Saturday, December 15, 2018

Holiday Update - Yuzu and Poo

I haven't been keeping up with some of the small changes in the garden in the second part of this year. Here's catch up post one.

I bought a semi-dwarf yuzu tree (Citrus x junos (ichangensis x reticulata var. austera)) from a local nursery. It's only a couple of feet tall and sitting in a 20 gal perforated trash can which has become my standard for I-want-this-to-grow-healthy-roots. It had a few tiny immature fruit and some flowers on it when I bought it. It grew a little bit in the summer months, and held on to a few of the fruit. Recently three of them were worth picking, so I have those ready for a cocktail. Coincidentally, some tiger swallow tail butterflies had been showing interest and there were a few eggs laid. The yellow jackets picked off some of the tiniest caterpillars but at least one survived to grow large enough for its bird dropping mimicry to work. I later found the dried chrysalis busted open, so I missed the metamorphosis, but wait, there were more. There were and are many more! There are about five of them living on my white sapote (Casimiroa edulis). Apparently that's a similar enough host plant on which they can feed. They are growing slowly, and I think there are a couple of parasitic tiny wasps controlling a couple. It's interesting to watch them hang out with the caterpillars 1-to-1. I'm not totally sure what's going on there, and I haven't researched it any. We'll wait to see if I get more butterflies or wasps.





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