Entomology Advanced Training for Master Gardeners & Master Naturalists

 

The regular, week long training has been cancelled for 2020 due to COVID, but we are hosting a four part online Zoom training for you to get your entomology fix!

Time for each meeting: 6-7:30pm

October 6 - Entomology 101 & How to ID Common Insect Orders
October 7 - Native Pollinators & Pollinator Gardening
October 13 - Veggie Pest Management
October 14 - Landscape and Ornamental Pest Management

Presenters include: Molly Keck, Erfan Vafaie, Wizzie Brown

Register here:
https://agriliferegister.tamu.edu/organizationListings/11

Cost is $25 for all four sessions.  Presentations will be live and interactive with the presenters, as well as recorded for later viewing.  Registrants will receive a book and materials relating to sessions.

Green lynx spider

Today our Travis County Master Gardener volunteers were working in our demonstration garden to tidy things up.  I always love when they come out as I get to interact with them directly with hands-on teaching moments.  Today, I was not disappointed.  One of them came in to see if I could tell them about a spider she found.  You can look at the title to figure out what it was....

Green lynx spiders are large, bright green spiders with slightly elongated abdomens and spiny legs.  They are usually found on shrubs and low-lying vegetation where they wait for insects to come in so they can ambush them and eat them.  Lynx spiders are generalist predators, which means that they do not specifically eat one type of food item, but a wide variety- generally whatever they can catch.  While they are considered to be beneficial, they will eat pollinators (food is food!).

The spiders that we found were mommas with babies...in this case, spiderlings.  You can see in the photos webbing that encases part of the plant also holds and protects offspring.  The female spider guards her spiderlings until they can fend for themselves. 

Spiderlings remain near the egg sac for a little over a week and then they disperse to new locations by ballooning.  Ballooning is where spiderlings throw up a strand of silk to catch the wind which carries them to a new location.  I hope that I am here when this happens as I found four lynx mommas with babies (that could be about 800 spiderlings!!).

2012 Inside Austin Gardens Tour 2012

Saturday, October 20, 2012
9AM- 4PM
www.insideaustingardens.org
Tickets are $15 in advance (purchased at the website above); $20 the day of the tour or $5 per individual garden (purchase at the individual gardens)

I was fortunate enough to get a sneak peek at a few of the gardens on the tour.  I am even more fortunate to have one of them located right outside my office each day.  Each garden incorporates not only native and adapted plants that you see here in Central Texas, but also edible items- fruits, veggies and herbs.

Since I'm not the average garden blogger, I think I was drawn to things "not the norm", but I also used the opportunity to steal ideas to incorporate at home.  And this is where I need to apologize.  Yes, I had my camera with me and yes, I took photos.  Here comes the but- BUT the laptop where I moved the pictures died this morning and I can't get to the photos. ARGH!  There is consolation, though.  You can either go to the above website to get some sneak peeks or you can go to some of the other bloggers write ups about the gardens to see their photos.  Best of all, you can attend the tour and see the gardens IN PERSON!

The first garden- Carolyn & Michael Williams- had an idea for keyhole gardening that I am stealing for myself and the boy.  She had taken a wheelbarrow, drilled holes in the bottom and filled it with soil to plant veggies in.  The center had a wire ring for a mini-compost pile.  She waters from the compost area & it send out compost tea into the barrow.  The best of all, it can be moved anywhere in the garden!  I also fell in love with the super-friendly cat I found while looking for insects in the shrubbery....if you see Callie, give her a hug for me.

The next garden- David & Jennifer Phillips- had another idea that I'm stealing.  Since moving last year, I've been missing my veggie garden from the old house, but I couldn't figure out how I want to grow veggies in the new place.  I now have my solution after viewing this garden- galvanized stock tanks.  Jennifer said they cut out the majority of the bottom of the tank,  filled with soil, rigged up drip irrigation and got to planting.  The thing that blew me away at this garden was the rainwater collection system.  They casually said, "the rainwater collection is around the back."  I went back to check it out and it was MASSIVE.  It was not what I was expecting at all.

The Doyle/ Matthews gardens were so bright and colorful.  I fell in love with the washer pit at the Matthews house and am adding another item to my "honey do" list (I'm sure hubby will be thrilled).  The other thing that fascinated me at these homes was the Rover ants tending aphids on some of the plants.  I know...weird; it's the bug nerd in me.

Renee Studebaker's garden was mind boggling to me.  She has one of those "found item" type gardens set up into various "rooms" that all seems to work together somehow.  I cannot fathom how people pull that type of thing together and I'm always in awe of them.  It's like those girls in high school who always looked so great when I was lucky to get on a pair of clean jeans and a t-shirt because fashion was SO not my thing (it still isn't if you haven't noticed...).  Anyway, I digress.  This garden had a grape vine growing on this kind-of giant umbrella stand thing that was so cool.  I, of course, found some more bugs here to ogle.  This time it was a hover fly at some flowers.

Here is where I bow to the masters- other blogger's takes on the gardens can be found here:

Garden Ally
Rock Rose
Digging: Donnis & Doyle Garden
Digging: Matthews Garden
HomeOlogy
Kiss of Sun

Each garden will have not only garden viewing and plants for sale, but also presentations on a variety of topics.  There will be different topics presented at each garden, so check www.insideaustingardens.org for each schedule (click on each individual garden to see the presentations at that particular location).  Topics include things such as:

• Firewise
• planning an edible landscape
• spice up your food with herbs
• grow your own garden party appetizers
• American Indian medicine wheel herbs
• the vegetable garden: what to grow & why
• unconventional landscape snacks: collecting and cooking insects

Soooo...guess who is giving that last talk?  That's right!  Yours truly.  I hope that it will be a hit; people are disgusted but fascinated at the same time about eating insects.  I will talk about how to collect insects, rear insects and prepare insects.  We'll also cover the all important question of WHY (because Wizzie is crazy?....no.....) people should include insects in their diet.  I have some recipes and OF COURSE some goodies to sample!  Join me....chocolate covered crickets- bet you can't eat just one!