Our landscaper neighbor looked at some yellowish foam on his mulch and said, "What's that?" I said, "Dog vomit." Sassy was nearby. After some cussing he normally reserved for moles, he said, "Why didn't you tell me?"
I said, "Not from a dog. That is a dog vomit slime mold that forms on wood mulch." I had a larger patch of my own - the next day. Everything is food for something else.
Dog Vomit Slime Mold
Fuligo septica is one of the most common of more than 700 species of slime molds. When we see it, it is a creeping mass called the plasmodium. This is basically one huge cell, a membrane filled with many nuclei. Moving very slowly, like an amoeba, it creeps around feeding itself. Dog Vomit Slime Mold consumes fungi and bacteria found on decaying plant matter. This is actually good for your garden, a necessary part of the cycle of life. Remember the movie, The Blob? The monster in the movie was based on the plasmodium phase of a slime mold.
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| Caca de Luna - excrement of the moon, is cooked and eaten in Venuzuela. |
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| Tiger slugs follow their own slimy trails, but so do beetles, like our WWII planes that followed bombers back to their bases, to attack them there. |
Free Beer for Slugs
I hosted a beer party for slugs near the tomatoes and came inside with a huge one on my t-shirt. The tiger slug was a monster. I was perplexed about how he got onto the front of my shirt in a short time. They do travel a lot at night.
He might have dropped down from a branch or I brushed against a plant where he was feeding.
I checked the bowl the next day and found some small slugs. I left it alone for a day or two and found another giant slug in the bottom.
Tomatoes
I thought one mature tomato plant was being eaten by slugs, which rasp away at fresh vegetation, so I place the beer bowl there. More likely the plant was suffering from one of the many maladies of tomatoes. The plant is still producing and looking a bit wilted.
The other two mature tomato plants are cranking out green tomatoes fast. As soon as the fruits get some color I put them in a bag with a banana in it. An apple or two will also work. The gas, which apples and bananas give off, speed ripening better than sunlight.
Fragrant Hybrid Tea Roses Blooming Whilst KnockOuts Take a Break
I often come in from the garden wearing some bugs. That is one of the burdens of being the St. Francis of gardening. I checked on the backyard, filled the birdfeeders, dumped rainwater on the White Profusion Butterfly Bush, and checked various growths of weeds and plants. The elderberries are rising 8 feet, blooming, and starting to fruit.
Blackberries bloomed already and began to fruit a little while ago. Now the nubbins are turning from green to black as they build sugar from the sunlight and soil minerals.
I chopped back the KnockOut roses so they could bloom again. They are eager to grow fast and bud.
The hybrid tea roses are far more languid, taking their time to bud and blossom, which they are doing for the first or second time now. The Falling in Love roses were all new this year, so took some time to leaf out. Now they are budding and blooming, so we had a bunch for the chiro.
Today we had some great Fragrant Cloud roses and new Falling in Love blooms.
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| Fragrant Cloud is high ranking as for its rose perfume but also attractive and distinctive in its color. |
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| Falling in Love has a white and pink coloring that makes it seem to glow in the garden and the vase. |