Not much else today....but a butterfly!

 A bit breezy today and feels cooler for sure. It got very cold overnight, 45 or 47 at least so my toesies were coldsies. Everything is sliding into cooler daytime now, but it's still a roller coaster of ups and downs.

I saw the shadow of a butterfly flit away as I got to the garden then waited patiently looking at the rest of the beds for her to come back again. She returned soon enough, wonderful Gulf Fritillary, I mean what butterfly couldn't resist those zinnias! Definitely will plant them somehow next spring for summer pollinating. 

The seedling area. The purple lid is not snapped on tight and technically need to turn it slightly so some air escapes. There was definite condensation on the inside of the lid so that is helping definitely. It shouldn't be too hard to get some carboard or something and secure it on the side for shade. The sun is angled lower now and is broken a bit by the sycamores in the afternoon. Will have to check it later today and see what the angle is like.

That's all the pictures I have for today but wanted to reiterate about pollinator timing with flowers. 

I could plant zinnias and echinacea for the summer to attract more bees and butterflies but it's all in the timing. There is a timing of when butterflies and moths hatch out and search for food and friendly fraternizing of fellow flutterbys. Early summer/spring is usually for the white cabbage butterfly and a few moths like the Hornworm types. Mid summer is Monarchs, Swallowtails, Fritillary and whatever else comes along. Swallowtails are split into two categories, one is the dill/fennel and parsley type and the other is the citrus. That is also a matter of timing as the citrus swallowtail is more late summer. It's a complete dance between insects and the plants they like that has developed for millions of years for optimum survival of both.

What I'm getting at is, given my garden situation I could plant all the flowers but still be lacking in pollinators due to preferences of the insect and the actual position of my garden being sort of protected. Not that I won't try, but I have such limited space it'll be hard to find a spot for the flowers I want to plant. Cilantro is another one that was visited a lot so I have to plan for that as well, I have a few plants still coming up but as I said, they're very slow in the location their in.

The beds were still very damp/wet this morning so I didn't worry about watering on anything at all. Trimmed a little of the rose, some of the stems were browning down a bit so got that taken care of, nothing more on the pepper, oh! The peppers did turn red on Dolores' supposed black pepper plant she's picked most of the peppers on it by now but she also said that she talked to Mike about the log pile. He's busy right now so that's low priority, she also agreed that she wished it was just her and I using the garden.  She mentioned trying to clean out behind that west bed and using that but I had to tell her again that there's concrete down a few inches which is why I didn't plant that far back. She pointed out about using the raised bed I have in that spot and I pointed out why I had to put the frame where it was. 

It's all a process and like all things, takes time, sometimes longer than we like.