Garden Update

A little update from the garden. Butterfly season is fading fast, along with the Butterfly bush which has been the main attractant.  I did find this Red Banded Hairstreak sitting on the deck rail, however (not comments about how it needs to be cleaned and restained please - we know it already).

And I found this Black Swallowtail caterpillar on a fennel plant. We planted the fennel, at least in part, to attract the Black Swallowtails, so we were successful in that at least. It looks just about big enough to molt to a chrysalis.  I went looking for it later, but couldn't find it.  I hope some bird didn't spot it and have a biscotti flavored snack.

I also found this Painted Lady (not the American Lady, which has been more common this year) on our smaller, yellow Butterfly Bush, which is well behind the two purple ones which have been the big draws for the most part.

Note the multiple smaller eye spots on the bottom of the rear wing, compared to two larger ones on the American Lady.

 A really full shot. No cropping involved.













The Pawpaw tree in the side yard is starting to drop fruit. A strange tropical fruit in our temperate area, the fruit will fill the kitchen with their mango/banana like odor. The soft, sweet pulp appears to be best used to make smoothies. We don't have a huge crop this year, so a couple of smoothies should take care of them. They have a few huge black seeds in each fruits, so there really isn't that much there.