The butterflies transformed into chrysalis

Well, the butterflies keep on growing and eating like crazy. I had to change them to a bigger house because now they are so many of them. Also, they completely finished the pansies from my garden, all the way to the main trunk, so, now I have resorted to other sources. I usually just ride around to a park and cut a bit of pansies for them, but I have to be doing it often, because they eat a lot.

The caterpillars eating the last of the pansies

A bunch of them already turned chrysalis. It is a very nice looking cocoon. It has small golden spots that shine very bright with the sun. It is so much fun to see how they change. They do two molts before making the next transformation and then they start walking around to find a cozy space. Once there, they tie their feet with some silk and hang upside down like bats. Then in a day or two they shed their skin again and turn into chrysalis. They are so fast and secretive that I didn't had a chance to see them do it, but I have seen others before so it's ok.

This is their new house

They seem to be Indian Fritillary (Argynnis hyperbius), the caterpillars and the pupa match, but still have to wait until they hatch. I could be in for a big surprise.

The only thing that worries me now is that many of them fell down because of the wind. I guess the netting that houses them is not the best material for them to latch their silk. I hope the bump to the floor doesn't hurt them and they still develop well. I will build a support structure and hang them again so they have space once they come out.

A bunch of them turned into chrysalis

The swallowtails I used to have lasted around four weeks as caterpillars and another four weeks as chrysalis. This ones only took 3 weeks as caterpillars, so I think that their next stage will be short as well. But still, I have no idea what to expect. Let's see what happens

Raising butterflies!

A couple weeks ago, after seeing most of the plants a bit down because of the change of season, I decided on renewing the plants on the flower boxes, but, when I was about to take away the pansies, I noticed it had four caterpillars living happily and eating all. I had no heart to kill them, and after a bit of thought I decided to keep them until they change to butterflies. I think it will be fun to see them grow.

Some small caterpillars from my garden

Back at my country I used to have a small "ranch" of swallowtails. Every year for sure, a bunch of butterflies used to lay eggs on the orange tree at the back yard. I would collect the newborns and bring them inside to a netting box I made, there I kept on feeding them until they turn to pupa and eventually to butterflies. Once they had become butterflies I had them in the house for a bit and then I release them in the yard. It was a small but very prolific farm were I got to have up to 32 butterflies growing at once.

These caterpillars eat pansies like crazy

I had to stop having that small swallowtail butterfly farm some years ago because I didn't have time to keep them and also because after some ants established in that tree the baby caterpillars didn't had a chance to be born there anymore. But, I enjoyed those times a lot, and I had always wanted to try again. Maybe with these caterpillars I will be able to start a new little farm. It is really cool having them growing and flying around.

Here they are on their first small feeding box

I had them on a small box and feed them the pansies on my garden, but they soon outgrow that and now I have made them a cage of their own. I also have been picking out some more caterpillars from around and now they are 15 of them. I hope most of them will make it to butterfly form. Back when I had the swallowtails I had a success rate of 100% with every small caterpillar eventually turning to butterfly, but I am not sure if these ones will do as good.

This is one of the swallowtails from back home

To be honest, I am not sure what kind they are, or even if they are butterflies at all. For all I knew they can be moths or even some crazy beetle. They do look like leopard butterflies (Argyreus hyperbius), but I can only know for sure once they hatch. Hopefully they are something nice, and I will have the chance to keep growing them every year. Any idea what they might be?

My little garden in Japan April 2011

Spring is already here in Tokyo, and it really shows on my little garden in Japan. Most of the plants are flowering or about to and everything is getting revitalized. It is nice to see the garden so alive, but it also reminds me that there is a lot of work to do.

All the garden is in full bloom!

• Most of the vegetables from the big planter are flowering thanks to the vacation drought they suffered.

The dill is also starting to flower

• The maples are all green, which is bad because I wanted to separate them when they were still on their slumber. I guess I will have to be extra careful not to damage to roots

I got a couple new colors of calla lily. Hope they do well

• The calla lily are out and growing. After their initial sprout this winter I got them in the soil to let them rest a bit more, but now they are out again.

More flowers, the kalanchoe is also blooming

• The strawberries keep growing strong, and they insist on flowering. I will continue to cut them until the plants are stronger, buy I will let them propagate to have a backup strawberry pot.



• Sadly, the tulips are gone. A strong wind took them away last weekend. Most tulips around survived and are still going strong, so I guess mines were weak from the vacation drought.

Two new planters for the garden

• I got two new 60 litter planters for the tomatoes and chilies. The garden is going to be so full.



• The big red rose is still sick, but getting better every day. I hope it will get better. The little yellow rose is starting to show like it will bloom soon.

It is full spring here in my little garden in Japan

All around, the garden is doing great. I look forward to the rest of the season.

Please help japan with a donation or good thoughts.

My best hope for those in Japan. You can help donate here.

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Spring in Tokyo, Japan

I am already settled at the new house, but I still hardly know anything about the new neighborhood. So to try and fix that I went around with my bike. I was very happy to see spring going full bloom everywhere.

Spring is here

One of the things I like most about japan, is that they have a great gardening culture. In almost every corner you can find a small patch of green or a couple pots that are being taken care of diligently. So it is always easy to find some flowers around.

It is an amazing neighborhood, right in the middle of tokyo. Now everything feels like a bike ride away, is much more convenient than the old apartment. I am less than half an hour bike ride from the university campus, the emperor palace and from many other big stations.

We even have a great river surrounded with sakura, they look amazing now that they are in blossom. I will make a full post about that later on.

I will do a full post on sakura

But for now a small preview

I was also happy to see they have a small garden center around, so I won't be out of resources around here. They also have a lot of little flower shops where they sell potted plants.

The new place location is great, but i still have a lot more to explore, in the meantime, here is a little bit more of the spring in Tokyo.

Please help japan with a donation or good thoughts.

My best hope for those in Japan. You can help donate here.

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Donation For Japan Earthquake 11th March 2011

American Red Cross

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My new little garden in Japan

There have been a lot of changes in my life lately. I am starting a new stage, full of exciting challenges, amazing opportunities and a lot of possibilities. One of those changes is the new house and my new little garden in Japan. The new balcony is just great. It fits all of my plants and a little more, has an amazing sunlight and a great location surrounded by parks. I am sure the garden will thrive in here.

My new little garden in Japan

I was afraid that after all the time I was away my garden would have gone completely dry. I did ask my landlord to keep an eye on them, but I could not count on it fully. So when I arrived I went straight outside. Even tho I could not see well because there is no light on the balcony, I could tell they had not been watered at all. As I poured some water, the pots made a loud sizzling sound that only very dry soil make when it finally gets some drink.

All the flowers went into crazy bloom mode

Sometimes plants bloom stronger when they get stressed

Hopefully the blooming will last much longer

However, I was amazed to see that even though almost all of the plants were flopped and down, there were flowers everywhere. All of the plants did a rush to bloom and refused to die. It worked only because of the mild sun of spring, if it had happened on summer all the garden would have died. The cozy sun and the plants instinct to grow in this season help them survive. It seems that spring saved my garden.

The spring saved my little garden in Japan

I am very happy my garden made it. The only sad part is that because of the accelerated bloom, I did miss some events on the garden. The crocus was already spent and only one flower remained. The tulips are all out (only one bulb did not sprout) so I could not see the buttons. Also most of the vegetables, specially the komatsuna and the bekana, bloomed, so I have to re-sow anyway.

This is the only crocus left

All the others are already spent

Tulips are all open

The only casualty was the chocolate cosmos. The poor plant must have been just to weak to fight after having being broken by the wind last time. Also, the red rose and the maple tree got sick. The have something that looks like powdery mildew or some kind of white rust. I hope they recover.

Also, after my small hiatus I have decided to redouble my efforts and try to make more of this blog. I have a bunch of how to's and many other projects planed, so please keep posted.

Please help japan with a donation or good thoughts.

My best hope for those in Japan. You can help donate here.

Amazon

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Donation For Japan Earthquake 11th March 2011

American Red Cross

International Medical Corps

AmeriCares

Donate with Paypal

causes.com

The banana peels fertilizer works very well

If you haven't come here lately, you can probably notice I did quite some changes. Like I said back in the new year post, I have a lot of projects and ideas I want to try and share. I feel very motivated about continuing with the blog, it keeps growing more and more every day. You have given me a very nice response, so I will put more effort into continuing it. Thank you very much!

This is my new Internet tree

The first change I did was the layout. I think three columns will give me a better space for very needed internal links. I have a lot of projects on the way, and there is where they will live. I hope you don’t mind it takes a bit of space from the post, I tried to keep them the least intrusive. I also tried to keep the space to have big enough photos, because the photos always get many praises.

Other change, is the blog carnival icon on the upper left corner. That will be the entrance to the carnival introductory page, feel free to pay it a visit. All the carnivals, that were and will be, will be accessible from there.

One more change is the header. I am experimenting with a lot of tools and styles, and I plan on changing the header and the background accordingly to the season let me know which one is your favorite.

I also did a lot of little changes. Things like margin size or where some icons go. The menu bar, the search bar and others. I hope it looks better and more professional now.

The last new feature is the social media buttons Internet tree on the upper right corner. I feel specially proud of this one. I did the drawing almost from the scratch and I had to do a lot of learning to have the links and everything on the right place and working properly. Also, I end up doing a lot of little drawings that I won’t use, but I think others might find useful, so be on the lookout for a goodies page. I will put them all there.


Ok, now on to the gardening matters. Last post I got a couple questions about banana peels fertilizer. I had done a post about it back in November, but I didn't showed the results. Well, here they are. Back then, because I didn't had many peels, I had only put fertilizer on one of my flower pots, the one that needed it the most. So only one got the benefits and now I am seeing the differences.

I think is a fair comparison. Both planters have almost the same kind of flowers, they get the same amount of sun and of water and the soil where they are planted comes from the same bag. Also, I normally trim the dead buttons to keep them flowering, though lately I have not done it as much because I am waiting for seeds.

On with the comparison then. First planter A, I did not put any fertilizer on this planter. It bloomed beautifully back when it was new, but with the cold it slowly started to recede. Here is the photo of flower planter A.

These flowers need some banana fertilizer urgently

As you can see the pansies and the alyssum hardly have any flowers. The lemon marigold, even though is very hardy, is starting to get bald. And the stock is down to its lasts flowers. The only one that still seems strong is the Blue ballon scabiosa.

Now planter B, the one that got its dose of banana fertilizer. This one was starting to have less flowers back then, that’s why I decided on using the banana peels on it. Here is the photo of flower planter B.

This ones are blooming nicely because
they already got banana peels fertilizer

What a difference! The pansies are in full bloom, and with a lot of new buttons coming up. The stock has lasted much longer, and still have buttons. The cosmos, even tho is not as resistant as the mint marigold, still has a lot of its flowers. Also, the alyssum is much more grown and flowered.

That is the difference that a little of homemade banana fertilizer can make. Which teaches me that I should have putted some fertilizer in both planters back then. But in the end it is no problem, because, I recently got a new bunch of bananas and I am planning on making a lot of milkshakes out of them. I have to get them very green so they last long enough for me to finish them.

I can get a lot of banana fertilizer out of this one

Click here for my old post about making banana peel fertilizer for containers.


And remember, seven more days to the carnival!

Be ready with a post about what do you plan on doing at your garden this year, maybe about one particular plant you want to have, a renovation you will do, a special patch you will grow, a new gardening technique you will give a try, or any other project you have prepared for this new year.

More flowers for blooming day!

This weekend there was a big sale at the garden center and I could not resist at all. I end up buying a second rack and planter to have even more flowers on my little balcony garden. I also got a bunch of other things, but I will introduce those later.

I set the flowers on their planter today, I hope they continue to grow and bloom even though the weather is getting a bit cold.

When I finished setting them up,
I got a nice sunset for reward

Here is a little list of the flowers I got, and also my other flowers for blooming day.

The new flower pot

I got a bit more of the same, but also some new ones.

• Stock I found another color that I really like


• Lemon marigold There was also a chocolate marigold that really smelled like chocolate, but this one is from mexico so it won my heart

The marigold has a very nice minty lemony scent

• Pansy Some more, to have flowers all winter


• Nadeshiko(fringed Pink) The season is almost over, but i really like the color


• Alyssum Can't get enough of the scent

I really like this color of alyssum,
hope I can get some seeds from it

• Blue ballon scabiosa Very puffy, and with a very nice color too.

As for my other flowers, my geranium is still blooming nicely and I have new flowers from the red geranium

I hope this one will continue blooming in December

New flowers from the red geranium

The globe amaranth, one of my favorite flowers, is also blooming. Although they are starting to dry now, I will try to get some seeds from it for next season.

Globe amaranth is definitely one of my favorites

The other flower pot is still nice. It suffered a bit from some wind last week but still have plenty of color.

The pansies keep growing too

The winter cosmos got a bit bald from the wind but a lot of new buttons are comming

Happy blooming day!

Here are the two flower pots together