This is an exciting day out on the farm: I get to plant a multitude of seeds I had ordered for my project this semester and plant transplants of Asclepias, more commonly known as Milkweed! This plant is a beautiful full sun flower that is famous for attracting Monarch butterflies. Unfortunately, they're also somewhat infamous for their susceptibility to bugs (first picture on bottom left). Already in my horticulture career I have spent hours cleaning the little yellow aphids off of the plants. I cannot stress how many days my hands were just stained yellow. Luckily for me and my hands, this time on the farm we used a spray bottle full of water and Dawn dish soap to clean the plants. After cleaning the mother plants and taking new cuttings of them (second left below), I transplanted some already rooted cuttings (third picture below) to the newly cleaned and weeded beds (last picture below). Throughout this day of planting, cutting, and dealing with all of the bugs, I kept thinking about the prospects of possibly getting monarch caterpillars over the summer. Interestingly enough, these little yellow pests can severely limit the caterpillar's access to the milkweed plant. Suddenly, I didn't mind the yellow stained bug-gut hands as much! If getting these guys off of the plant means a better life for monarch caterpillars- and more monarch butterflies-- I'm all about that!
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One of the things that I love about the Howdy Farm is the variety. There's always something ready to harvest or something blooming. Recently I've been noticing (distracted by) the amount of beautiful blooms appearing on the farm. Springtime is bringing us all sorts of new growth and all sorts of interesting plants. Below are some of my favorite flowers on the farm right now, and a fun fact about each of them (because they're beautiful and why not). #1. Mustard flower: All species of Mustard are edible, although some taste better than others. In other words, it doesn't matter which species of mustard you find, as long as it's mustard and you like the way it tastes, you're good to go! #2. Oxalis: These plants are also edible! The bright purple leaf is extremely sour; some people think that it tastes like Sour Patch Kids but others, me included, just think they're SOUR. #3. Larkspur: One of the first recorded uses for larkspur was to scare scorpions away! #4. Carnation: Carnations are used as flavoring agents in the manufacture of beer, wine and other alcoholic beverages. #5. Poppy: Opium, from which morphine, heroin, codeine, and papaverine are derived, comes from the milky latex in the unripe seed capsule of the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum). It grows wild in eastern and southern Asia, and South Eastern Europe. It is believed that it originated in the Mediterranean region #6. Stock: In the Victorian “Language of Flowers,” individual colors of stock have their own nuances, but collectively they symbolize overflowing affection and contentment. #7.Honeywort: The name Cerinthe comes from the Greek keros for wax and anthos for flower, since at one time it was thought bees got wax for their hives from the flowers. #8. Turks Cap Hibiscus: This plant is capable of growing 9 feet tall! To compare, the tallest man alive, Robert Pershing Wadlow, was 8 feet and 11 inches tall! #9. Violet: One quirk of some Violets is the elusive scent of their flowers; along with terpenes, a major component of the scent is a ketone compound called ionone, which temporarily desensitizes the receptors of the nose, thus preventing any further scent being detected from the flower until the nerves recover. 1. https://www.wildflowers-and-weeds.com/Plant_Families/Brassicaceae.htm
2. Personal experience/farm manager Michael 3. https://www.proflowers.com/blog/july-birth-flower-larkspur 4. https://www.softschools.com/facts/plants/carnation_facts/637/ 5. http://justfunfacts.com/interesting-facts-about-poppies/ 6. https://www.flower.style/flowers-we-love/stock 7. https://wimastergardener.org/article/honeywort-cerinthe-major/ 8. https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=MAARD; https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/tallest-man-ever/ 9. http://justfunfacts.com/interesting-facts-about-violets/ |
Allie MartinHowdy! My name is Allie and I am a senior Horticulture major from Austin (keep it weird, y'all). Welcome to the home of pollinator garden paradise. Here you will find my journey through growing pollinator and host plant species, and hopefully, see the life cycle of native butterflies unfold! Archives
April 2020
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The Howdy Farm at Texas A&M University | Allie's Blog |