, I had no idea the tree rained worm poop like that.

The (salsa) garden is still coming along pretty well.  Almost all of the tomato plants have maters on them. (Except the Rutgers in the row in the shade. But some of them are flowering, so they might still bring some on, if a bit later.)

I mowed the garden and weeded the peppers today. 



No rain (so far) today, but yesterday we got a pretty good shower, about a 10th of an inch total rainfall. The day before that only a small shower, half-of-a-10th-of-an-inch.

Speaking of worms, unlike the Catawba tree, where we welcome worms, my Pecan tree has a case of the Fall Webworms.



They apparently aren't damaging to the tree as a whole, but they are sooooo ugly.

Other than sprays and such, other recommendations are to prune the limb with the web off and burn it, burn it in the tree where it is, or  - the suggestion I personally prefer - tear the web open with a stick and let the wasps and birds take care of them.

No comments:

Post a Comment