Yucca in Bloom

This yucca plant was planted just inside the property line by the previous owner. I hadn't seen, or at least noticed, it bloom until this year. It's usually planted purely for ornamental purposes and I can see why. Those flowers are beautiful!

Some species of yucca have edible parts, but since I'm not entirely sure which species I've got I haven't tried to do anything with it from a culinary standpoint. It's appearance leads to confusion with yuca, or cassava, a commonly planted edible perennial, which is often planted and harvested annually from cuttings for its edible root.

Other uses include using the leaves to hang meat for drying or smoking. By piercing the meat with the spiny leaf and tying a knot a small hook is created making the hanging easier. Another use gives it it's nickname as the "sentry plant". Also utilizing the stiff sharp leaves, concerned parents would often plant this sentry underneath their daughters windows to stand guard. Deterring young suitors from climbing in, and their daughters from climbing out of first floor windows. I'm happy to just let it grow and watch it bloom, right where it is; standing sentry along the property line.

Common Whitetail Dragonfly

As the name denotes, the adult males of the Common Whitetail Dragonfly are easily distinguishable from other dragonfly species by their brilliantly white tails. This individual is a juvenile male and as such has not yet developed his tail coloration. The females have a smaller brown abdomen and a different wing pattern.

They all feed mainly on mosquitoes (yay!), along riverbanks and other bodies of water. Gohn Greene Farms is only about a mile from Lake Oconee so there is plenty of water nearby. The dragonfly nymphs feed on mosquito nymphs, adult dragonflies feed on adult mosquitoes. The more dragonflies, the less mosquitoes. The males are especially territorial over the best feeding areas. They each maintain about a 50 to 100 foot stretch of bank along the waters edge and defend it against intrusions of other dragonflies.

When a male common whitetail sees another male common whitetail he will raise his abdomen as a warning to the other dragonfly. The larger, whiter abdomens belong to the dominant males. They will often fly into each other to defend their territories for feeding and breeding.

Breeding, even if you have the biggest whitest abdomen, only takes about 3 seconds. Following which the female swoops down to the water surface and quickly deposits hundreds, possibly even a thousand eggs. Hopefully all of those eggs will hatch and begin feeding on mosquitoes ASAP!

Turmeric

Check out our first turmeric plant! The leaves are super cool the way they come straight up the center in a tight curl and slowly twist and fall open. Each leaf is bigger than the last, building beautiful foliage. The large leaves are beautiful and the plants can be cultivated easily in containers for aesthetic purposes.

Although beautiful, we are mostly interested in utilizing the roots. Similar to ginger, turmeric is propagated easily by dividing the rhizomes once a year. Later this year, when the leaves turn from green to yellow we'll know it's time to dig up our turmeric. We can harvest some of the root, but we'll be taking several cuttings, each with one bud and replanting them in late Winter or early Spring to multiply the plant.

The turmeric that we don't put back in the ground will be used in the kitchen for various uses. Turmeric is a key ingredient in yellow curry, it also gives many yellow mustards their distinctive color. It has a zippy heat too, another property it shares with ginger.

Turmeric is known for its anti inflammatory properties as well, and contains various antioxidants. Golden milk is a beverage made from coconut milk and turmeric known for these medicinal properties. Similar to chai tea, it's a spiced beverage, delicious and good for what ails ya!

Scale Bugs on our Grapefruit Tree

 The top picture features our young grapefruit tree before the scale bug infestation. As a result of the infestation we had to remove one badly infested branch, reducing the plant by about one quarter. I think we severely limited the breadth of the scale bug infestation, and hopefully the remainder of the plant will thrive.

The next two pictures show the scale bugs, first on a portion of stem, and second on the underside of the leaves. The scale bug females are attaching to the plant and feeding on the sap. We were able to catch this infestation rather quickly and removed the branch with the majority of the infestation and will continue to monitor it for remaining scale bugs. We can remove a few scale bugs simply by scraping with a fingernail, but removing one badly infested branch removed 95% of the scale bugs.

The smaller black oblong scale bugs are the youngest females, the yellow ones have begun producing a protective waxy coating. You can also see ants in the third picture which have developed a symbiotic relationship with these scale bugs and are harvesting their excrement for its high sugar content.

 

The reproductive process of these insects varies widely among their various species and is fascinating in its diversity. In some species the males only live a fraction as long as the females, rapidly growing wings, mating and dying all within a matter of a day or two while the females attach to the plant for a significantly longer life. The females sometimes lose their legs once attaching to the plant from lack of use.

Some species of scale bugs have high proportions of their populations which remain hermaphroditic into their adult stages of life. In other species symbiotic ants will actually carry the young scale bugs to new plants to establish new colonies to farm for their sweet excrement.

Humans have used scale bug populations to control unwanted species of plants, harvested their wax for shellac and other species excrete a red substance suitable for use as a dye.

Since we want the grapefruit more than the scale bugs we removed them in this case, but they naturally occur in a wide variety of ecosystems and are all over the Gohn farm, i'm sure. Maybe we'll find a use for them in another situation. Nature, you never cease to amaze me.