Nature In My Garden

Hello,

Since early spring wildlife have been visiting my garden. Now it's July and  birds, insects, butterflies, bees are still  enjoying what my garden can offer. They are so so essential and beneficial in the garden for pollinating fruit, feeding on pests. Even the pesky cabbage fly is welcomed in my garden because I know there's a parasitic wasp that will use its caterpillar to feed the growing wasp larvae.

This little chap is a solitary mason wasp, it took up residence under one of my trays. (hence the label) it feeds on small caterpillar that are paralized by its sting. It would lay an egg on top of a few caterpillars in the chamber that are made of clay. Then she seals it and starts building a new cell. The larvae would hatch and feed on the paralized caterpillars then pupate, then hatch into this very useful lil wasp. 

There's another little parasitic wasp that catches spiders to feed its brood. 

Another wonder of nature was when I eyewitnesed almost the whole transformation of a butterfly, just missing the last chapter. Was gutted, so I was😩😥

This peacock butterfly early spring visited my nettle patch and deposited its eggs on the back of the still young nettle leaves. Once they hatched, the tiny, dark, hairy caterpillars turned into eating machines and just ate and ate until they were ready to pupate. For the life of me I can't guess how did a caterpillar end up in my greenhouse, but I'm glad it did because I could see the most wonderful thing nature can offer. The pupae stayed like that for almost for 2 weeks. At that time I didn't know which butterfly would this caterpillar belong to, I could only guess as many use the nettle patch as nursery. So I turned to Google and found out that it belong to a peacock butterfly. Boy, oh boy, I was excited to see the butterfly emerge. Unfortunately I've missed it but I'm hoping next year I'll be luckier 😊🦋and see the whole process. 

Here are a few other residents and visitors : ladybug, red soldier beetle

Other butterflies like Tortoiseshell and Comma often fluttered by resting on a flower, feeding on another.

While I was harvesting my garlic, from the corner of my eye I saw on the wall of the house a butterfly, dropping  everything, grabbing my phone, tiptoeing closer only to discover it's a Comma butterfly. And if you look at the picture I've posted, you'll see too why it's called a Comma butterfly. Bumblebees loving my cosmos, ragwort flowers and sunflower, cinnebar butterfly caterpillars gorging themselves on the ragwort pollen. 

It's amazing how many insects a so hated wildflower like the ragwort can attract, I'm amazed to see that every day as I walk by the big tall flowers in my orchard. Ragwort that can't exist without cinnabar moth and vice versa. 

Honeybees, butterflies, hover flies, and other pollen loving insects depend on this wildflower. 

And of course all I sects in a way or another end up as food for other creatures just to complete the circle of life. 

August 27th

The visit of wildlife continues in my garden all through this month too. As flowers burst into bloom the fluttering, buzzing wildlife flock, pour into the garden. 

Not only beneficial insects but some feared pesky pests too, but that's ok because they are always food for other visitors like birds, parasitic insects and small mammals. 

Here is every gardeners nightmare pest, the small cabbage butterfly resting on a sacrificial plant. Here, a nasturtium that's planted to attract this pesky pest away from my brassicas. 😜😂. Of course even so some brassicas got nibbled but that's ok, my brassicas have survived the attack due to netting and other companion plants that hid the smell of brassicas from them.