PrintWTF is on my swiss chard?
I was cleaning this chard from the farmers market (organic) and the last 2 leaves have something strange on them, neither appears to be "organic".
One is a bunch of tiny dots, in 2 shades of brown, connected together.
The other has 2 tiny opalescent beads on it. It doesn't come through in the picture, they just look like white dots, but they shimmer like pearls.
Pics are linked.
Does anyone know what this is, before I show them to my conspiracy-theory/UFO-obsessed husband? Are they coming for us?
http://flickr.com/photos/25308817@N07/sets/72157604760910307/
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29 Comments:
Link again, to be active:
http://flickr.com/photos/25308817@N07/sets/72157604760910307/
renzata at 12:57PM on 04/27/08
Looks like some bug eggs to me...
Markbb at 1:24PM on 04/27/08
Looks like organic swiss chard pearls - or pods of two extraterrestrial queen bees. The other is a honey comb for the other variety of UFO bees - miniature, but deadly. They're here and they want our organics!
PerkyMac at 1:28PM on 04/27/08
Almost definitely some kind of eggs. The tight cluster looks like it's maybe from a beetle. Not sure about the others.
Just wash 'em off or cut out that portion. No harm.
LoCo at 1:44PM on 04/27/08
I don't mean to be cynical, but this is the risk one takes by going organic. No pesticides = bugs, bugs = yuk, yuk = waste of time and money...
Pass me the bug spray! :)~
jonfoxx at 1:53PM on 04/27/08
BTW, you can cut off that portion of the leaf, put it into a glass jar, cover mouth of jar with a tight-weave mesh (a piece of pantyhose nylon would be perfect), and use a rubberband to ensue a completely closed environment. Then you can wait for them to hatch to see what exactly they are. Could be a type of moth, but it looks more like beetles to me. Probably an undesirable pest, but could be a predatory bug (e.g., ladybug eggs look very similar).
This is an especially great thing if you've got kiddos around.
Be sure to seal any route of escape from the jar, though. If it's a pesty critter, you don't want them loose in your house or garden.
LoCo at 2:07PM on 04/27/08
Bugs I can handle. Having an alien colony growing inside of me, not so much.
Bug eggs really can look like that, like a bunch of tiny cylinders all pushed together? Not that I don't believe you, just that I had no idea.
renzata at 2:08PM on 04/27/08
Hey LoCo I did a google image search and indeed it looks like beetle eggs.
I had no idea what beetle eggs looked like.
I swear, I don't usually get hysterically paranoid about food, but I feel lucky that you're around to bring me back from the edge when I am....
renzata at 2:11PM on 04/27/08
the two opalescent beads are probably the 2 motherships and the tiny dots are parking area's for the little explorer ships.....i think......
onepercent99 at 3:39PM on 04/27/08
Oh, I thought the dots were the actual reconnaissance pods; my bad.
If they are serious about taking us down through the food supply, then I guess organic produce is an interesting idea. Take down all of us liberal tree-hugger folk first: less toxic host-bodies, and the government won't miss us when we're gone.
I could think about this all afternoon, but I really should study.
renzata at 4:03PM on 04/27/08
[Laughing too hard to type]
Susquehanna at 5:06PM on 04/27/08
@renzata... no worries... I'm a closet science nerd... things like this justify my bizarre curiosity. I love to garden, and have been particularly obsessed with the critters of late.
Three summers ago, it was the year of the butterflies. We can now recognize swallowtail eggs and caterpillars on our citrus (did you know the caterpillars look just like bird poop?!), and can tell other "good" caterpillars from "bad" so we can watch them become a huge variety of butterflies (well worth the relative small amount of damage they do to our garden).
Two summers ago, it was the year of dragonfly nymphs and tadpoles (many of the latter eaten by the former). We spent hours watching them grow and metamorph into something completely different (tribute to Monty Python). Our pond was new, and we had not yet added the fish that now devour the majority of those charming critters.
Last summer, it was the year of goldfish and preying mantises. The original four goldfish are now 24 strong (and spawning as I speak). We took up feeding grasshoppers to the mantises, and I became a bug porn photographer when they began mating. Now we're monitoring their egg cases for the arrival of the next generation.
This year it's ducks. A few days ago, a pair of wild mallards decided that our yard was the perfect place to take up residency. Probably helps that we can't resist tossing a few oats and bread crumbs their way as a reward for all the snails the hen eats every day. Hopefully, we'll see a nest and ducklings soon.
We've also learned to identify snail eggs in the soil around our chard, and know grasshopper laying sites by the telltale holes they leave in the soil (both are doomed for destruction when found).
Just a few of the peripheral benefits of growing your own food...
LoCo at 2:45PM on 04/28/08
BTW... You can look at my Mantis Porn if interested...
LoCo at 3:15PM on 04/28/08
Someone should send the pic to a entomology prof at a local untiversty in the region where the Chard was grown. That would most likely result in some explaination...
GingerSnap at 4:49PM on 04/28/08
renzata, that is the stuff of my nightmares. Ugh. You're a braver woman than I am -- those little honeycombs would have had me shrieking and running out the front door like a lunatic. Hate, hate, hate insects. Hate.
sheeats at 5:57PM on 04/28/08
The honeycomb eggs are cutworm eggs. The loose pearlescent eggs are cabbage looper eggs. Both are moth caterpillars that are fairly major pests of swiss chard. Neither set of eggs are toxic or in anyway harmful. Just cut 'em off and toss 'em out.
@jonfoxx - They're on non-organic chard, too. Don't make me freak everyone out by talking about how many insects the average American consumes in a year. ;)
jenilowrance at 6:24PM on 04/28/08
I continue to fail to see the fear in natural things....plants grow, bugs eat them, they lay their eggs on them, more bugs grow. I just can't see how this is "icky" or "frightening." It's like the whole world has gone and sanitized and sprayed itself into a disconnection with what is proper...
feriorrenna at 7:21PM on 04/28/08
Yeah, it's actually pretty cool that bugs can display such geometry and semetry - heck, I can't even draw a straight line or a decent circle free-handed...
GingerSnap at 8:25PM on 04/28/08
Feriorrenna, at least for me, it was not that I was afraid so much as taken aback and utterly unaware of what it was. When I looked at the honeycomb, I wasn't totally certain it was natural, and if it was, that it was something like bug eggs and not something like a bizarre form of toxic lichen. Or UFOs. Or Illuminati nanotechnology. I readily admit that I'm completely disconnected with nature, though, and I regret that.
Not totally accurate, though, I am a bit freaked out by flying things indoors, and I wouldn't be happy to camp in the jungle. But that's getting pretty far from the topic.
LoCo, that is one heck of a mantis. I'd love to have the opportunity to learn about these kind of things firsthand and grow my own food. I tried some container herbs last summer and failed miserably. This summer feels a bit pointless (we'll be moving), so who knows when.
renzata at 8:29PM on 04/28/08
i once found a live frog in my lettuce. it was so cute!
Judyep at 9:23PM on 04/28/08
Renzata, be glad your chard is safe enough for someone (even a bug) to feed to her babies. It's a little gross for us squeamish humans to think that something else touched our food, but I for one would much rather cut a bit of leaf off before I wash it than have it covered in poison.
butterface at 10:24PM on 04/28/08
When I worked in this sandwich shop, it always amused me when we found snails in the boxes of watercress.
machellebelle at 10:34PM on 04/28/08
Used to work in the corporate office at a burger fast food chain. One day one of the quality assurance tech's showed me a bag of lettuce with a frog bits, including a whole leg...yum! I think the little guys get deep in the veggies, and go right thru the choppers, and into the bag sometimes.
GingerSnap at 10:59AM on 04/29/08
Frog bits? That's truly terrible.
Came back to post an update:
http://flickr.com/photos/25308817@N07/2462443488/in/photostream/
Babies! And lots of new colors.
renzata at 3:18PM on 05/03/08
Cool!
LoCo at 4:04PM on 05/03/08
Mildly nauseated. I stay out of God's Country, why can't He stay out of mine?
annien at 4:53PM on 05/03/08
This thread reminds of my friend who found half a cricket in her salad.
wookie at 7:50PM on 05/03/08
So, were they lady bug eggs? I couldn't tell what the new critters resembled.
wookie at 7:54PM on 05/03/08
renzata, that last photo is gorgeous. It definitely could inspire a very lovely foodie-scarf or necklace. :)
Karen Resta at 9:08PM on 05/03/08