Extension News: September 2006 Archives

I was supposed to be doing the grocery shopping. Instead I waited for a butterfly to emerge from its chrysalis. I didn’t know how long it would take, as I’d never seen it happen before.

My grandmother introduced me to the magic of butterflies when I was a little girl, helping her in the garden. We would “catch” the caterpillars and put them in old mayonnaise jars with holes punched in the lids and lots of food leaves: milkweed for the Monarchs. I would sit and watch the caterpillars munch on leaves and listen to the soft crunch-crunch-crunch. Once the caterpillars had spun their chrysalises, we would carefully remove any uneaten leaves and stems to make room for the future butterfly.

The chrysalis was not so interesting to watch, but one day I would go out to the garage (Mom made me keep my bugs in the garage—but I did manage to sneak fireflies into my room. What good are fireflies in the garage?) to check on the green blob hanging there and find a butterfly in the jar instead. Sometimes its wings would still be wet and we would watch the newly emerged butterfly stretch and dry them before we opened the jar to let it fly away.

This time I’m hoping to see the chrysalis split and the wet insect crawl out. There’s a lot of butterfly in that small space. It must be like a road map. Only one way to fold it to make it fit.

I missed the final shedding of the caterpillar skin. Both caterpillars that I took from a friend’s garden in late August had been hanging upside-down in their J-shapes for a couple of days when my husband and I went to the Hopkinton Fair on the first of September. I checked them before we left, and when we got back the caterpillars were gone and in their places were light green chrysalises accented with gold and black. The caterpillar skins lay on the bottom of the container like discarded Halloween costumes.

For two weeks now the chrysalises have hung from the lattice covering their clear plastic box, jiggling gently as I typed or more vigorously when a dog bumped the table. The other morning I noticed that one looked darker than before. Holding it up to the light I could see the orange and black of the butterfly’s wings inside, and even some of the white spots.

I wondered why the chrysalis is green for the two weeks of pupation. The light green would make the chrysalis inconspicuous on the underside of a leaf during its relatively vulnerable sedentary phase, yet normally the Monarch relies instead on a conspicuous advertisement of its unpalatability. (Milkweed contains a poison which the caterpillar ingests and uses for its own protection.) Why the change in tactics? The mystery of what goes on inside the chrysalis from one day to the next makes my head spin.

I couldn’t put that shopping off forever, but when I got home the butterfly was still in her chrysalis. She waited for the cover of night to emerge. When I got up at seven Saturday morning, there she was. The second, also a female, (the males have a small scent patch on their hind wing that looks like a wide spot in the black veins) came out Saturday night, and I set them both free on Sunday morning. They broke their fast on my Echinacea and fluttered away.

What’s amazing about this fall generation of butterflies is that they won’t simply fly around eating nectar, looking glorious, and then mate and die. They have a long journey ahead of them. Barring unforeseen accidents with speeding cars or any animals that haven’t learned what those bright colors mean, they will fly south to Mexico, feeding on nectar along the way.

They will pass the winter in huge colonies high in the mountains near Mexico City, where it is cold enough to keep them from reproducing, but not so cold as to kill them. In the spring they will mate and the females will head north, probably laying their eggs somewhere in Texas. The generation born of those eggs will fly farther north still, following the milkweed bloom.
 
Eventually butterflies will reach us here in New Hampshire. The females will lay their eggs, only one per plant, on the milkweed. And soon a new crop of caterpillars will emerge and begin feeding on the milkweed, crunch-crunch-crunching their way to butterflyhood.

09/28/2006

For more information call the UNH Cooperative Extension's Family, Home & Garden Center's Info-line (toll free) at 1-877-398-4769 or send us an email. Volunteers are available to answer your questions Monday through Friday 9:00am to 2:00 p.m.

It’s hard to imagine the field of spectacular yellow sunflowers that bloomed in a four-acre field at UNH’s Kingman farm will end up as fuel for Dorn Cox’s farm equipment and feed for his pigs, beef cattle, and chickens.

Cox, a family farmer from Lee, joined forces with UNH Cooperative Extension and the manager and crew of UNH’s Kingman Farm earlier this spring to conduct some applied research into the feasibility of using locally produced sunflowers to make biodiesel to help power the region’s farms.

Biodiesel, a fuel manufactured from vegetable oils, has attracted a lot of national attention as a domestically available fuel for engines that ordinarily run on petroleum-derived diesel.

 “I wanted to grow my own sunflowers, but we have a certified organic farm and I couldn’t get organic seed this year,” says Cox, who’s already using the biodiesel he processes from waste cooking oil collected from local restaurants to power some of his farm equipment. “I approached John McLean, manager of UNH’s Woodman and Kingman Farms, to see if he might have land available.”

Cox and McLean brought the idea to Becky Grube, UNH Cooperative Extension’s sustainable horticulture specialist. Becky also found the idea intriguing, and the three embarked on a pilot project to evaluate how sunflowers perform in this area and to test the feasibility of small-scale oil pressing.

“The project will measure the yield of oil, the feed value of the meal that remains after the oil has been pressed from the sunflower seeds, and the food quality of the oil,” says Cox, who has a degree from Cornell in international agriculture.

Grube took to the idea immediately. “Because they’re in a different plant family from most of our important cash crops, sunflowers might make a good rotation crop for many New England growers,” she says. “Plus, they can be planted with equipment that many farmers already have. Dorn used his two-row corn planter to plant the four acres at Kingman Farm. Also, sunflowers have multiple uses. The oil has excellent culinary properties and the meal that remains after pressing makes a nutritious feed for cattle and other livestock.

“Several questions remain, which we hope the pilot project will help to answer,” she says. “Will harvest and pressing for oil production be cost-effective and feasible on a fairly small scale? Will sunflower yields be sufficient to make them economically viable? Will the climate permit harvest of quality seeds without pest and disease problems?”

“The project is a model of farmer-driven research and teamwork,” Grube says. “Dorn proposed the idea and used his planting equipment and labor to sow the sunflowers. I contacted Land O’Lakes/Hytest seeds, who donated seeds of five hybrid varieties likely to be adapted to this area. John and the rest of the UNH Farm crew, including students, prepared the ground and have weeded and mowed around the plots. Seth Wilner, the Extension educator who manages the USDA Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) grants program in New Hampshire came up with a small grant for the project.”

“The experiment got off to a slow start, with the heavy rains this spring delaying the first planting until mid-May,” says Grube. “The second planting was delayed to mid-June. Hopefully the harvest will go off without a hitch.” If the harvest is successful, Grube says the team hopes to broaden the project and evaluate the economics of sunflower oil production by other local growers.

Cox has ordered a small oil press from China that should arrive any day. He plans to harvest his crops in late October and press them in late fall. “We’re just waiting for the seeds to dry,” he says.

He’s also begun fabricating a mobile biodiesel processing unit that will turn out about 80 gallons per hour. With such a machine, Cox says, “A couple of weekends each summer would produce all the fuel our operation would use in a year.” He plans to exhibit the processor at fairs and other venues so people can learn more about biodiesel technology.

As for his experience working with the UNH farm crew and Cooperative Extension, Cox says, “They’ve been fantastic. Within a couple days of approaching John [McLean], we had a project up and running.”

By Peg Boyles, Writer/Editor, UNH Cooperative Extension

9/20/06

For more information call the UNH Cooperative Extension's Family, Home & Garden Center's Info-line (toll free) at 1-877-398-4769 or send us an email. Volunteers are available to answer your questions Monday through Friday 9:00am to 2:00 p.m.

Mix two kids, a husband, a barking dog, a wide sandy beach, and a bending tree with a rope swing by a sparkling river, and you have a recipe for summer magic. Under the hot sun, the lone rope hanging from a tree limb over the river pulls us like a magnet. It draws children, men, dogs, and even me on an 80 degree late-summer afternoon.

My two children, Dylan and Nate, will tell you how I avoid the water in New England. You’d never know that I grew up and spent most of my life here. I worship the sun and revel in 90 degree heat waves while everyone else melts and complains. My idea of heaven in New England is a hot tub, not an unheated pool.

Yet, as a kid, I actually swam at Hampton Beach. I’d race towards the ocean 'til I was knee deep and launch into a forward flip so there was no turning back from the ice-cold water. I’d stay in 'til I was numb and blue in the lips. Maybe that’s my problem. I must have given myself frostbite and have yet to recover. I also was born in Pensacola, Florida, which I’ve never gotten over either.

But that darn rope swing is way too tempting. It literally dares me. I hear it. “Go on. Grab me,” it says. “Take a leap of faith. Show your kids you know how to have fun.”

I can’t take that kind of ribbing from a swing. I grab hold and, just to show how brave I am, I climb up on the nearby log to give myself a better jump. And I’m off. I swing out, out, out… I dangle in space… I pass the point where I should be letting go. I fly back to the bank, seemingly faster than I left it. Mike pushes me away from the jagged limb protruding from the bank where I’m headed, and I’m back on the log where I started. The kids double over with laughter and Flash barks and barks and won’t stop barking.

Okay. I can do this. My timing was just off a bit. I can still show my family what tough stuff I’m made of. I can beat this rope. I know how to have fun. I jump again, swing out, out, out, and this time I let go as I reach that magical point of weightless suspension—and it is a magical moment, but gone already. Freefalling, freefalling down, down, down into the murky, freezing-cold depths. This isn’t a river. It’s a melted glacier!

Rising to the surface, my mouth forms a frozen “O.” I can’t breathe. I can barely squeak, “So c-c-c-cold!” as I tread water. No air seems to be making it back into my stiff lungs. Mike, Dylan  and Nate are having trouble breathing as well, they’re laughing so hard. As I hyperventilate, they point at me, “Look how Mom’s mouth makes an ‘O!’” Flash barks and barks and barks. At least my dog worries about me.

There’s only one thing to do and that’s get the heck out of this water and fast! I practically explode onto the beach. Wrapped in a nubby towel, I content myself with simply watching my 9-year-old son, 11-year-old daughter, and age-not-to-be-discussed husband taking turn after turn on the rope swing. Totally immersed in the moment and the magic, they’re not bothered at all by the temperature of the water.

I sense a new directive as my limbs begin to warm in the sun and the reflected heat of the sand. I pull out my Panasonic and begin taking picture after digital picture of each and every leap. If only I can freeze their magical moments, capture the point where time stands still and the body floats in anticipation of free fall. This will be my ultimate magical summer moment.

As we got ready to leave the beach for the day, the sun was lower in the sky, the light bending softly toward the rope swing, hanging quietly all alone by the reflective river. It shone in the light, a beacon in the woods. I sensed it was daring me to come back and try again.

And I’ll be ready for it next time. I can beat that rope swing. I can leap again and again and again into that incredibly cold water just like my kids and my husband. I can be a bigger part of that rope swing summer magic. I can wear a wetsuit….

By Nanette Masi, UNH Cooperative Extension Master Gardener

For more information call the UNH Cooperative Extension's Family, Home & Garden Center's Info-line (toll free) at 1-877-398-4769 or send us an email. Volunteers are available to answer your questions Monday through Friday 9:00am to 2:00 p.m.

09/05/2006

It happened about two weeks ago. My husband and I, our two grown sons, and their young families were standing around the kitchen, preparing a weekend meal, when out the kitchen window, I saw a sign from above: the chaff from pine cones and needles now spent with the summer’s heat and rain, slowly drifting down to the lawn and forest floor behind our 1800’s farmhouse.

Everyone agreed, if you could do nothing else but look out the window, you would know: no longer high summer, not autumn yet, but late summer. Perhaps a time to regret opportunities missed before school begins and chilling weather becomes the norm, but for others, time to get out and garden!

In the garden, cooler days mean you don’t feel dehydrated and burned to a crisp by end of day; fewer insects mean less aggravation; you can count on more regular rains. Fewer weeds need pulling—a few hours’ work and a perennial bed returned to a weed-free condition does the gardener’s soul good. Newly planted perennials have time to develop good root systems to make it through the winter. A few more weeks and bulbs will become another item on the list of things to plant, but not yet. Late summer.

The nights have become cooler, dipping into the 50s after weeks of temperatures in the 80s and 90s, a delicious change. Time to dispense with fans and air conditioners, light blankets, and thin cotton pajamas. Time to throw open the windows, pull up an extra blanket, and don the predecessors to the flannels of winter, not quite so thick and warm, but longer and useful when you, the first one up, need warmth to keep you from running back to bed.

The days warm quickly and often require removing a layer of clothing to keep up with the summery temperatures of the afternoon, but at night the layer goes back on to protect against the cool evening air.

Listen! The nocturnal creatures also make different sounds in late summer: the crickets croon instead of chirp; the saw-whet owl’s raspy metallic call has become more intense somehow.  In some areas, the whippoorwill startles you out of sleep, now that fans and such no longer hum a soothing lullaby.

The ferns start to turn; their fronds change from green to gold and bronze. Mosses green and lush have taken over vast areas of our yard, something I never mind. The thick, velvety surfaces make walking barefoot a sensory treat. Mushrooms have begun to multiply. The other day, my four grandchildren and I had a great time throwing puffballs at our big gray barn. Splat! A chorus of giggles followed by more splats. Then the big rush to find more before their siblings do!

Farmstands begin to pile up ripe tomatoes and sell them by the bushel, early apples appear, and “Silver Queen” corn, long awaited, lavished with butter, turns up on dinner plates. Pumpkins and winter squashes wait in fields to ripen and harden off.

The song sparrow who sang so forcefully all summer long has disappeared into the field somewhere, and instead we hear the constant thrum of the Chipping Sparrows; the Goldfinches with their chink-y flight sounds, and the Eastern Bluebirds churring contentedly before they leave for the winter. The crows and turkeys search for grasshoppers and crickets. Late summer.

Time to look back, to plan for next spring and summer, to look for gaps in the gardens. I need more grasses to fill out the perennial beds: more varieties of miscanthus especially. I just can’t get enough of them. I love their height, their late summer colors, the way they add winter interest, and after a snowstorm turn into a display of delicate, spidery crystals.

I need more daylilies to fill in gaps between other perennial blooms. I need more irises—German, Siberian, Japanese, and Dutch. Their varying blooming times spread colorful flowers out over a longer period of time. My peonies will need transplanting. Poor perennial sites remind me of the business slogan: location, location, location, a saying equally important for plants. While dormant, peonies transplant just fine and should begin to grow as soil warms in spring, hopefully more bountifully than before.

The gardener in me realizes that the seasons come and go because they must. I never feel ready for the changes that natural forces mandate, but this time of year makes me especially aware of the continual march of time and how little control I have of it. I enjoy the brief time allotted to me and make ready for transition in late summer.

By Helen Downing, UNH Cooperative Extension Master Gardener

09/01/2006

For more information call the UNH Cooperative Extension's Family, Home & Garden Center's Info-line (toll free) at 1-877-398-4769 or send us an email. Volunteers are available to answer your questions Monday through Friday 9:00am to 2:00 p.m.