Mind the cat part 2

She attacks and kills plants within seconds... invisibly...

Goodmorning ladies!

Have you seen them yet? The ladybugs are awake! They are one of the earliest to stumble around the garden, or first inside the house, for his is where they prefer to hibernate. Three weeks ago we were blown away when we opened the door of our gardenhouse: dozens of ladybugs, everywhere we looked! 

It is necessary to take them outside if there is no clear, possible opening. Indeed, we had a tough job, putting outside 30 or so stubborn ladybirds. 

Here is a nice story about these pretty ladies. The name 'ladybug' is similar throughout European languages and is derived from (our lady) Mary. She was often depicted wearing a red cloak with seven black dots, which would represent Mary's seven joys and seven sorrows. Names in other languages also refer to Christian religion, but also to fertility. Also think of the Dutch name: 'lieveheersbeestje', where the name of this little animal is preceded by 'dear lord'. So far, thank you, Wikipedia. 
With this information, ladybirds seem quite spiritual little insects to me; they refer to something holy, fertile, revered. It fits perfectly with their greatest ability: they eat plant lice, mites, thrips and all kinds of insects that harm our vegetables and can devastate whole harvests. Imagine that in times when people really depended on their crops and when pesticides did not exist, it was a real godsend when ladybugs showed up and controlled nasty pests. 

To attract these respected insects, make sure you have a nice warm place where ladybugs can overwinter. Also, create little shelters (of bricks, stones or earthware) with twigs and hollow straws in which they can hide. 
By the way, did you know that ladybirds are protected by royal law in Belgium? It mentions the interdiction to kill, torment or capture ladybugs. Thus, welcome our ladies with respect, and you will reap your rewards*.

*(hmm.. this proverb is actually more fitting in Dutch, where it says 'you will reap the fruits').

An introduction to plant botany Part 1

A short history of taxonomy or classification of (plant) life 
To gain a better understanding of our surroundings we categorize everything according to specific characteristics. With plants, we also have been doing this for centuries. A very influential work, Enquiry into plants, was written by the Greek philosopher Theophrastus sometime in the third century BC. The system that has been in use in modern times has been introduced by Linneaus. He changed both the way we named plants and families (the nomenclature) and the governing property that determined which plants are related to each other. He was the first to determine plants by their sexual organs, his system did not however regard evolutionary relationships between species. Charles Darwin’s The origin of species paved the way for a phylogenetic approach to the taxonomy of all living beings.

The only image in Origin of species shows the idea of convergence.

The most radical idea published by Darwin was that of divergence. This idea states that over time a given species split into different species with a lot of shared characteristics, but also some distinct ones. This process has been going on since the first form of life on earth and it is one of the main reasons why there is such a massive variety of life on earth. But at the same time it also shows that species that are clearly different have a shared ancestor. Think for example of the bone structures between whales and humans (both mammals) or the difference between tulips and oaks, but the shared characteristic of having chlorophyll in their cells. 
Long enough back in history there was an ancestor from which mammals and fungi split.

A phylogenetic tree.

Early classification systems just had two kingdoms: plants (Plantae) and animals (Animalia) and at this time a kingdom was the highest taxonomic rank. Ernst Haeckel added a third kingdom for one-celled life: protist (Protista). Over time the fungi (Fungi) kingdom was split from the plant kingdom and several bacterial kingdoms (Eubacteria and Archeabacteria) were added. Recent research showed that the plants, animal and fungi kingdom shared the same cell structure as the protists. For this reason, Carl Woesse proposed a new and higher rank: the domain. The domain contains the Archea, Bacteria and Eukayra. The domain Eukayra contains the kingdoms Plantae, Animalia, Fungi and Protista.


The current hierarchy of classification for all life on earth is as follows:
Domain
    Kingdom
        Phylum
           Class (-eae, opsida)
               Order (-ales)
                    Family (-aceae)
                        Genus
                            Species

Bamboo and peas

We established a climbing construction in our vegetable bed. It is very easy to make: take two bamboo (or other) canes, put them in the ground, cross them, bind a stick between them and tie it with a piece of rope to make it more solid. It already looks quite allotment-ish now. The only thing to check is the height and the distance between the sticks. We planted peas near them which grow around 1.5 meters high, so the bamboo canes should be long enough. Last year we planted string beans near the same sticks: they were too short, and strangled the other plants and tried to reach the gutters of the house (which was two meters away).

An appropriate distance between the sticks does not only serve the breadth development of the plant, but is also to be able to work the ground underneath. There, we have sown radishes and carrots (peas and carrots, classic combination isn't it?). Before the peas will block most of the sunlight, the radishes are already harvested by us. The thin stems of the peas and an extra distance between the sticks hopefully will let some sunbeams through for the cultivation of more vegetables. Another way is to let the peas climb against a vertical rack, fence or cords.

The peas are coming up already. Interesting fact: it is the only plant that already develops leafs underneath the ground before it shows itself to the sun. The plant also makes pretty flowers, so we are looking forward to a rich, wildly overgrown climbing construction.