The Ultimate Native Plant for Pollinators In North America: Cleome Serrulata

The Cleome Serrulata is a magnificent specimen.  It grows native from British Columbia, to California, to Texas, and up to Quebec.  Amazing as that is, the real powerhouse of these plants is how much the pollinators worship this plant.  Everyday ants work the plant, defending their territory from the native bees, European bees, wasps, hornets, moths, butterflies, and hummingbirds.  Starting at dawn it becomes a pollinator magnet like nothing I have seen.  It grows best in full sun, needs little water or care.  It has grown the biggest in my old gravel driveway thats been turned into a wildflower bed.  They were first started by throwing seed balls out in the fall, and reseed each year. They profusely shed seeds which can be gathered off the plant and used for making flour.  In my zone(5a) they die each fall.

The Two Sisters: Sunchokes and Beans

Sunchokes are an amazing native of North America.  They are in the same genus as sunflowers. Their scientific name is Helianthus tuberosus, and as the name implies, they grow many tubers in late summer and fall.  I ordered these from fedco seeds. I believe these pictures are of some Waldspinel Sunchokes. I am growing beans up them, much like the three sisters method.  When growing vining plants it is important to let the anchor plant grow big enough so that the vining plant has something to work with.  The beans were planted after the sunchokes were about a foot tall.   They need very little maintenance, slightly less than average water needs for your garden.  I just added some compost to the bases, but only because their roots were being exposed.  If you live in a place that has slightly alkaline soils, they will thrive. 

This is the bat house.  It is made of plywood and furring strips.  It was built by stacking the four sheets of plywood, one in front of the other. Each seperated by two pieces of furring strips, one running down on each side. This creates three chambers for them to crawl into and make home.  

The dimension are 36" X 48", including the 12" landing strip located on the bottom.  The plywood was scuffed up with a saw and drill to provide places for the bats to hold on to and noseeums netting was stapled to the landing pad at the bottom. Bats like a variety of microclimates so the bigger the bathouse the more places for the bat to move around in.  Of course not all bats live in big spaces.  This house was placed in front of the flowering yucca and marshmallow plants, which hopefully will attract pollinators which will attract the bats.

In my region bats generally find homes in the spring when they are migrating to the area and raising their young.  They also find new cooler places in the fall to help them reach a state of reduced body heat and metabolism called torpor. 

Young Naranjilla Plant.

Naranjilla

The naranjillas(Solanum quitoense) are starting to fill out nicely.  They are planted in a mixture of potting soil, top soil, manure compost, and bark/leaf mulch.  They are extremely shaded behind the litchi tomatoes and do as good as the ones out in more sun. That ability would make an excellent house plant.
The leaves are colored with purple, soft, large, and fuzzy leaves bigger than my hand. However, the hairs that cover the leaves make it stick to almost anything it rubs against, which makes it vulnerable to high traffic areas. They have been the slowest growing of all the garden berry plants this year, and are not suppose to fruit in my climate(USDA zone 5a.)  In about September I will bring it in the greenhouse, but it will get too cold and need to come inside the house for a few months.

Litchi Tomato Fruit

The litchi tomatoes pictured here were started by seed in March. Many are about 6' tall and much stronger stemmed than tomato plants. They taste like sweet tomatoes, but they have much more texture, like a cherry does. Below are several of them growing in organic miracle grow potting soil with added perlite.  They are water hogs and enjoy very wet conditions. They are much bigger than ground cherries or goldenberries.  The ground cherries however produce tons of fruit, and much earlier than the litchi tomato did. They also grow close the ground, compared to the upright litchi tomatoes.  The fruit of the ground cherry is almost like a tomato/strawberry cross. The goldenberries have been the last to mature, they grow upright with beautiful fruit shells hanging that contains purple streaks.  I haven't been able to figure out what it tastes like, but it's similar to the ground cherry, maybe a little less sweet. All of these plants are under the canopy of a tree and seem to do fine in the shade.  The more water they get the better, and they can easily wilt.

Litchi Tomatoes

Ground Cherry Fruit

Peruvian Goldenberry Plant

Ground Cherry Plant

Peruvian Goldenberry Fruit

Parasitic wasp bebes

Today these little ones were found all over the nest.  I got these pictures in the evening, but there were many more out during the day.  They look like parasitoid wasps, only much smaller than the others. I'm happy though, this means more biodiversity in my yard.  Also, I have another one just like it that mason bees have started to visit.  They seem to be too close and it is easy access for the wasps.  This may mean that more spacing betweem holes is better for the bees.

Solitary Bee Nesting blocks

So I made a few nesting blocks for bees.  I took a pine post and drilled 3/8" holes about an inch apart from each other.  There are already 10 complete shafts filled and counting.  This particular one is facing north, which is usually discouraged because of the cold temperature.  However, it is important to consider access, this hive looks directly over my garden, so it is no wonder why many have taken up residence there.  I have lilac bushes on the other side of the garden, which they are suppose to like.  I have also noticed notches taken out of the buckwheat I seed all over the yard, and the rocky mountain columbines I grew this winter indoors and transplanted.

So far I have identified a few megachilids and their leaf lined nests. The last picture appears to be a parasitoid wasp lingering around, but that's just a guess.

It has been 2 1/2 months since the Trellis for the front yard was built. About 2 months ago four litchi tomatoes were planted in the bed, along with a dill, fennel(fennel helps dill, dill helps fennel,) and a couple of nasturtium plants.  Scarlet runner beans were planted to grow up the trellis, lettuce was planted between the beans and the litchi tomatoes to take advantage of the nitrogen from the beans and the shade from the litchi.  Chamomile was spread around the tomatoes to give a living mulch. In the second picture you can see how sturdy stemmed the litchi tomato is.  I think a long sturdy stake is helpful. The red flowers are the scarlet runner beans.  It had been a cold and wet spring this year and they germinated late.

Building a Trellis for the Front Yard

A trellis was made for the front garden bed.  It was made super cheap from 8' pine furring strips, they were on special "buy 25+ for $0.74 each." The end stakes were made from 1.5"X1.5"X8' pine wood, about $1.60 each.  They were first cut to length and then stained so that each end is coated. The stain used was 2TB neem oil/ 1 pint teak oil to help preserve the wood and fancy it up.  The plan is to grow vines such as scarlet runner beans and nasturtiums up the trellis.  In the front left is a sunchoke from IFA. Behind and to the right are two nasturtiums. To the far right is one of the rocky mountain columbines and an Asteraceae.

Cedar Garden Box For the Front Yard

Over the weekend a garden box was built for the front yard. The box was made with cedar fencing and red wood posts.  I used cedar fence boards because they are a $1 each and cedar will resist molding better than other woods.
I finished the wood with teak oil to which I added neem oil at about 3TB neem/pint teak oil. The neem oil acts as a natural fungicide and insecticide.  It dissolved just fine into the teak oil.
The cedar fence boards had the tops cut off to remove the tapered ends.  The length of each board is about 59".  A red wood post was cut for each of the four corners and two for the center to bind the cedar posts.  I screwed another cedar board across the center to prevent the box from bowing out over time.  To add more structural integrity I added a reinforcement piece of cedar fence board at about 29" in from each corner.  The runner boards acting as a seat along the top was made from more cedar fencing screwed in place to the red wood posts and where the cedar reinforcements are located. I lined the bottom with newspaper to keep the weeds down, the earthworms love newspaper and it helps bring them in to the area.  For soil amendments I added 4 bags of composted manure and 6 bags of organic miracle grow garden soil.

Variety in Theobroma Growth Patterns

Like I said in a previous post the Cacao theobromas each are different from the next one.  I wanted to show a few of the personalities in the group to give an idea of what I mean.  This first one has many leaves sprouting from all over the stem with only one large leaf sticking straight up.  The second one poked a wedge out of the bean and is now pushing its leaves out, while most others would unfold the bean roughly in half.  The third one actually didn't fully lift its bean.  Instead it grew the stem out and up from the bean that stayed in the soil.  The fourth one crosses its two long translucent leaves across the small one in the center, as if it has anything to be shy about. The final one has bright green leaves and a symmetric square shape. If you click on it you can see the glandular trichomes that covers the leaves and stems.

Naranjilla, Goldenberry, Giant Ground Cherry, Marshmallow plant

The first pic is the naranjilla.  It is the fuzziest plant I have, and it enjoys strong light.  The second picture is the goldenberry which is suppose to be the same species as the third picture which is the older giant ground cherry. The goldenberry also does not grow well in dim light or dry conditions.  The fourth picture is the marshmallow plants I started on March 3.  Be careful a few have died from being dried out. Here in the fifth picture is the beetberry, these are tough plants that mostly take care of themselves.  The final picture is a treat. It's a sea buckthorn, an important member to the family as it is a superfood that fixes its own nitrogen and can grow in cold and dry climates.  They can take a bit of drying out without wilting, but are slow growers. Remember that I have documented the germination of all of the plants listed in previous posts.

Greenhouse overview

Most of the pictures listed in this blog will be micro-shots.  This is because I want this blog to document the growth and development of individual species.  However sometimes it is nice to step back, get an overview, and get some perspective on the process of managing and planning ahead. Here's two pictures taken over last weekend one of each side of the greenhouse. The last frost date in my area is may 5, so many of these plants will be moved out in about a week.

Chocolate sprouts!!! Passiflora edulis update.

What have I done, what have I done.  There are over 100 theobromas growing in the indoors mini-greenhouse.  They are getting morning sun with a fluorescent light hanging above shining down.  Each one is so different than the next.  Some have green leaves, some have dark leaves, and others have translucent pink leaves. 

The last picture shows the Passiflora edulis, they have rich, dark, and shiny leaves.  They were shown in a previous post.  I water them only about once a week, no fertilizers yet. They are about 3 months old and are happily sharing the mini-greenhouse with the theobroma plants. Both of these plants like humid warm climate the mini-greenhouse supplies, I've read that the optimum humidity for theobroma is 80%.  Which would make a lot of plants wilt away.

Greenhouse Update!

In order as listed, here are some updates of the plants growing in the greenhouse: Wormwood, Rocky Mountain Columbine, Arrowleaf Basalmroot, Palmers Penstemon, beetberry, desert marigold, and citrus. I would suggest to everyone to have a citrus growing in their greenhouse because it gives off the most amazing floral aromas and overpowers everything else.