Granny’s Garden News

May 16, 2010

Garden Observations

Have you noticed the painted lady butterflies in the garden?  Several classes have been observing their life cycle and have recently released their adult butterflies.  Butterflies are generally considered prey.  If the Painted Lady manages to survive predators, it will live about two weeks.  During that time, it will search out host plants like thistle and hollyhock to lay eggs.  They’ll search for favorite nectar sources like coneflowers and verbena bonariensis, both plentiful in our summer gardens.  Painted Ladies will migrate south in late summer since they can’t survive our winter.  Information source:  The Life Cycles of Butterflies by Judy Burris and Wayne Richards, North Adams, MA:  Storey Publishing, 2006, page 75.  Follow this link to a photo by Dave and Lynne Slater, Cumbria, United Kingdom, http://www.flickr.com/photos/57384821@N00/3387019, 05-16-10.

Notes for Class Garden Coordinators

• You’ll find new transplants in your garden boxes.  Last week, some fourth grade students and garden volunteers added several transplants to class garden boxes.  Please instruct your students not to harvest the transplants when you harvest your early spring planting.  Refer to the attached harvest guide for information about what to harvest and what to leave. 

• Seeds will be put in the barn buckets this week for planting the week of May 24.  There is no specific location in the beds to plant.  Please have your students plant in open spaces.  Keep seed varieties together and mark the general planting spot with a plant marker.  Refer to the attached planting guide for depth and spacing measurements. 

• Please let me know if your class does not re-plant your beds next week, so we can offer this as a job to classes who wish to continue during the last week of school.

• Please continue to weed your beds and paths.  Consider requiring each student to collect a handful of weeds at the end of each class before heading inside.  Show them examples of what to pull.