Jiminy …grasshoppers!

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The first sighting - on the trellis

I was in the garden in the evening with my camera when I caught a little movement out of the corner of my eye. A little head was peeping at me from behind a stem. I moved to look at it better and it moved quickly behind the stem. After a short game of hide and seek, I realized it was a little grasshopper.

How cute, I thought, finally getting a good picture of it as it ran up a pole. It finally got fed up with me and jumped or flew off. I thought that would be the last I saw of it.

A few minutes later, across the garden, I was checking on my brinjal plants when I saw … could it be the same little grasshopper?

Maybe – but it had company one leaf down. Oh, I thought, a sibling!

Not one, but two, grasshoppers on one aubergine plant.

One plant down, though, there was another baby grasshopper…

What? Another grasshopper on another eggplant plant?

And another on the sunflower plant…

If this sunflower hadn't already bloomed, that grasshopper wouldn't still be on the plant!

And two more on an okra plant…

A pair of little grasshoppers munching on my okra plant

No, make that three…

Oh boy, a third grasshopper on the okra plant?

No, four…

What?! A FOURTH grasshopper on the same okra plant?!!

I rushed online to see whether I should panic or not. I was fairly certain that there were probably more little grasshoppers around than I’d seen, and I didn’t want them to become big pests. Honestly, I don’t want to have to kill them unnecessarily. We haven’t seen as many grasshoppers around as there used to be, say 30 years ago. But, I also don’t want them to destroy our plants.

Well, I was somewhat comforted to learn that grasshoppers have a number of predators, and I predict that some of the birds that visit the garden will be snacking on them – maybe even the Smyrna kingfisher. So I’m not going to panic just yet. Nature can keep on rolling and I’ll be a spectator. It’s just funny that when I said last week that we’d probably see the big grasshopper again, I thought it would be in context of it coming to feed in the garden – I didn’t think it would be in terms of it breeding here!

© 2011 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.


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Eggplant pests

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I love the purple tinges on the stems of the brinjal plant

I’m still on my maiden voyage growing brinjals – or eggplants or aubergines, as you may know them. As with the rest of my other plants, these poor babies have been coping with weather extremes for the last few months.

In my context, weather “extremes” refers to hot, moisture-eradicating sunny days alternating with a stretch of rainy weather. It confuses the plants and irks this gardener.

Anyway, my poor brinjal plants have not been progressing smoothly. They stayed small for many weeks. Then, after a decent growth spurt, they plateaued and have been experimenting with flowering. Sooner or later, they’re going to surprise me by finally setting fruit, but I’ve given up holding my breath in anticipation every time I see a pretty purple flower.

A fluffy mealy bug hiding behind a green brinjal flower. See it?

The problem is, the nice leaves are very inviting to a number of pests. The big yellow grasshopper/locust that I mentioned last week has been feasting on the leaves.

I also have a daily war on with whiteflies, cleaning away their eggs laid in dotted spiral lines on the undersides of leaves. Not doing this for two or more days means that when I turn over the leaves, I see full-grown whiteflies resting in a group.

Mealy bugs have also attempted to set up home, but I’ve been removing and squishing them – not my favourite activity, but a gardener’s gotta do what a gardener’s gotta do. :|

And now, the latest creature to join the party is…

Do you see them? They blend in so well!

Well, no prizes for guessing it had to be a caterpillar – or in this case, a few of them. They’re sneaky little things – the green of their bodies almost perfectly matches the green of the leaves. With the slanting white lines across their bodies, they remind me of little green candles you could find on a birthday cake!

See the three round, pearl-like caterpillar eggs?

I have no idea what moth or butterfly these are from, but I’m lucky they lay their eggs on the tops of the leaves. They’re not too difficult to spot once you know you need to look for them. I just pick them off by hand and flick them into the grass. They can eat all the grass they want to, if they want to…

If there are this many pests lurking around, you may wonder why I haven’t sprayed anything on the plants yet.

Little ladybug scuttling along the leaf stem

Well, I don’t want to do anything to make this ladybug want to go away! I trust it’s feeding on some of the pests that haunt my plants. Between the two of us, we ought to be able to control the pests attacking the brinjal plants, and maybe it’ll invite some friends or relatives to come join the party!

© 2011 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.


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The orange cosmos flower

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The orange cosmos flower - pretty, isn't it?

We’ve had yellow cosmos flowers gracing our garden for about a year now, and I love those flowers – the combination of the shape and colour just perk up my day! :) Because of that, I decided to get some orange cosmos seeds and grow them, too.

I don’t know why, but I initially had quite a bit of trouble growing these plants to their full potential. They seemed less vigorous than their yellow counterparts, flowering only once, then drying off.

Now, however, I have a plant that is growing like the yellow cosmos plants – it bloomed once, then started budding more and more and more! Finally, I have a decent orange cosmos plant growing, and it warms my heart to see it in bloom.

Several orange cosmos flowers in various stages of bloom

And the profile view:

Side profile of the cosmos flower. Do I see potential seeds?

An interesting thing about the flowers as they age is that you’ll see red streaks show along the petals even as the rest of the surface of th petals fade in colour. You can see it in the photo above.

So why did this cosmos plant grow better than the earlier ones I grew? Could it be because it’s less rainy now? Or was the seed that this plant grew from more robust than the earlier ones? I don’t know, but I’ll try to keep growing these to find out!

© 2011 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.


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The kingfisher returns

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The Smyrna kingfisher is one of the sporadic visitors to our garden. One of the last times we saw it was when it was patiently swallowing its meal of a garden lizard, back in March this year.

Since then, it’s only come occasionally in the late evening to snare some beetles for a nightcap.

Well it’s back as a daytime visitor.

The Smyrna kingfisher earlier this week perched on the mango tree and avidly watching the overgrown sweet potato patch below for prey.

It’s been seen perched just under the eaves of the bigger trees, keeping a hunter’s gaze on the surroundings for food. Unfortunately, it was spotted swallowing another garden lizard. I say unfortunately because we’ve been getting familiar with the lizards, and losing them as part of nature’s food chain is sad, as much as we enjoy seeing the pretty kingfisher. I know I’m not being consistent, but I enjoy observing both creatures, and the law of nature can be harsh.

However, seeing the return of this bird makes me wonder if other migratory birds will return as well. It’s something to look forward to.

Catch up on other posts on the kingfisher…

© 2011 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.


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