The Beetle Has Landed

I stepped outside this morning to admire the garden, and enjoy the first moderately humid morning we have had all week and came across this beast hanging out on some scrap wood I left out overnight on my saw horses.  The wood scraps were left over from a project I am currently working on which will be a topic for another post.  Back to the beetle!  This bug was a good 2” plus in length not including the antennae and my first thought was it’s the dreaded Asian Longhorn Beetle (ALB) so I headed back in house for a Google search!  After Googling “longhorn beetle New Hampshire” I ended up with a link to this handy PDF showing native NH beetles, put out by the New Hampshire Department of Resources and Economic Development, which helped me to identify my beetle as a Northeastern Pine Sawyer Beetle, and confirm that it was not the evil Asian Longhorn Beetle.

For more exciting reading on the ALB this article from the Eagle Tribune (2009) had some interesting info, but basically the ALB is bad news and we should be on the look out for them if you see them.  This was the biggest bug sighting that I have ever had and he will not be coming down for breakfast tomorrow…

Around the Garden

This week around the garden some earlier plantings of seedlings are starting to take hold.  There are not a lot of words today but several photos which show the growth that we have been experiencing.  The sunny weather and occasional rainy day has really helped our garden.

Our carrots below are starting to spout and probably should be thinned.

Below one of our boxes of red potatoes is really starting to sprout.  I need to find another layer of 1x so we can add some more dirt and continue hilling the spuds!

Below most of the hard neck garlic have started to produce their garlic scapes.  With any luck they will develop their curly Q shape.

Below is one of the Nasturtium plants I stated from seed.  Its getting bigger so maybe it will flower at some point.

Some of the wife’s tomato plants have started to set fruit.

The Kentucky Pole beans have started to climb.

The blue berries are starting to turn a slight shade of blue!  it won’t be long now and we are almost out of our June Strawberries.

The pepper plants have started to set fruit

And my Dahlia has several buds with a few that have decided to flower today.