Little Orange Bugs

When I was inspecting our failing broad bean crop I came across these little bugs.

I apologise for the quality of the photo. We left our camera at Garden Cousin's house a couple of weekends ago so I have been borrowing Garden Girl's camera, with which I am less familiar. These little bugs are actually quite a bright orange, with a row of close black spots down the middle of their back. They are all over our broad beans but, as you can see from the photo, they have also moved on to our peas. I hope that they are there to eat the blackfly but I am worried they may be there to eat our vegetables.

Does anyone know what they are?

Godyris Duillia

Today I would like to introduce you to a beautiful glass-winged butterfly of the species Godyris Duillia. A rare species, the Godyris Duillia is native to Columbia, Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador and can reach well over 1000m high in flight. The transparent wings look so fragile and delicate that, despite the brown colouring, the butterfly takes on an ethereal beauty.

Having never travelled to South America I do not have an image of my own to show you but do take a look at this beautiful butterfly by following this link to Bing images.

Posted in memory of Duillia Woods, an equally beautiful and rare woman, with a spirit that also soared high.

Something Has Happened To Our Broad Beans...

The blame is our own - we failed to get the soapy spray out in time. We allowed the Black Fly to make our beans their home and they have clearly made themselves very happy there. But I will not dwell on what I can no longer fix. The bright side is that, if nothing else, the broad beans have distracted the black fly from all our other crops. Only recently have they moved onto our squash but I am wiser now and have armed myself with soapy water.

More Weeds, More Puddles

Garden Dad has spent the weekend clearing more weeds while I have spent the weekend clearing up puddles.

Garden Boy seems to have made weeding the entire country his life's ambition. On our last visit to the zoo Garden Boy, along with Garden Girl and their friend were happily occupied pulling weeds from between the paving stones. Then, this last week, while we enjoyed a walk, Garden Boy stopped to pull up the weeds on the roadside. So it seemed a good idea to spend the weekend pulling up weeds in our garden. It would surely be the ideal task to keep Garden Boy outdoors during the first few days of potty training. But no. He was happy to be outdoors weeding with Garden Dad but somehow he always managed to find himself indoors when the moment came to create puddles.

But progress has been made on both fronts. All the massive weeds have now been removed from our garden. Garden Dad had a lot of fun digging out some particularly big roots and all our plants can now grow, free from competition. Garden Boy, although still not making it to the potty on time has started to tell us when he is ready to go which has reduced the size of the puddles, in that, at least the second half lands in the potty. On both fronts then, not a bad weekend.

Rain Isn't Always All That Bad

We returned home on Wednesday from a short trip up north where in true holiday fashion it rained pretty much every day. In fact the weather was so bad some local roads flooded. On a particularly windy day we even had to wear bob hats. Thankfully Grandad North broke with his usual holiday tradition of eating fish and chips on a wet bench in the wind and rain, however Garden Girl and Garden Boy did take the opportunity to jump in muddy puddles. In fact Garden Boy has been wearing his welly boots every day since in the hope of finding more muddy puddles, running to the hallway for his boots everytime he spots some rain drops shouting 'Its raining, its pouring, old man is snoring, me jump in muddy puddles'.

The highlight of the holiday for Garden Boy, aside from the puddles, was feeding the animals at the farm we visited, in particular the calves. Garden Girl enjoyed the play barn where, for the first time she had the confidence to run around without me following behind and she even crossed the rope bridge which would have terrified her a few months ago. She also loved visiting the caravan and camping shop where we went to buy a sleeping bag for Garden Boy. We looked around the caravans while we were there and Garden Girl pretended to make tea and sat at the fold out tables for her dinner with Garden Boy. She now keeps asking if she can holiday in a caravan. I wonder if our tent will be good enough now she has seen the luxuries of a carvavan!

But I digress. All in all everyone had a brilliant time despite the wet weather and the rain did mean that Daddacool was let off lightly and was only required to water the greenhouse plants and hopefully it will have helped to revive some of our more unhealthy looking plants. Rain isn't always all that bad.

Helping Plants (and babies) to Grow

All the time we have spent in the garden over the last couple of weeks has obviously had a big impact on Garden Boy. Whenever I take him out and about he will grab a handful of soil from anywhere he can. Then he will carry it very carefully and slowly until he finds a suitable plant pot in which he can deposit the soil, where it will, he says, 'help the plant grow'. There is a particular plant in the corner of Garden Girl's playgroup playground than must surely have reached the clouds by now, so often does he 'feed' it.

He has also tried to help Garden Lass grow with one of his larger handful's of soil. Amazingly she didn't seem to mind being covered from head to toe, so she is obviously already well adjusted to life as a Little Garden Helper!

A Trip to Oz

Garden Girl was delighted today when she was able to view a live extract from the Wizard of Oz in her own back garden. The winds howled, the trees moaned and the Wendy House was lifted high into the sky, flying across the garden and luckily landing on our own side of the fence. After the initial panic that we might have lost the Wendy House for good, Garden Girl calmed down and remarked that 'it was just like Dorothy Girl'. I speculated whether the Wendy House might have landed on top of a bad witch but Garden Girl said 'no, just some tomato plants, but if I had been in the house I would have met the good witch'. I love the way she can so easily remove the bad bits of the story and just enjoy the beautiful bits.

The wind also tried to take our greenhouse but had to settle with one window pane which Garden Dad is stoically refitting in the darkness as I type. I wonder if he will find a pair of sparkly red shoes lying around?