It’s the Berries

Red Dogwood Berries

Red Osier (Red Twigged Dogwood) Berries © 2008

A walk in the prairies show grasses are browning, flowers are setting seed, and this red osier shrub (red twigged dogwood) is ladened with bunches of heavy white berries. By the way, the berries do not turn red.

The dogwood’s name has nothing to do with dogs. The word is derived from an Old English wood dagge (dagger) and refers to the hardness of the wood. A European species was once used to make butchers’ skewers.

Real Tomatoes

Real Tomatoes

Real Tomatoes © 2008

This is what real produce looks like – it isn’t perfectly round, without a blemish or bump. It isn’t rated on consistency and each fruit doesn’t have to look like its neighbor. It’s real food. Organic and picked at it’s peak. No traveling 1,000 miles in a refrigerated car. Simply packed in a crate and taken about 6 miles to the market. Very yummy! You really can taste the difference.

Farmers’ Market, Madison Wisconsin

Prairie Grasses in Wisconsin

Say the word “prairie” and many people visualize Laura Ingalls in her log cabin or rolling wagons crossing open prairie land, the wagons filled with settlers on their way out West in search for a better life. But I’m thinking most really have no idea of what a prairie looks like up close.

Sure, most know there are lots of sunflowers and yellow goldenrod wildflowers and some tall grass, but ever give thought to the hundreds of varieties of grasses that make up the tall grass and short grass prairie lands. Obvious, right?

Well, maybe not so obvious at all. It’s easy to overlook grasses. I mean, it’s just grass, right?  So let me show you just how different a few of these grasses really are.

Side Oats Grama Grass

Side Oats Grama Grass © 2008

This prairie grass is found in the high prairies in southern Wisconsin and extends to central Wisconsin in fewer numbers. It’s one of my favorite grasses to look for – I love the purply-blue fruits hanging in a row like someone pinned them on a clothesline.

When buffalo roamed the region, this was their main source of food. It’s an easy grass to identify – all those oats are hanging off to one “side”. So it is side oats grama grass. Grama is from gramen, the Latin word meaning grass.  1 1/2 to 3 feet tall.

Indian Grass

Indian Grass © 2008

Before agriculture and tended crops developed, Indian grass was second only to big blue-stem grass as the most important plant in the tall grass prairie, both in its numbers and in its nutritional content.

It is extremely drought resistant because of it’s extensive deep root system – typical of the prairie plants. The frequent prairie fires do not damage these grasses – they are highly adapted to the burns. This grass was one of the taller one,  usually standing 6 to 9 feet tall.

Canada Wild-Rye Grass

Canada Wild-Rye Grass © 2008

This is one of the most important grasses in the tall grass prairie. It acts as a nurse crop for prairie seedlings early in the growing season before it declines as the warm season grasses mature. Canada Wild-rye Grass grows 2 to 5 feet tall and forms a loose sod. Native Americans used the seed for food, as did a multitude of large and small animals.

The grasses had other uses besides as food.They were used as fuels, and also the fibers were woven into mats for internal walls in small cabins, window coverings, and floor coverings.

I Hate Japanese Beetles!

Garden Pest

Japanese Beetle © 2008

The Japanese beetle has invaded my gardens and yard. They have been voracious this summer and really inflicted a great amount of damage. The beetles eat the surfaces of the leaves, but avoid the vein which remains intact, and therefore the foliage looks lacy. However, it is not a pretty sight to any gardener.

Lacy Leaf Damage

Lacy Leaf Damage on Filbert Tree © 2008

The beetle was first discovered in the United States in 1916, and it is thought it was accidentally introduced in New Jersey in imported Japanese iris. The beetles are controlled in Japan by natural predators, but are unchecked in the US. They are found in every state east of the Mississippi River, except for Florida.

The best defense in my smallish garden is removal by hand – yuk! There are traps using pheromones, but some studies show the traps can actually attract more beetles than they catch. I’m not one to use much in the way of chemical control if possible, but I”ve been using Bonide from Garden Naturals in the worst areas and that seems to have helped.

Anyone else fighting these pests successfully with other means?

Stalking the Clouds

Next to a Cornfield

Next to a Cornfield © 2008

Not all of my hiking has me wandering through prairie land. Today’s hike started in prairie and ended up with me coming face to face with an endless expanse of cornfield. This Midwestern corn is tall stuff when you get up close. And surprisingly noisy. Lots of insects buzzing and crickets cricketing and birds swooshing. Critters scooting between the rows of corn. It’s rather a mini eco-system in it’s own way.