Joys of gardening - late fall edition

It's late October here in Lincolnland, and lots of trees are still green because this has been a late fall. The low temps have only flirted with a frost, and petunias in the window boxes are still flowering. TPP thought that he had finally triumphed by catching a wary groundhog that had been living under the garden pavilion all summer (the second one). Fencing had been installed around the base of the pavilion, except in one area, which was exploited, and a second small breach.  After the relocation of the groundhog, the fencing was fixed and completed to prevent or minimize future colonization. However much to his dismay, there is now new evidence of another egress! Groundhog number 3?  This was not pleasing news, and to add insult to injury, TPP got a few new chigger bites.  Never had them remain this late in the season before, which promises more good things to come from climate change. Hope some rain last night and today is enough to ameliorate the mild October drought.  Farmers have really loved the dry weather and most of the maize and soybean fields are harvested; good yields should yield lower prices emphasizing the you-can't-win nature of modern farming. Finally decided to start bringing the tropical plants (orchids, cacti, bromeliads, gesneriads, a croton, the bonsai trees, etc.) inside.  Everything appears to have done well this year.

Moss sweet toes

TPP just noted that summer rains always bring fungi, and the last couple of days have reminded the botanist of something else that comes with summer rains too. Moss-sweet-toes. Of course, at halfway through the month of June, out rainfall is about 50% above our monthly average for June, and there a still a dozen days to go. So it's wet, it's soggy, and every tree hole out there must be filled with water by now, the favored breeding site for mosquitos in this area. The last two trips outside in the evening were like trips to a blood bank as those thirsty female vampires of the insect world (you do know that only the females need a blood meal to get protein for their eggs?) swarmed upon us. TPP has a mosquito expert as a colleague, so perhaps it would be good to see if any bad species are around this year. This area does have West Nile virus, but so far no dead crows (nesting in a neighbor's tree) or bluejays, both susceptable species, and no reports of the virus yet, but give it time. TPP already has two samples of blood enshrined at the CDC from this tropical adventures, so reasonable precautions will be taken. So like it or not, insect repellant will remain our gardeners' friend. On the silver-lining side of things, chiggers are often less of a problem in wet years (but they are showing up now too).

CHIGGERS! ARRRGH!

TPP hates chiggers; chiggers love him. Hate is a strong emotion, and there are very few things, very few people, that can elicit this emotion. Chiggers make the grade. Now those of you who belong to the PETTM (pet'em - people for the ethical treatment of thrombulicid mites) are just a lost cause as far at TPP is concerned.  An infestation of chiggers is what happens this time of year when you mow the grass, and the ichiest bites are the dozen or so on the insteps of my feet. As a PG (plant gardening) blog, the location of the other primary infestation will not be shown or discussed. It was after all early June, and that's when chiggers appear, that is when the infest-your-body life stage appears.  Turns out tropical Australia has a similar critter that produces "scrub itch". They liked TPP too.  Turns out they like other people even more and at least one biologist seeking plants that produce predatory mite domatia gathered an even bigger population of chiggers than anyone has ever seen before.  His body looked like it was covered with red freckles, that itch. Damn, it was hard to even look at.  So every year it's the same; TPP has to learn an initial lesson.  Turns out Ms. Phactor had forgotten her lessons too.  Wonder about all those neighbors who visited our yard for a picnic?

Not yet fall addendum - chiggers

TPP's musings about how things do not yet seem like fall although it is October 12th added another dimension.  Yes, there are two nasty, itchy chigger bites on his foot as just one more reminder that nature just doesn't yet seem to be one with the idea that it's fall.  On the other hand, TPP collected some seed of a hemiparasitic yellow foxglove, and the maturity of those fruits and seeds is right on time.  Some things just aren't influenced all that much by changes in the weather. 

In praise of chiggers

Actually noting good can be said of chiggers (trombiculid mites). This year's hot, dry weather has been very good for the chigger population, and while you might think that any botanist who wades around in thick prairie vegetation is just asking for an infestation, the prairie has been quite benign posing no problem. But our yard this year has been its worst in memory. Every journey into our gardens for herbs, flowers, or garden produce, even just a cocktail hour walk around, has produced another batch of red, itchy welts. The Queensland Australia version,scrub itch, plagued my rainforest research, but it wasn't the rainforest per se but any scruffy, weedy margins where the mites were encountered. Under usual conditions, Ms. Phactor, being the tastier, would collect chigger wounds, while leaving me untouched, but for reasons not clear, certainly not a question of my tastiness improving, this season we have been on a par although not actually keeping exact score. This is what you get for having a wildlife friendly yard. And invariably your worst itching chigger wounds are on those parts of your anatomy that you cannot scratch in public.

Wildlife friendly yard bites back

You do everything you can to make wildlife happy in your yard, except to let them eat my tomatoes, a crime punished by banishment, and then some, or in this case, just one species of wildlife makes your life miserable. Chiggers were a personal discovery in 1971 after having moved to the hotter, dryer midwest for graduate school. They were not a problem in upstate NY. The hot, dry weather has produced a sizeable population and each and every time the Phactor ventures outside, to water, to guard his tomatoes, to enjoy the evening, to see the pond progress, or lack thereof, the next morning new red, itchy chigger welts are found, and generally in either very uncomfortable or very embarrassing places. Mosquito repellants work to some degree, and perhaps the attacks upon my personal temple would be more numerous without its use, but who wants to do that experiment? The strangest thing of all is that Mrs. Phactor is usually a chigger magnet, while the Phactor is ignored a situation she has attributed to my being a distasteful person, but this summer it's quite the reverse. And that is the worst thing about it. Who said they could change the rules?