Portsmouth Caterpillar Club

My last blog post sparked some discussion on the Portsmouth Caterpillar Club's Facebook Page including one comment that cardboard is allowed under an organic certification (I assume) as long as the tape and plastics are removed and the coated / water-resistant (pfas) materials are not used.  I had a large amount due to my door replacement project from last years so I decided to go ahead and use it to control weeds while trying to maintain the underlying soil health.  Here is what I did. Step 1:  I put a layer of maple leaf mulch to block out light and to create an aeration zone that will sit below the cardboard layer.  This will hopefully reduce the impact and risk of suffocating organisms such as worms and insects underneath.  It will also provide an interim food source.   You can see here I also employed several mulching assistants who inspected and certified my work. Step 2:  I laid down the cardboard and cut it to match the shape of ...

Over the weekend I worked on my first garden project of 2019!  If you read this blog, you know that I have fairly aggressive plans to add natives to my insect gardens and that means I needed to convert lawns into habitat.  So far so good.  I had some landscaping stones, a shovel, a rake and enough determination to take out some lawn next to the stone wall. My plan was to remove as much of the lawn from the native soil as possible then use box cutters to cut apart cardboard that I saved from last summer when I replaced my front door.  I would then get a yard of compost to put on top to start seedlings that are sitting in the cold frame and hopefully germinating soon.  It seemed like a perfect plan:  the cardboard would block the sun suppressing grass and weeds but would eventually decompose, giving the wildflowers one or two seasons to establish themselves. I then read a blog post that was linked to the Native Plants of New England Facebook.  T...

It was great to get out last weekend and get a preview of spring.  I saw lots of little bugs in the snow around trees that I call snow fleas though I am quite sure that is not their name.  This picture of moss and twigs captures pretty well the promise of a sunny late winter day.  I have ordered some additional seeds this year after discovering the Wild Seed Project out of Portland Maine.  Here is an updated list of what I hope to germinate this year. Let me know if any of these interest you and I will share what I can.  There is no guarantee that I will have extras (or any) because of the uncertainty of germinating wildflowers.  But there is a good chance that I will have extras of most of these: From Prairie Moon Nursery:   Partridge Pea, Chamaecrista fasciculata .  This is a host plant for  Orange Sulphurs  in N.H. Anise Hissop, Agastache foeniculum .   Tall Thistle, Cirsium altissium . Golden Alexanders, Ziz...

We have had an extreme winter of sorts.  Extremely cold one day and then 50 degrees a day or two later.  I remember reading as a geography student in undergrad (McGill) about how the surface temperature under a meter of snow hovers just below 0 C (32 F), even during extreme weather.  It seems counter intuitive, but snow is a fantastic insulator.  But with climate change we can no longer expect to have a protective layer of snow over the garden to keep the beneficial insects sheltered....  Fortunately, the solution is all around us here in Portsmouth.  If we use leaves as mulch, it creates a form of shelter to trap the heat in the ground and help insects that over-winter escape the hard frost and rapid changes that come with climate instability.  Take a look at this picture of an area covered with leaf mulch vs. traditional bark mulch.  The bark mulch is basically barren and lifeless.  To me, knowing that the bark mulch is actually dyed ma...

It is 4 degrees out today and it does not feel right to write about flowers or caterpillars, so I want to share one of the successes of creating habitat for insects I had in 2018 using all of my excess maple leaves as an alternative to bark mulch.  According to the National Wildlife Federation , using leaves for mulch is critical to many butterflies and other species of insets, including luna moths, great spangled fritillaries, woolly bear caterpillars (which become Isabella tiger moths) and red-banded hairstreaks.  These are just examples.  Insects need a place where they can escape predators, the sun and certainly the cold weather.  They also forage for bacteria, fungi and detritus that exists in decomposing leaf material.  So in the fall of 2017, I decided to start taking control of the yard I purchased the year before because the landscape was all barren bark mulch.  Nothing really lives in the bark mulch.  It is all carbon with few nutrients and...

Several years ago I bought a "native" coneflower at the farmers market.  It was double flowered, looked really great in the pots, the same species name as the native coneflower and it said 'native' right on the label.  I knew that coneflowers (echinacea) were great for bumblebees, moths and butterflies and this one looked really special .  I planted it right next to a few more traditional looking coneflowers. What I saw during the year was that there was never a single bee, moth or butterfly on the "native" cultivar but the traditional coneflowers had many.  As it turns out, the marketing of 'nativars' or cultivars of native species as actual native plants at markets and even well respected nurseries is becoming a real problem.  Giant factory scale greenhouses replacing the use of native species in our landscaping with sterile varieties.  Unfortunately, as my experience showed, these cultivars have been selected for ornamental traits and often do n...

This post contains a list and links of seed varieties I will be germinating this year.  I am offering them up to anyone interested creating butterfly or insect habitat in and around Portsmouth.  Click "Read More" to see links to each species on Prairie Mood Nursery's web site.  My inspiration this year was an amazing trip to Richmond Island near Cape Elizabeth.  There were so many butterflies and bugs everywhere.  Please post in the comments if you'd like me to start a few extras and I will plan accordingly.  Even better, if you plan to start some seeds on your own, we can all help each other and the butterflies and insects with whom we share this corner of the world.  Partridge Pea, Chamaecrista fasciculata .  This is a host plant for Orange Sulphurs in N.H. Anise Hissop, Agastache foeniculum .  Tall Thistle, Cirsium altissium . Golden Alexanders, Zizia aurea . Pearly Everlasting, Anaphalis margaritacea (This is a host plant fo...