A Big Tomato Harvest after a Wet August

Fresh Harvest of Cherry Tomatoes

We had a lot of rain in the last 30 days. 8-10 inches in fact. My gardening friend quoted "17 inches in 16 days" so results vary. The good or the bad part of it, depending on your perspective, is most of the rain would fall overnight. There was no progress made on indoor projects. I remained outdoors mucking around wet grass and picking over-plump tomatoes.

Eggplant with Garlic Sauce

Vegetables

Tomatoes were splitting with the excessive rain, but mostly edible. I harvested a nice bunch of eggplant to make my eggplant with garlic side dish. The eggplants are small, about 6 inches long, but I'm happy to have them. It looks like another group will be ready for a September harvest.

Tomato Harvest

Tomato and Eggplant Garden

Tomato Plants

The jalapeños are plentiful. My summer's first serving of jalapeno poppers were so intensely hot, however, it scared us away from one of our favorite dishes.

Pests

Hornworm Eating Green Tomato

There was an uptick in hornworm and other caterpillar activity on the tomatoes. This is a challenging game of trying to spot the very well-camouflaged worm on the plant. Clues are a stripped stem or a chewed green tomato (see photo) or waste material on leaves.

False Dragonhead Flower

Flowers in bloom

The late summer flowers are starting to bloom now. A couple of days ago, the first False Dragonhead bloomed. When several of these bloom together, the color impact of the purple is amazing.

Crape Myrtle Tree in Bloom

The flowers on the Crape Myrtle tree are a deep pink or fuchsia color. The tree has been allowed to grow tall so that the blooms are at the second story windows. Cleomes have finished blooming and I've collected seeds.

American Beautyberry

The American Beautyberry is known more for its purple berries than flowers. The green berries are starting to change to a dramatic purple.

Coming Up Everywhere

Wind and birds have reseeded several plants across the yard.  Lemon Balm, Crape Myrtle, and American Beautyberry plants are popping up everywhere.

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I hope you are having a great August! You can find rainfall totals for U.S. locations here.

The Joy of Gray Tree Frogs

Juvenile Gray Tree Frog

Top View: Gray Tree Frog

I never gave the little gray frogs clinging to the underside of our pool much thought. They were tucked into themselves trying to sleep and save energy for the coming night's insect hunt.

Tadpoles at 5 weeks

All that changed when I rescued frog eggs from rainwater collected in the pool cover. For the next 3 months, I raised tadpoles to frogs. If you're interested in my tadpole blog post it can be found here.

Newly Emerged Froglet on Lemon Balm Plant

Gray tree frogs are nocturnal. During the day, I have found them resting on a shaded water faucet, on a sunflower branch, or above the water line at the pool. At night we have seen them on a window waiting for insects attracted to the indoor light. 

New Froglet Appearing Green on Leaf

Color

Gray Tree Frogs can appear whitish gray, greenish white, green, or brown. The froglets climbing out of my tadpole habitat were dark brown. After several hours, the one frog that stayed around turned green. This camouflaged him with the leaf he rested on. The adults that rest above the water line around the pool appear white. The juvenile I found poolside was a greenish white. The frogs on the window hunting after dark are green.

Gray Tree Frog Looking Green

Gray tree frogs or H. versicolor are able to camouflage themselves with their surroundings. The dark froglet emerging from my habitat looked like a mud speck on the black plastic habitat container. The poolside frogs are white-gray and blend into the pool liner that has a white and blue design.


Tadpoles

Gray Tree Frog tadpoles living in nature with predators can develop a red tail. This bright tail helps them survive. Of course my tadpoles were safe and had normal tails.

A few of my observations on raising tadpoles were:

• They would not eat mosquito larvae.
• Some mortality was due to cannibalism.
• They preferred dried worms to fresh.

The tadpole project was long, but enjoyable. These are great little frogs! I was happy to assist the 19 tadpoles that developed into frogs.

More information on the red tails: http://mister-toad.com/photos/frog/gray-treefrog-tadpole-01.html

Spelling: Tree frog or treefrog?

Treefrog can be spelled as one word or split up: tree frog. While searching the internet for information, I concluded that about half the websites spell it tree frog and half the other way.