February 24, 2008
Bug inventory
We inventoried the bugs in the two lower greenhouses this morning. We postively id'ed several potato leaf hoppers (not so good), a damselfly (good), a boxelder bug (neutral), beetle larvae (neutral). We also found a small hopping white fly in the soil which could be a whitefly, but it seemed to be too big and odd to find it on the soil. We also found two small, fleshy green bugs attached to the underside of leaves, which could be an green peach aphid, or maybe a larval potato leafhopper, either way not so good.
We found lots of spiders, but we didn't inventory those. Here's Henry picking up a huge one. I'm not sure what this spider is, anyone know?
We found all kinds of treasures including this monarch wing, a bright reminder of summer.
February 04, 2008
Picking rocks
Wavy, Henry and I picked three (half) buckets of rocks from greenhouse 2 the other day. Its so nice to be in the greenhouse this time of year -- they're warm, there's real dirt to dig in -- that we all seem to be looking for excuses to go in. They're not on, but they're plenty of cleanup work to get them ready. The strings hanging down are the tomato trellises.
February 02, 2008
I tomato my farmer
Our sister-in-law Sheri grew up on a citrus farm in Florida. So she knows all about driving a tractor and obsessing about the weather. But then she had the (mis)fortune to marry a Yankee (my brother), and to make matters worse he was a Yankee living in a city (Providence, RI). But this hasn't deterred Sheri from continuing to fight for farms. She is one of the grand poobahs at Farm Fresh Rhode Island and she manages several farmer's markets in Providence. Farm Fresh Rhode Island rocks, by the way, but that will have to be a different post.
Recently she sent us a care package that included several bumper stickers that said "I [tomato/heart] my farmer." Waverly thought it would be funny to put one on her brother's back, and Henry thought it was funny too. So all day long today he ran around as a human billboard for Farm Fresh Rhode Island. We are doing our part to get the word out up here, Sheri!