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Out of this World

Sometimes plants amaze me. Aside from radishes, which seem to love our climate year-round, the cosmic carrots grown from seed that Maria kindly sent to me are hardly little guys. All of the plants that grew survived three nights of hard freezes last month, as well as resisted all the little bugs and slugs that damaged some of our other veggies. We are definitely growing them again.

Our new lemon tree is flowering for the fourth time since we planted it. It now has three generations of lemons growing on it in different stages of development. We lost some little lemons during the freezes, but it promptly budded and flowered again in the days that followed. I've never seen a tree more determined to thrive.

Another stubborn survivor in the decorative garden is this croton plant, which we assumed had died once before during a previous winter freeze. To our surprise it grew back the next spring. This time around my guy covered it during the long stretch of freezes, and it seems fine.

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Maria Zannini said…
I went to see if I still had more of the cosmic carrot seeds but I'm out and I already finished ordering for the year. But Baker Creek Seeds has them. https://www.rareseeds.com/carrot-cosmic-purple

Love the butterfly on your tree, though she's likely laying eggs to pupate. They do some damage when they emerge but usually it's tolerable.
February 5, 2023 at 8:54 AM
nightsmusic said…
That's a Monarch. She's just going for the nectar in those flowers. She only lays eggs on milkweed. Nothing else. That's all the larva eat. I am a Monarch waystation :) I've taken hundreds now from hatchlings to butterfly since they're endangered. I have a few areas that are just milkweed beds for them and then tons of flowers that the butterflies nectar on.

Everything here is brown. Everything. We had three mornings this week of zero degree overnight temps that never got over ten degrees during the day. I don't raise anything that I have to cover because of that. :/
February 6, 2023 at 3:52 AM
Maria Zannini said…
You're right, nightmusic. I was thinking of the orangedog caterpillar that turns into the giant swallowtail. Startled the bejeebers out of me the first time I saw it. It has the head of a snake with the body broken off.
February 6, 2023 at 5:37 AM
nightsmusic said…
I haven't seen one of those up close because we have very few citrus trees here, but we do get the butterflies. They're gorgeous! I get a lot of cecropia moth caterpillars because I have two river birch and a paper birch and that's their favorite munchie! Those are the size of my thumb or bigger, but they're so pretty and colorful. And I get a lot of black swallowtail. I've overwintered the cocoons in the garage and they hatch in the spring. It's always such a miracle to me considering the temps we get.
February 6, 2023 at 5:47 AM
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