Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Chrysalis?

I am wandering what this is? It is suspended under the top of the fence held on by fine threads and alien looking gloop!
I thought it might be a Chrysalis.. If anyone can recognise what it is please comment :)
The seeds arrived today from Mr Fothergills. Peas, baby carrots, cabbages, Spring onions, tumbling tomatos, Baby leeks, and Dwarf beans. Roll on March which is the sowing dates for most of these.
I have been visualising how to alter the right border to accomodate my Vegetable patch, the butterfly garden, and keep room for a table and chairs.
The mystery Chrysalis will not be the only thing being transformed this year. I will wait to see what might hatch from the suspended sac!
I checked my old photos and I can only see it from the 8th January onwards. I knew it was good to take so many photos almost daily! For doing Sherlock Holmes of working out how long the chrysalis has been under the top of the fence without me seeing it.
Chrysalis is an interesting word, It's old root word is Greek for for Gold, Krysos. They observed Butterflys coming from gold coloured sacs...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pupa
I hope its a Butterfly and not something like a wasp or a moth that is wrapped in its own shroud. Developing under the webs and glue...It is growing right above a butterfly bush too.
I think the transformation of a Caterpillar, into a Pupa within a Chrysalis, then lastly into a Butterfly is a miracle of Nature. Beauty coming from two suprising life forms (The plant maiming Caterpillar, and the Inert but sticky looking Pupa).
Sometimes you can find Gold without mining for it.

3 comments:

clairesgarden said...

seeds and plans, always exciting!
I would recomend this method for growing in a small space
http://www.squarefootgardening.com/
but I would maybe advise borrowing it from the library first as one of my friends rushed out to get the book and then hated it....I have an older edition and it was less complicated.

lisa said...

Neat find, Snappy! I'm looking forward to finding out what comes out of there, too. I'm working on a seed order too...the anticipation is half the fun!

David (Snappy) said...

Thanks Claire,I will see if I can find that book.The square foot gardener just about sums up the space available for growing Veg!
Hi Lisa, Nothing has emerged as yet.I look at it every day to see if its still there.Good luck with the seed order.It is sooooo addictive writing seed lists (untill you add it all up........how much??lol)
Anticipation is great for flowers, seedlings germinating, and chrysalises.