That’s my misunderstanding. Didn’t know people could follow, but here is a splendid dagger I was able to photograph:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/299681435

I’m up to 215 observations and 136 identified species 😁

I hear you, I try to get pictures of every critter my nearsighted self can see. I’ve gotten good close-ups of a few Ichneumonid wasps and I think two or three different cuckoo wasps (Chrysididae), but our state is awash in hoverfly species too. I did try to get a good close up of them but the resolution blew out to the point that iNaturalist didn’t see anything. We’re LLYLCK on iNat if you’re curious to see who we’ve been able to spot

That’s possible, but a quick look through the members of that family in our area suggests that they’re larger than the individuals pictured here. Each of the flowers in the picture is about the size of the head of a pin. Either way thank you for introducing me to a new term

They’re both visually and olfactorily beautiful and are a lovely native of the northeastern US

They’re (I think) some member of Syrphidae but I do not know specifically.

eta: “I think” because @JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social introduced me to a new word

This native plant finder can help you find native plants that will attract the insects and other life you’re hoping to entice. The associations listed are the research results of Doug Tallamy and other researchers. And as Tallamy says, plant for specialist insects and you’ll attract generalists as well.

Off the top of my head, plants like canadian ginger, serviceberries, purple flowering raspberries (R. odoratus), and members of the worts can do a lot of restoration work in moderate to deep shade. Having a patch of grass that doesn’t get mowed is a huge boon to many insects, as is leaving any mowed grass clippings around other plants as mulch. Lightning bugs in particular require grass debris or patches where it got so long it fell over to complete their life cycle.

My favorite wasps are the wood-boring parasitoid varieties. Ovipositors twice as long as the rest of their bodies, and they drill holes in trees and logs to get to the grubs in the wood to lay an egg. They’re incredibly chill to be around and tons of fun to watch while they work

Our demo/reno that was supposed to start a month ago is due to start on Monday of next week… 😑

Turns out code enforcement gave us incorrect and incomplete information, then waited til the last day before his two week vacation to inform us that we needed to get a variance, since our house was built nearly twenty years before the town adopted zoning codes (no “grandfathering” here). Then he gave our contractor the wrong appeal form, which caused a ruckus at the appeal meeting. After the appeal was successful, he told our guy that literally anyone in town could appeal our variance in court (that’s not how it works). So our guy is spooked and drew up indemnity paperwork in case an impossible thing happens and now we’re five weeks behind schedule.

Bright side, almost everyone on our dead end street wrote very kind letters of support for us and our appeal was successful and our contractor has all of our permits in hand. I’ve also been asked by two different board members of our local land trust to participate in an educational program they’re launching centered on native plants, biodiversity, and conservation efforts anyone can do with just a few plants. And someone at my Sunday market called me “the real deal” while telling his friend to also buy some plants from me (he came back later to give me some of his own plants for the sake of genetic diversity.

Oh, and we raised over a thousand dollars for our town’s library with this past weekend’s plant sale. “We”, I should mention, is myself and all the wonderful people who donated plants and volunteered their time to help folks pick out plants for their gardens and give planting advice.

Welcome to parenthood! Sleep deprivation really does suck, but it will pass. It’ll come back a few times, but it gets better. Stay focused on the cuteness and the joy of showing them things and every day will be better than the temporary struggles 💕

Couple extra tomato varieties I hadn’t grown for the season, some peppers to replace my zapped ones, a white re-blooming iris, several pussy willows (I’m up to four species now), lemon thyme, a kalanchoe (send help), and a 1024 page book. The white tray is american groundnut from my gardens and no one was interested in them 🤷

You can do spot treatments with things like blood meal to address any nitrogen needs (alfalfa meal works for this too), diluted apple cider vinegar to address pH issues (they like a more acidic flavor of garden soil), or mulch to address an water availability needs (they prefer easy access to water). If they’re only on their second year of growth I would expect them to be focusing more on roots than shoots, depending on when they were planted last year and what their root mass was like at planting.

Your county Ag school probably offers some soil tests at a reasonable rate, and there’s generally an option to have an agronomist make recommendations for any amendments based on what you’re looking to grow.

but I have to figure out where to plant them

I feel this comment in my very soul

Very nice! We’re in the process of evicting a groundhog at the library garden, I wish you good luck! Your blueberries might be worth their own post, maybe the community can help them out.

That’s awesome! We’ve been having nights dipping into the mid 30’s (Fahrenheit) and I am hoping some things recover or I’ll have a few beds behind.

Glad you found it helpful! I don’t know of other vegetables where this kind of treatment is recommended, though I suspect other hairy solanaceae might work this way. I also give my squash and pumpkins mulch at the point where their leaf nodes touch ground but don’t plant the initial root ball deeply.

Generally, single-stemmed woody plants don’t like this but shrubs that are defined as “suckering” types are good candidates. Likewise for any plant where stool layering is mentioned as a propagation method. Things like elderberry, haskap, goji berry, and some viburnums will do well being planted extra deep.

That’s super rad! You may already know to do this, but it’s worth it to remove all the flowers and any fruit that may be already present on those bushes and trees for this year. It will prompt the plants to focus on putting energy into their stems and roots instead of fruits, giving you better production than you would otherwise get every following year.

If they hadn’t germinated, that misread title would have been spot on!

Those jerk mice! Here’s hoping you continue getting fresh growth on those apples and have good weather for getting those peppers planted